SKU: PR.41641576L

UPC: 680160636549. 11 x 17 inches.

The 1712 Overture stands out in P.D.Q. Bach's oeuvre for two reasons, among others: it is by far the most programmatic instrumental piece among those by the minimeister of Wein-am-Rhein so far unearthed, and 2) its discovery has led to a revelation about the composer's father, Johann Sebastian Bach, that has exploded like a bombshell on the usually serene musicological landscape. The overture is based on an anecdote told to P.D.Q. Bach by a cousin, Peter Ulrich. Since P.U. Bach lived in Dudeldorf, only a few miles down the road from Wein-am-Rhein, he was P.D.Q.'s closest relative, and he was, in fact, one of the few members of the family who was on speaking terms with P.D.Q. The story, related to P.D.Q. (fortunately for us posterity types) in a letter, may be summarized thus: The town of Dudeldorf was founded by two brothers, Rudi and Dieter Dudel, early in the 18th century. Rudi remained mayor of the newborn burg for the rest of his long life, but Dieter had a dream of starting a musicians' colony, an entire city devoted to music, which dream, he finally decided, could be realized only in the New World. In 1712, he and several other bagpipers sailed to Boston, never to return to Germany. (Henceforth, Rudi became known as der deutscher Dudel and Dieter as the Yankee Dudel). Unfortunately, the head of the Boston Musicians' Guild had gotten wind of Dudel's plans, and Wilhelm Wiesel (pron. VEE-zle), known none too affectionately around town as Wiesel the Weasel, was not about to share what few gigs there were in colonial America with more foreigners and outside agitators. He and his cronies were on hand to meet Dudel's boat when it pulled into Boston Harbor; they intended to prevent the newcomers' disembarkation, but Dudel and his companions managed to escape to the other side of the bay in a dinghy, landing with just enough time to rent a carriage and horses before hearing the sound of The Weasel and his men, who had had to come around the long way. The Germans headed West, with the Bostonians in furious pursuit. soon the city had been left far behind, and by midnight so had the pursuers; Dieter Dudel decided that it was safe for him and his men to stop and sleep until daybreak. When they awoke, they found that they were in a beautiful landscape of low, forested mountains and pleasant fields, warmed by the brilliant morning sun and serenaded by an entrancing variety of birds. Here, Dudel thought, her is where I will build my colony. The immigrants continued down the road at a leisurely pace until they came upon a little church, all by itself in the countryside, from which there suddenly emanated the sounds of a pipe organ. At this point, the temptation to quote from P.U. Bach's letter to P.D.Q. cannot be resisted: They went inside and, after listening to the glorious music for a while, introduced themselves to the organist. And who do you think it was? Are you ready for this -- it was your old man! Hey, no kidding -- you know, I'm sure, that your father was the guy to get when it came to testing new organs, and whoever had that one in Massachusetts built offered old Sebastian a tidy sum to go over there and check it out. The unexpected meeting with J.S. Bach and his sponsors was interrupted by the sound of horse hooves, as the dreaded Wiesel and his men thundered on to the scene. They had been riding all night, however, and they were no spring chickens to start with, and as soon as they reached the church they all dropped, exhausted, to the ground. The elated Germans rang the church bells and offered to buy everyone a beer at the nearest tavern. There they were taught, and joined in singing, what might be called the national anthem of the New World. The melody of this pre-revolutionary patriotic song is still remembered (P.D.Q. Bach quotes it, in the bass instruments, near the end of the overture), but is words are now all but forgotten: Freedom, of thee we sing, Freedom e'er is our goal; Death to the English King, Long live Rock and Ross. The striking paucity of biographical references to Johann Sebastian Bah during the year 1712 can now be explained: he was abroad for a significant part of that year, testing organs in the British Colonies. That this revelation has not been accepted as fact by the musicological establishment is no surprise, since it means that a lot of books would have to be rewritten. The members of that establishment haven't even accepted the existence of P.D.Q. Bach, one of whose major works the 1712 Overture certainly is. It is also a work that shows Tchaikowsky up as the shameless plagiarizer that some of us have always known he was. The discovery of this awesome opus was made possible by a Boston Pops Centennial Research Commission; the first modern performance took place at the opening concert of the 100th anniversary season of that orchestra, under the exciting but authentic direction of John Williams.

SKU: PR.11641867S

UPC: 680160683208.

