SKU: BR.EB-8980

ISBN 9790004187098. 9 x 12 inches.

Verdiana is a musical tribute to Giuseppe Verdi. It takes some of his most famous melodies and reimagines them in styles of Samba, Bossa Nova and Tango to produce a virtuosic showpiece for clarinet and orchestra. The work is structured in three movements. The titles of the movements do not only indicate from which operas the main melodies were taken, they also function as a hint to the styles in which the movements are written. The first movement, titled Il Sambatore, is a Samba based primarily on the melodic material from Verdi's Il Trovatore. The second one, Un Bossa in Maschera, is a slow Bossa Nova and consists of an aria from Un Ballo in Maschera. The third and the most virtuosic movement is called Don Tangoletto and derives most of its material from Don Carlos and Rigoletto. The piece exists in 4 versions: Solo clarinet with either full orchestra, string orchestra, string quartet or piano. This publication also includes an alto sax part that can be used instead of a clarinet.

An Hommage to Giuseppe Verdi.

SKU: BR.EB-9440

ISBN 9790004189177. 9 x 12 inches.

The two sonatas of Johannes Brahms's op. 120 are widely hailed as crowning points of the repertoire for clarinet and piano. Moreover, in the version for viola and piano arranged by Brahms himself, they rank among the most frequently played viola works of the 19th century. They far surpass in compositional substance the relatively few original sonatas written for these instrumentations during the same period.Of the two fellow works, the Sonata No. 2 in E flat major is the more accessible. Diverging from the classical-romantic tradition, Brahms used the key of E flat major here not to express the heroic or monumental, but to obtain lyrical, chiefly restrained characterizations. The serenade-like beauty of the principal theme, which opens the sonata, has always been particularly admired. In his review of the world premiere, the renowned Viennese music critic Eduard Hanslick, a friend of Brahms's, raves with the words it was as if it had fallen from the Heavens. The closing set of variations also follows with gentle gracefulness this lyrical character. However, the middle movement, with its tempestuous outer sections in E flat minor and the hymnic trio in B major provides a passionate and serious contrast, which allows the flanking idyll to unfold its beauties all the more insistently.