Written for Moray Welsh whilst still an undergraduate at York University. This piece was completed in mid-September. Inspired by Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf. A solo 'cello seemed an appropriate medium for music which might explore the character of Harry Haller with his desire for bourgeois comfort and his strong misanthropic and suicidal tendencies. The opening theme attempts to express this - melancholy nostalgic a bit Biedermeyer (cf. Brahms Intermezzi). The basic theme of the book at its simplest is that every human personality consists of hundred of different personalities - within every man there lurks a wolf. Accordingly the tendency of my piece is for allits musical material to become distorted either by thematic transformation or by changes of timbre. There are three movements played without a break. The first is a character portrait of the Steppenwolf. The second is concerned in the most general sort of way with the dance elements in the novel - Harry's being taught to dance and appreciate low 'popular' music - a tango is recapitulated in a waltz and 'Yearning' a popular song of the time (1927) is hinted at. The third movement concerns the Masked Ball and the Magic Theatre. Mozart is one of Hesse's great loves and he is repeatedly mentioned in the book. Inevitably some Mozart quotes have been worked in the most significant being a reference to The Magic Flute 'fire and water' flute theme in the middle of the second movement. Long before I finished the piece I was disenchanted with the work of Hesse. Much of Steppenwolf I now find rather embarrassing and the claims currently made for Hesse's greatness seem to me exaggerated. Since my piece is in no important sense programmatically specific this change of heart doesn't really matter.© David Blake

Today the cello is usually considered a classical instrument but from the late 17th to early 19th centuries it was used in folk ensembles to provide low driving rhythms for dance tunes and to render haunting Scottish airs.Within the folk music revival of the past forty years there has been a small but dedicated movement to restore the unique richness of the cello to traditional music and Abby Newton has been on the forefront of that movement. Abbyhas been deeply involved with Scottish music ever since traveling to and performing in Scotland many times. The airs planxties and reels in this book come from traditional and contemporary sources including the 18th-centuryfiddler Neil Gow harper Turlough O'Carolan Daithi Sproule David Hornung Alasdair Fraser Ronnie Aimes and others. All 19 of the tunes are written for solo cello with chord symbols included on most tunes for an accompanyinginstrument. The text also includes the author's notes on the origin of each tune.

Enrique Granados (1867-1916) was a Spanish composer and pianist who studied in Barcelona and Paris and whose life was tragically cut short by the First World War. The nationalist style which dominated his early output is often seen to be epitomised by the 1890 work 12 Danza Española a collection of Spanish dances originally for the solo Piano. Andaluza is No. 5 from 12 Danza Española and has been transcribed here for Cello with Piano accompaniment. This high quality edition comes in a marbled cover and would be a perfect gift for any cellist interested in Spanish music.