Contextures: Riots -Decade '60 was commissioned by Zubin Mehta and the Southern California Symphony Association after the successful premiere of the Concerto for Four Percussion Soloists and Orchestra. It was written during the spring and summer months of 1967. Riots stemming from resentment against the racial situation in the United States and the war in Vietnam were occurring throughout the country and inevitably invaded the composer's creative subconscious. Contextures, as the title implies, was intended to exploit various and varying textures. As the work progressed the correspondence between the fabric of music and the fabric of society became apparent and the allegory grew in significance. So I found myself translating social aspects into musical techniques. Social stratification became a polymetric situation where disparate groups function together. The conflict between the forces of expansion and the forces of containment is expressed through and opposition of tonal fluidity vs. rigidity. This is epitomized in the fourth movement, where the brass is divided into two groups - a muted group, encircled by the unmuted one, which does its utmost to keep the first group within a restricted pitch area. The playful jazzy bits (one between the first and second movements and one at the end of the piece) are simply saying that somehow in this age of turmoil and anxiety ways of having fun are found even though that fun may seem inappropriate. The piece is in five movements, with an interlude between the first and second movements. It is scored for a large orchestra, supplemented by six groups of percussion, including newly created roto-toms (small tunable drums) and some original devices, such as muted gongs and muted vibraphone. There is also an offstage jazz quartet: bass, drums, soprano saxophone and trumpet. The first movement begins with a solo by the first clarinetist which is interrupted by intermittent heckling from his colleagues leading to a configuration of large disparate elements. The interlude of solo violin and snare-drum follows without pause. The second movement, Prestissimo, is a display piece of virtuosity for the entire orchestra. The third movement marks a period of repose and reflection and calls for some expressive solos, particularly by the horn and alto saxophone. The fourth movement opens with a rather lengthy oboe solo, which is threatened by large blocks of sound from the orchestra, against an underlying current of agitated energy in the piano and percussion. This leads to a section in which large orchestral forces oppose one another, ultimately bringing the work to a climax, if not to a denouement. Various thematic elements are strewn all over the orchestra, resulting in the formation of a general haze of sound. A transition leads to the fifth movement without pause. The musical haze is pierced gently by the offstage jazz group as if they were attempting to ignore and even dispel the gloom, but a legato bell sound enters and hovers over both the jazz group and the orchestra, the latter making statements of disquieting finality. Two films were conceived to accompany portions of Contextures. The first done by Herbert Kosowar, was a chemography film (painting directly into the film using dyes and various implements) with fast clips of riot photographs. The second was a film collage made by photographically abstracting details from paintings of Reginald Pollack. The purpose was to invoke a non-specific response - as in music - but at the same time to define the subject matter of the piece. The films were constructed to correspond with certain developments in the piece and in no way affect the independence and musical flow of the piece, having been made after the piece was completed. Contextures: Riots - Decade '60 is dedicated to Mehta, the Southern California Symphony Association and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. The news of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King came the afternoon of the premiere, April 4, 1968. That evening's performances, and also the succeeding ones, were dedicated to him and a special dedication to Dr. King has been inserted into he score. All the music that follows the jazz group - beginning with the legato bell sound playing the first 2 notes to We shall overcome constitutes a new ending to commemorate Dr. King's death.

SKU: LO.30-3680MD

UPC: 000308153279.

Orchestral Score and Parts for 55/1199MD This deeply moving collection from Jay Rouse includes six songs that glory in the cross of Christ. Highly appropriate for use throughout the Easter season, it is just as impactful year-round. It includes the classic Annie Herring Easter Song in an easily learned contemporary style; a gospel setting of the much-loved hymn My Savior’s Love; two modern worship anthems, Broken Bread, Broken Life and Jesus Crucified; the beloved Dottie Rambo song I Will Glory in the Cross; and an elegant setting of the timeless hymn Beneath the Cross of Jesus. Optional narrations from gifted writer Rose Aspinall will bring the truths of scripture to life in a refreshing way. There’s an eternal mystery in the cross, that instrument of death and grace. Hanging there by His own choosing, the Son of God purchases life for you and me..

SKU: HL.14042598

ISBN 9788759827482.

Programme Note Poul Ruders WIND-DRUMMING WIND-DRUMMING was written in 1979 on a commission from The Danish Percussion Ensemble. The piece is a clash of two kinds of sound-associations, the mystic, exotic impact of Latin-American drumming, and the more well dressed reputation of Western concert-instruments, in this case a wind-quintet (w. electric flute). The two instrumental camps either melt into one soft humming ritual or are split wide apart, the winds tearing their way through the undergrowth of rainforest-drumming. There is more than one way of getting on to WIND-DRUMMING: obviously it is about the confrontation of two incongruent ways of living, a lament on the damage done tothe tropical rainforests of the world by modern civilisation. One can hear it plainly as a direct rhythm-show, a downright number or a joyous homage to the most exiting kind of folkloristic music at all: the carnal spell of the Brazilian Samba. Poul Ruders.

SKU: BT.MUSM570366712

English.

