SKU: PR.110418480

ISBN 9781491136294. UPC: 680160688784.

Chen Yi’s beautiful and highly-textured tone poem was inspired by ancient Chinese poetry; its melodic ideas were developed from musical phrases characteristic of Chinese opera. Wang Ya’s original verse as translated by Chen Yi reads:“SONG OF SPRING OUTING”Ten thousand apricot trees by the riverside,Spring flowers bloom after the wind at night.Covered over the garden, colors dark and light,Mirrored in the green water ripples.
SONG OF SPRING OUTING was commissioned by the Center for East Asian Studies and the Asian Classical Music Initiative at the University of Kansas in 2022 for Dr. Yi-Yang Chen to premiere in 2023.The work was inspired by an ancient Chinese poem with the same title:Song of Spring Outingby Wang Ya (Tang Dynasty)English translation by Chen YiTen thousand apricot trees by the riverside,Spring flowers bloom after the wind at night.Covered over the garden, colors dark and light,Mirrored in the green water ripples.This inspiring image is like taking a walk through a beautiful garden with layers of colorful trees and flowers, mirrored in the green water.The opening phrase of the music introduces the signature intervals, the leap of a seventh found in Beijing Opera fiddle’s language, followed by melodic material with a major 2nd and perfect 4th in pentatonic style as the thematic materials. [C-Bb-G in bars 1-2, followed by the top pitches A-B and Ab-E( in bars 2-3]. This statement is brought back (Rehearsal F) in a retrograded form of the introduction at the climatic end of the piece.The musical form is a combination of variations on thematic materials, and a rondo. After the introductory section, Rehearsal A introduces an improvisation-like mountain song melody (developed from the pentatonic material in the introduction).Rehearsal B brings in a lively texture in short groupings with staccato in both hands (using the seventh leap interval introduced in the opening of the piece).Rehearsals C and D develop the introduction’s pentatonic melody and the mountain tune (introduced in Rehearsal A) with more layers in the texture.Rehearsal E develops the material presented in Rehearsal B, with an extended range in both ends of the keyboard, increasing the freshness and excitement.

SKU: CA.3124885

The Carus Choir Coach offers choir singers the unique opportunity to study and learn their own, individual choral parts within the context of the sound of the entire choir and orchestra. For every vocal range a separate CD containing each choir part is available. The CD is based on recorded interpretations by renowned artists who have performed the work from carefully prepared Carus Urtext editions. Each choir part is presented in three different versions: - Original recording - Coach: each part is accompanied by the piano, with the original recording sounding in the background - Coach in slow mode: the tempo of the coach slows down to 70% of the original version - through this reduction passages can be learned more effectively. Bach's Christmas Oratorio is undeniably the number ONE in the Christmas repertoire of choirs as well as in popularity with audiences. The Christmas story, according to the Gospels of St. Luke and St. Matthew, combined with free poetry and individual chorale stanzas attains, together with the clearly structured, festive Baroque music, an eloquent radiance of timeless beauty. To confidently keep up with the frequent, sometimes very rapid sixteenth-coloraturas - for example in the herrliche Chore (no. 1), the Wohlgefallen (no. 21, Vivace!), and the Schnauben der stolzen Feinde (no. 54) - practicing with the Slow Mode of the app is particularly recommended. Score available separately - see item CA.3124800.

SKU: HL.48024280

Leaves of grass by Matthew Whittall is a major addition to the contemporary piano literature. The 12 preludes explore a wide range of styles, sonoroties and pianistic challenges. Inspired by Walt Whitman's verses, the preludes are not programmatic in nature, but rather Whittall's personal distillations of the atmosphere of each poem. Although some hew quite closely to the poetry that gave rise to them, more often than not it was a few words, the rhythm of a phrase, or a single, iconic image that proved to be the catalyst for each piece, says the composer. Leaves of grass is organized into three books, each containing four preludes. The preludes are ordered to produce both a sense of variety and dramatic flow within each group of four, as well as a broad, three-part structure from beginning to end. The entire suite can be performed as a grand, one-hour work, individual books or preludes can be performed on their own, or the performer may arrange their own selections.

