SKU: ST.H474
ISBN 9790220222900.
A Short Sonata is a work written at around Grade 8 standard for euphonium and piano. In each of the work's three movements, different qualities of the instrument are utilised and explored. In the first movement, an Allegro in 6/8 time, these qualities are the instrument's general agility, and its ability to play fast-moving melodies in a way that drives the music forward. Throughout, different ways of phrasing similar material are used to create interest and a varied sound. In the second, slow movement, the resonant and majestic way in which the euphonium can deliver lyrical melodic lines is explored. The movement is made up of four long phrases which peak dynamically at the third, giving room for interpretation and feeling. The third movement exploits the instrument's ability to play loudly and aggressively, using lots of accented notes, hairpin crescendos and quick double-tonguing. A Short Sonata was the winner of the first Stainer & Bell Award for Brass Composition, held at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff in May 2010.
SKU: CY.CC2722
The Chants du Rhin (Songs of the Rhine), a cycle of six pieces, based on poems by Joseph Mery, were written in 1865, and Bizet performed two of them on 16 April 1866 at a soiree of the Beaujolais Philharmonic Society. The songs are grouped symmetrically around La bohemienne as the central piece, framed by two meditatively yearning pieces (in E and D flat major) and two vividly exuberant ones (similarly in E and D flat major), with L'aurore serving as an introduction.In this cycle Bizet takes up the theme of the gypsy girl which had already entered European music in the operas The Bohemian Girl by the Irish composer Michael William Balfe and Verdi's Il trovatore, as well as in Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies for piano. Bizet will return to it one year later in La jolie fille de Perth and ten years later in Carmen. The fourth piece Les confidences shows similarities in tonality, structure and motifs to the middle part of the third movement of Chopin's Sonata in B minor.This version includes parts in B-flat treble clef as well as bass clef.
SKU: CY.CC2737
Debussy's General Lavine - eccentric, is taken from his Book II of Piano Preludes written in 1912. It is in the style of a Cakewalk, a dance developed in the late 19th century at get-togethers on slave plantations in the southern United States. The music is based on Edward Lavine, a famous vaudeville performer whose act was presented at the Marigny Theatre around the same time. It is the only work by Debussy composed as a musical portrait for a human personality.The music of about 3 minutes in length is appropriate for advanced performers.
SKU: CY.CC2803
Arnold Schoenberg's Six Little Pieces, Opus 19, originally for Piano, were published in 1913 at a time when the composer was reacting to his feelings of the excesses of the Romantic Period. They were composed concurrently with his gigantic work Gurre-Lieder. The first five pieces were written in one day and the last one shortly after the death of Gustav Mahler as a rumored tombeau or memorial. Mr. Sauer has deftly arranged these six short pieces of around 5 minutes in length for advanced performers.Parts are supplied for bass and treble readers.
