SKU: PR.11441690S

UPC: 680160626021. 9 x 12 inches.

Ran's third string quartet was written for the Pacifica Quartet, who are featuring it in numerous performances from May 2014 through February 2016, across the country and abroad. Their blog page dedicated to the work also features the composer's notes, for more indepth insight. ...impassioned solos emerge from ominous quiet, and high arpeggios in the violins quiver alongside the earthy cello. Ms. Ran skillfully deploys these extremes of color, volume and pitch, yet the overall somewhat chilly impression is one of poise. -- Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times.
My third string quartet was composed at the invitation of the Pacifica Quartet, whose music-making I have come to know closely and admire hugely as resident artists at the University of Chicago.  Already in our early conversations Pacifica proposed that this quartet might, in some manner, refer to the visual arts as a point of germination.  Probing further, I found out that the quartet members had special interest in art created during the earlier part of the 20th century, perhaps between the two world wars.  It was my good fortune to have met, a short while later, while in residence at the American Academy in Rome in the fall of 2011, art conservationist Albert Albano who steered me to the work of Felix Nussbaum (1904-1944), a German-Jewish painter who, like so many others, perished in the Holocaust at a young age, and who left some powerful, deeply moving art that spoke to the life that was unraveling around him. The title of my string quartet takes its inspiration from a major exhibit devoted to art by German artists of the period of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) titled “Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s”, first shown at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2006-07.  Nussbaum would have been a bit too young to be included in this exhibit.  His most noteworthy art was created in the last very few years of his short life.  The exhibit’s evocative title, however, suggested to me the idea of “Glitter, Doom, Shards, Memory” as a way of framing a possible musical composition that would be an homage to his life and art, and to that of so many others like him during that era.  Knowing that their days were numbered, yet intent on leaving a mark, a legacy, a memory, their art is triumph of the human spirit over annihilation. Parallel to my wish to compose a string quartet that, typically for this genre, would exist as “pure music”, independent of a narrative, was my desire to effect an awareness in my listener of matters which are, to me, of great human concern.  To my mind there is no contradiction between the two goals.  As in several other works composed since 1969, this is my way of saying ‘do not forget’, something that, I believe, can be done through music with special power and poignancy.    The individual titles of the quartet’s four movements give an indication of some of the emotional strands this work explores. 1) “That which happened” (das was geschah) – is how the poet Paul Celan referred to the Shoah – the Holocaust.  These simple words served for me, in the first movement, as a metaphor for the way in which an “ordinary” life, with its daily flow and its sense of sweet normalcy, was shockingly, inhumanely, inexplicably shattered. 2) “Menace” is a shorter movement, mimicking a Scherzo.  It is also machine-like, incessant, with an occasional, recurring, waltz-like little tune – perhaps the chilling grimace we recognize from the executioner’s guillotine mask.  Like the death machine it alludes to, it gathers momentum as it goes, and is unstoppable. 3) ”If I must perish - do not let my paintings die”; these words are by Felix Nussbaum who, knowing what was ahead, nonetheless continued painting till his death in Auschwitz in 1944.  If the heart of the first movement is the shuddering interruption of life as we know it, the third movement tries to capture something of what I can only imagine to be the conflicting states of mind that would have made it possible, and essential, to continue to live and practice one’s art – bearing witness to the events.  Creating must have been, for Nussbaum and for so many others, a way of maintaining sanity, both a struggle and a catharsis – an act of defiance and salvation all at the same time. 4) “Shards, Memory” is a direct reference to my quartet’s title.  Only shards are left.  And memory.  The memory is of things large and small, of unspeakable tragedy, but also of the song and the dance, the smile, the hopes.  All things human.  As we remember, in the face of death’s silence, we restore dignity to those who are gone.—Shulamit Ran .

SKU: PE.EP73535

ISBN 9790577022581. Words by Vikram Seth.

Earth and Sky was commissioned by the BBC for the Proms 2000 season. In keeping with the millennial theme, a work presenting a vision of the future was requested. Trying to be helpful, the BBC provided me with the predictions of various pundits, but their ideas seemed dizzyingly contradictory. Then the simple thought struck me that however varied and complex the answers, the big questions will always remain the same. We may now have a map of the human genome, but how to use the map? How shall I know where I should go? How may I see the I that's me?
As a musician I am hopeful that, no matter how the world develops, future generations will still come together to dance and sing and play. The mysterious power of music to bind us socially and inspire us individually seems to be built into our genes. So, a song of questions; a song about music---these were the ideas which I took to Vikram Seth, who had generously agreed to write the words for me. The resulting poem provided lots of inspiration. It is entirely monosyllabic, enabling considerable variety of rhythmic treatment. I love its permutations and its imagery of paradox and inversion and I have amused myself by playing similar games with the musical material. But there is seriousness as well as fun---the text's juxtaposition of the certainty of death with the search for purpose in life achieves great poignancy when sung by young voices.
(Alec Roth)

This product is Printed on Demand and may take several weeks to fulfill.

