SKU: PR.110418140
ISBN 9781491129432. UPC: 680160640379.
Matheson’s five-movement work is a setting of stained glass windows created by Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse for a rustic country church adjoining the Rockefeller estate near Sleepy Hollow on the Hudson River. Matheson’s suite draws from four Chagall windows: 1. Jeremiah, 2. Isaiah, 3. Crucifixion, 4. The Good Samaritan, and culminates with Matisse’s 5. The Rose.In 1954, the Rockefeller family asked Henri Matisse to create a stained glass Rose Window for the Union Church of Pocantico Hills, New York as a memorial to Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the great art patroness and a founder of the Museum of Modern Art. It was to be the artist’s last work. A few years later, Mrs. Rockefeller’s youngest son, David, acting on behalf of the family, commissioned Marc Chagall to create an entire series of stained glass windows to fill the rest of the small church resulting in the large, majestic “Good Samaritan†window and eight sublime smaller windows, each depicting a biblical figure or scene. In 2015, Premiere Commission commissioned James Matheson to compose WINDOWS to celebrate the centennial of the Union Church of Pocantico Hills and the 100th birthday of David Rockefeller. This deeply touching, epic cycle distills into music the intimate, often heart-rending, visions of Chagall as well as the powerful simplicity of Matisse’s modern design which utilizes the striking collage forms he employed in his final years. Matheson’s work also reflects the influence of Olivier Messiaen’s own theologically-inspired music. Like the French master, Matheson utilizes large-scale blocks of harmonies with organ-like sonorities to support and shift the music’s kaleidoscopic planes of color and set into relief the work’s piercing motifs and intricate patterns. The universal themes of love and sacrifice (“Jeremiah†and “Isaiahâ€), loss and altruism (“Crucifixion†and “The Good Samaritanâ€) and the jubilant celebration of life and nature (“The Roseâ€) are memorably portrayed in this poignant tribute to the human spirit.—Bruce Levingston.
SKU: BR.EB-3201
ISBN 9790004161609. 9 x 12 inches.
Some of the Ten Piano Pieces op. 58 were already successfully performed during the composers lifetime. At a concert in the Solemnity Hall of Helsinki University on 10 October 1911, two of the pieces (Scherzino No. 2, Serenade No. 9) had to be repeated because of the roar of applause.. Both Sibelius and Mrs. Sigrid Sundgren-Schneevoigt were called forth with storming applause. The reviews were good, describing the pieces as the most ingenious piano compositions reduced to a small form, that have been published in Finland.
SKU: HL.50610141
Zoltan Kodaly's op. 1, Enekszo (Singing), this series of songs written on Hungarian folk poetry, first appeared in 1921 at Rozsavolgyi Publishing House. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first edition, a facsimile edition of the work and a new edition with Hungarian and English texts has been published, with great help of Mrs. Kodaly nee Sarolta Peczely. The series of songs written between 1907 and 1909 simultaneously reflects the composer's first encounter with Hungarian folk songs and Debussy's song poetry. Kodaly, who later composed numerous arrangements of folk songs for both solo voice and choir, uses only the texts of folk lyrics in these songs, the melodic world, although reminiscent of Hungarian folk songs in several ways, stems from his own melodic invention. And in piano accompaniments, you can feel the experimental spirit and atmosphere-creating power of the young composer at the same time.
