The Dreamers - A Gothic Tale for Horn Trio by Niels Marthinsen. Programme note: The Dreamers for horn violin and piano is the sixth of a series of seven compositions named after Karen Blixen's collection of short stories Seven Gothic Tales. My musical gothic tales are written for very different ensembles - THE SUPPER AT ELSINORE is a saxophone quartet THE OLD CHEVALIER is for bass trombone and piano THE MONKEY is a chamber orchestra work - but they all share musical material in a criss-cross of contextual references reminiscent of Blixen's narrative complexity: Themes and motivs from one pieceappear in others in new and surprising shapes and combinations. Karen Blixen's THE DREAMERS has the most complex narrative structure of all her seven gothic tales. The story is made up of three tales with different narrators but with the same principal caracter in various disguises all three imbedded within a fourth tale that serves as a framework for the entire short story.The main story line unravels the life of a famous opera diva who looses her voice during a terrible fire. Before this her life was perpetual bliss and the tragedy drives her into assuming different personality guises in order to escape reality.Toward the end she is confronted with her true identity and dies.THE DREAMERS isn't 'about' anything. The music is inspired by the artistic content of Blixen's short story - it's emotionalism dramatic construction atmosphere period and settings - but unfolds in time and musical space in ways that are completely independent of the story's narrative progression...except one might say that the three players try their best to either catch or escape each other and that when they finally meet it happens abruptly even tragically - and only barely provides a little consolation.

Anne Boyd's The Quiet Place for Oboe (doubling antique cymbals) Clarinet (doubling rin) Viola and Harp.The Quiet Place was commissioned by the Warwick andLeamington Festival for performance by Okeanos on their New Music Day on 14th July 2002.'The Quiet Place' is a meditation site in the University of York dedicated by Dame Janet Baker 'In honour of thespirituality which is in all people'. It was a place I visited frequently in the months I spent as visiting Professor at the University in late 2001. So soon after the attack on the New York Trade Centre the worldfelt a very unstable place especially to be so far from my Australian home. It was difficult to make much sense of existence in a world of fanatical fundamentalism - both Islamic and Christian. Perhaps for comfort I foundmyself thinking back a thousand years to the vital earth based spirituality of Hildegard of Bingen and uncovered an Antiphon she had composed 'Nunc Aperuit'. This chant became the basis of the work I have written forOkeanos in response to an invitation from Jinny Shaw whom I met in York last year. In English translation the words of the chant translate as 'Now the closed door has opened for us / What the serpent hassuffocated in woman./ Therefore shines forth in thedawn/ the flower from the Virgin Mary. ' The music of 'The Quiet Place' is a simple meditation which explores the moods of this text often retreating into a silencewhich is both breath and transcendence. - Anne Boyd

Serenade no. 3 H 218. Unusual instrumentations were by no means the exception in the chamber music works of Bohuslav Martinu, most notably the works he wrote in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s being characterised by his experimentation with sound and form. It is from this period that four short serenades also originate (1932), each with a different instrumentation. The serenades were issued by the Prague publishing house Melantrich in 1949. Their premiere took place two years previously on 16 October 1947 and was performed by members of the Prague Symphony Orchestra (FOK). Although the study score of the Serenades Nos. 1 and 3 was published while the composer was still alive, he was in fact not involved in preparing this edition: indeed, the performance material also appeared in print without his participation in 1954. It was therefore decided to use the autograph score as the principal source for this edition.

Le Carnaval des animaux. Written in March 1886 as a humorous occasional work for the traditional carnival concert organized by his cellist friend Charles-Joseph Lebouc, the Carnival of the Animals was so successful that Saint-Saëns banned performances and publication soon afterwards. He was worried that this ?grand zoological fantasy? - consisting of 14 short individual pieces for eleven instruments - might overshadow his serious works. Yet only five months after the composer?s death, it appeared in print after all, beginning its worldwide victory march - in its original setting as well as in numerous arrangements. Thus, the Carnival did in fact arguably become the most popular work by this French composer and, owing to its musical originality, it is also a favourite in music lessons or for school orchestra performances. With this combination of a study edition and an edition in parts (for which additional parts for larger numbers of strings may be ordered), G. Henle Publishers now presents the perfect resource for such occasions.

Rabl?s Quartet in E-Flat Major won first prize in 1896 in a prestigious competition for young composers sponsored by the Vienna Tonkünstlerverein of which Johannes Brahms was honorary president and a judge of the competition. Brahms recommended the piece to his own publisher Simrock who released it the following year along with three other Rabl works: the Fantasy Pieces for Piano Trio Op. 2 and two sets of Four Songs Op. 3 and Op. 4. The Op. 1 quartet appears to be the first work ever written for that combination which was later more famously used by Messiaen in his Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the end of time) composed in 1941.

11'; for Soprano Recorder Cello and Harpsichord.Published 2003.Text: Aloysius Bertrand.First performance: Lesley-Jane Rogers (sop) with John Turner Jonathan Price and Janet Simpson Bridgewater Hall Manchester 16th October 2004.Score and parts.

For Harp and Guitar. Published 2006. Part of 'On Track' UYMP's Grade 4-level Education Volume.

For Cor Anglais and five instruments (Clarinet Piano Violin Viola and Cello).Published in 2001.Commissioned by the Britten Sinfonia.First performed by the Britten Sinfonia St Edmund's Theatre Caterbury November 2001 and conducted by Nicholas Cleobury.Score and Parts.

For Flute Clarinet and Piano. Published 1963. First performance: Chantry Ensemble Dublin December 1963.

For Violin Horn and Piano. Published 1968. First performance: Liverpool Horn Trio Stoke-on-Trent 24th April 1969.

For Piano Violin and Cello.Published 2004.Commissioned by the City of London Festival for the Piano Trio of Vienna.First performance: Piano Trio of Vienna City of London Festival LSO St Lukes OldStreet London 23 June 2004.Score and parts.