SKU: HL.14025882

ISBN 9781846090479. UPC: 884088441029. 6.75x9.75x0.04 inches. Lyrics by Nicholas Wright.

An arrangement for upper voices of one of the songs from The Little Prince, a fabulous, moving and melodic opera by Rachel Portman with luxurious counter melodies and placid harmonies. This opera is based on French philosopher and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery's novella, Le Petit Prince, an international classic penned in 1943. It was composed by Rachel Portman, the first woman to win an Oscar for a film score (Emma-1996), with text by Nicholas Wright. While Saint-Exupery's moving parable of self-discovery is the foundation of the opera's appeal, it is Portman's music that gives the work its dramatic impact. The characters are brought to life and portrayed with a delicate combination of humour and poignancy. This SSA and Piano arrangement of The Roses by Richard Allain.

SKU: HL.4001788

UPC: 884088248420. 9.0x12.0x0.038 inches.

Steven Spielberg's twenty year association with John Williams has produced yet another powerful cinematic achievement, this time a gripping, realistic view of the horrors of WW II. Williams' score includes this simple hymn, using chorus as an instrument of the orchestra, adding a special reverence and poignancy to the simple melody. Arranger Paul Lavender brings us this edition for the concert band stage.

SKU: PR.11440505S

UPC: 680160008391. 11 x 14 inches.

Although structurally it subdivides into five movements, the entire quartet emerges as one vast continuum. There are no formal breaks between movements. However, certain musical signposts can be discerned, associated with each of the movements' terminations and new beginnings. The opening movement, The Nostalgia of Clanging Bell Sonorities, begins floating on recurrent Bbs whose soft rhythmic flow slowly puts into motion strong undercurrents suggestive of the latent power of water... After several suggestions of tolling bells, the movement gradually fades into hushed tones of veiled and very distant sonorities. It uses a unique effect, for the first time in a musical context, conveyed through the use of extra heavy practice mutes. The second movement, The Spill of Water, disengages itself from the first through its distinct contrast in tempo. Water moves fast, and when it splashes, it tends to run wildly. In this case, it happens to be bubbly water that gushes forth bodly... smashing across rocky shorelines. So, too, the music attempts to conjure such moods. At the end of this movement, a cello cadenza emerges, introducing an introspective type of melodicism. The third movement, The Poignancy of Memory, contains many silences as it tries to convey memory through fragmented remembrances much like often occur in our dream state. Progressing through several slowly building images, it gradually works itself into juxtaposition of musical images. Towards the movement's end, high harmonics are sounding in all four instruments while left hand pizzicato notes in the cello pluck the last remembrances of this central core. Almost imperceptibly, the viola assumes leadership as it dissolves into: The fourth movement, The Fluidity of Motion, which has mostly the viola, but also the cello, articulating lyrical statements against sheets of sound conjured up by the two violins playing a flood of swirling figures, evokes a kind of static motion in space. Here , the virtually imperceptible manner in which this hushed whisper continues incessantly, can suggest the potential fluidity with which movement may inch forward... Later into the fourth movement, two fairly extended solos by the second and then the first violins, lead to a kind of spontaneous dialogue amont the four instrumentalists. Eventually, this musical conversation gets caught up in: The fifth movement's The Rush of Time, which opens with a hushed flurry of speed, precipitates the Finale. It generates, at first slowly, but then very swiftly, whole shifts of rhythmic fields that initially seem to conflict with one another. Ultimately, this use of psycho-rhythmics contributes to an on-rush seem of motion and time. Rhythmic changes are, at times, abruptly precipitated with but little or no preparation creating a kind of inevitability in forward thrust, while the movement rushes forward with a feeling of gradual and continuous acceleration. It gathers density as more and more notes are piled progressively upon successive beats. The attempt is to spark tension and ignite excitement by means of frenetic confrontations of dissimilitudes. Ultimately - with the help of time - these polarities centrifically spin out their own destinies with their accompanying fall-out and own inevitable resolutions.

SKU: PR.11441783S

UPC: 680160636884.

With support from Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting, Pann's Second String Quartet was written for the Takacs Quartet to honor the contributions of NancyBell Coe as president of the Music Academy of the West. The Takacs, hailed as one of the world's greatest ensembles, performed the work as part of a weeklong series of masterclasses at the Academy's Summer Festival 2015. The Second String Quartet is made up of six descriptive movements: I. L'Extase, II. Precipitato, III. Passacaglias, IV. Commute, V. Adjusting the Torque, VI. Escher's Rounds. For advanced performers.

SKU: CF.CM9040

ISBN 9780825866012. UPC: 798408066017. 6.875 X 10.5 inches. Key: G major.

This lyrical setting of a celebrated anonymous text from the English Renaissance makes good use of the contrast between male and female voices. The memorable melody and tender, yearning harmonies are guaranteed to make this piece a crowd pleaser. An optional Flute line enhances the delicate poignancy of this lovely selection.