SKU: SU.29110060

1. Sidestep Reel - In 19th Century America, the Afro-Celtic fiddle style was the centerpiece of many a dance. Reels and hornpipes were very popular forms. Their repetitive, even-metered rhythms were easy and fun to dance to, and their infectious singable melodies stayed in the mind and on the tongue. More adventurous fiddlers were given to syncopating on these forms by accenting off beats and by embellishing melodies with oddmetered note groupings. Syncopation is a fundamental rhythmic attitude of jazz and this movement is a celebration of that art. The melodic language is a home-grown concoction of commonality between traditional reels and hornpipes and the Baroque, Ragtime and the quartal concepts of Modern Jazz. 2. As the Wind Goes - the wistful late night song of a lullabye, a campfire song, a ballad...a spiritual. It is sung as if on the wind, yearning to experience once again that which will only ever again live as memory. 3. Jones’ Jig - the Irish Jig, the African 6/8 bell pattern, the shuffle rhythm of jazz and the drum style of Elvin Jones all play around with the relationship of 3 in the time-space of 2. The juxtaposition, negotiation and reconciliation of these opposing rhythmic perspectives create interesting musical relationships all over the globe. 4. Nicola’s Strathspey - In the traditional Strathspey, improvised embellishments, syncopated dotted rhythms and the use of space between notes create expectation, momentum and surprise. These same elements and their effect on the listener are the same in the blues. It seems like a natural marriage. 5. Bye Bye Breakdown - This is good ol’, Saturday night barn dance, hoedown fiddling. It revels in the whining cry of open double stops, in all types of musical onomatopoeia from train sounds to animal calls to country whistling, and in the steady 2/4 rhythm that is as basic as walking. The harmonic framework of several popular fiddle and folk tunes provide a practical grid for the cutting of challenging melodic and rhythmic figures. It is designed to tire fiddler and dancers out. Then we stomp our way home in varying states of delight and disrepair.Solo Violin Duration: 24' Composed: 2018 Published by: Wynton Marsalis (administered by Skayne's Music).

SKU: PR.140401310

ISBN 9781491134153. UPC: 680160684250. 9 x 12 inches. Key: G major.

NORA’S DANCE is a jazz-influenced rag from 1921, and among the only surviving compositions by Nora Douglas Holt. A charming and exciting work rejuvenated by Lara Downes’ 2021 recording for the Rising Sun label, the rag is both a fun 2 minutes for pianists and audiences, and also a fascinating time capsule. Composed several years after Scott Joplin’s death, and several years before the Charleston pervaded popular music, NORA’S DANCE blossoms with the energy and jazz harmony starting to emerge as The Roaring 20’s, using ragtime and stride as the seed for pianistic style.
My own life in music has been driven by a quest to find strong female role models, trails to follow, shoulders to stand on. In Nora Douglas Holt, I find an inspiring example of creativity, independence, and resilience – with a dash of troublemaking. She was a free spirit, a force of nature, and she lived a fascinating and eventful life on her own terms. She reinvented herself through five marriages and at least as many careers. From her beginnings at the piano at age four, she explored many avenues of musical expression – performing, composing, music journalism, broadcasting, teaching – all with inventiveness, style, and zeal.She made the most of the Roaring ’20s, as an artist, socialite, jetsetter, muse, and patroness of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1921 she started an independent arts journal called “Music and Poetry,” where the charming piano solo Nora’s Dance was first published. I think the piece captures beautifully, in a little under 2 minutes, the energy and excitement of those heady years.In 1926, Nora left New York to travel the world, performing in nightclubs throughout Europe and Asia. She put her belongings in storage before she left, and when she came back she discovered that many of her things had been stolen, including more than 200 of her musical compositions. She never composed again.When the Depression hit, she moved out to Los Angeles, where she studied music education at USC, taught music in the LA public schools, and opened her own beauty salon. She returned to New York in the ’40s and worked as a music critic for several major newspapers, then launched yet another career, this time in broadcasting. Her popular radio concert series “Nora Holt’s Concert Showcase” broadcast to New York’s classical music audience, with a focus on Black composers and performers.Ahead of her time, larger than life, full of ideas…. I am so pleased to introduce you to the feisty and free spirited Nora Douglas Holt!

SKU: PR.144402180

UPC: 680160027156. 9.5 x 13 inches.

The concerts and exhibits of the Cleveland Museum of Art were an important formative influence for me during my student days. So when the invitation came to create a new work celebrating this institution on its seventy-fifth anniversary, I was not only happy to accept, but knew immediately that I wanted to write a piece that would somehow relate specifically to the museum. I decided to make the work a reflection on a painting in the museum's collection: Zurbaran's The Holy House of Nazareth. My quartet is not program music in a narrative sense, but rather a kind of meditation that takes its tone from this painting's remarkable integration of intense affect, mysterious repose and secret geometry. Besides Zurbaran's painting, the piece is occupied with a purely musical object of contemplation: the hymn tune Picardy, best known with the text Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. This tune permeates the harmonic and melodic life of the quartet, sometimes appearing in a very simple, straightforward fashion, but often hidden amidst more complex structures. I was attracted to the melody for its musical qualities, but later realized that the hymn's text also resonates with the mood of the painting; the words speak of a reverent awe, of cherubim with sleepless eye, and of the mystery of the Incarnate Word who must suffer: King of kings, yet born of Mary...