Le Voyage Dans La Lune is a continuous orchestral score of approximately 14 minutes comprising two outer fast sections and a slower inner section of a dream-like character. The work is directly inspired by the film Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902), written and directed by the pioneering French film-maker, Georges Méliès. Méliès was influenced by 19th century interests in science and discoveries, as well as the science fiction of Jules Verne. At the same time his work seems fantastic, surreal and satirical. Some critics point out an underlying critique of colonial adventuring. The plot centres on a group of astronomers who decide to launch a rocket to the moon containing a handful of their number. They reach the moon (famously landing on the moon’s face) and then encounter a strange race of aliens, whom they battle and destroy. The return to earth involves a dramatic descent, a plunge into the ocean and then celebratory dancing. The film inhabits a surreal and dream-like space, and uses an idiosyncratic visual language which transforms reality. This inspired an active musical response in my own score, which is by turns abrupt, smooth, lyrical and violent, and expresses something of the strange shifting surfaces and multiple and layered tempos evident in the film. The canons in the horns in the first scene reflect the intense arguments of the astronomers as they consider the project. The slower inner section is inspired by the scenes of the industrial City viewed from its rooftops by the astronomers. It also expresses the wonder of the astronomers as they see the earth rise from the perspective of the moon after their arrival there. The music of the final section is in places conflicted, reflecting the violent encounters with the moon’s inhabitants. It moves into a more harmonious phase at the close to match the celebrations upon the astronomers’ return from their adventuring. The music could be considered to be a surreal mini-opera without voices, voicing instead the characters of the silent screen. - Ed Hughes.

SKU: BT.EMBZ40071

English-German-Hungarian.

'Dances of Transylvania is the orchestral version of 'Sonatina' (1915). In Sonatina, Bartók had arranged Romanian instrumental (chiefly bagpipe) music. The three movements of the work, 'Bagpipers', 'Bear Dance' and 'Finale' comprise five melodies. Bartók explained that each of the two melodies of the first movement had been played by two pipers, the second by a peasant violinist using the lower strings of the instrument to reproduce the sounds of a bear, and the two melodies of the 'Finale' again by two violinists. In the orchestral version Bartók was out to reproduce the original sonority created by the peasants.' (HCD 32505 Bartók New Series Vol. 5, Virág Büky).

SKU: HL.14033079

ISBN 9788759858332. Danish.

There were wild oatsAnd the soil was blackBut sparkledWhen the sun was outThe air sharp in the nostrilsHard to defineSomewhere between knife and coal andAcid and that special light and sweetWhiteness thornbushes exhaleIt was nothing specialBecause everything was special...Thus the opening line of the poem TERRAINS VAGUES by Klaus Rifbjerg, the Danish Poet. I chose to adopt this title for my orchestral work, because of its closeness in associations: an indeterminable, often polarized, state of rhythmic and tonal ambiguity.The expression seems created by the Franch author, Victor Hugo:And here lies the fascination: in the kinds of terrains vagues, which are simultaniously bizarre and ugly, as if created by two alien species of nature. To watch the suburb is like observing and amphibium: trees vanish, roofs appear, grass vanish, cobble stones appear, ploughing fields vanish, shops appear, beaten tracks vanish - passions appear; the murmur of Nature Divine ends, the noise of Mankind takes over. (Victor Hugo)Still, the atmosphere as well as the material of TERRAINS VAGUES have its origin, in my SYMPHONY NO. 6 (1999), the last minute of which, cut up rough, appears as the start of my new work. The music of TERRAINS VAGUES subdivides itself, without breaks, into three sections, or shades:I: TERRAINS - II: VAGUES (Waves) III: TERRAINS VAGUES.Per Norgard, March 2001.

SKU: SU.91580100

A Grateful Tail - Movement by Movement Siriusly, Dog Star Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, has been used by travelers and navigators for thousands of years as a guiding star and so it is here as the opening movement for the symphony. Sirius, the cornerstone to the constellation Canis Maggiore or Big Dog sits at the foot of Orion, the hunter, leading the way. Highly cinematic, the movement evokes both a musical and visual sense of the mythological and mysterious elements of Sirius and its Dog Godstar secrets. From the clarion call of the opening, Sirius theme, the sound is buoyant and frisky emulating the nature of doggy playtime. Puppy pleasures abound as a doggy four-step, my turn on the traditional American two-step dance, is introduced. The movement transforms into an actual orchestrated frolic of small, large and medium dog barks beginning with the winds (smaller dogs) and ultimately, the big dog, brass. The movement climaxes with the coda or, Dog Park, where the winds and the brass bark and play together over the, doggy ostinato four-step rhythm, culminating with the final call of the Sirius theme. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, Peacefully It's all in a dog's day and life. Tranquility presides over this supremely gentle, intermezzo-like movement. After a day of play, every dog needs rest. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, is a lyrical andante inspired by the profound serenity and beauty of a dog at rest. The Last Will and Testament of Silverdene Emblem O'Neill Based on a powerful piece of prose written by the American playwright, Eugene O'Neill this text was intended as a consolation piece for Carlotta, his wife, who had become grief-stricken over the loss of their beloved dog, the Dalmatian known as Blemie.Written for a singing actor who personifies the role of Blemie, a dog at the end of his life, the movement plays like a one act, musical drama as we follow Blemie through a wonderfully three-dimensional, emotional and psychological journey writing his Last Will and Testament, for those who have loved him. Wagging the Tail: Ossia Fido's Lament A life-affirming rumba/samba using Blemie's final words from O'Neill's text, this final movement employs the most unique American musical invention, the gospel choir. In order to make the dances come alive, this movement also calls upon the colors of a rhythm section. Creating the spirit of an Irish Funeral, the movement is a joyful and revival-like celebration of a dog's life as its spirit lives on forever in the hearts and minds of dog lovers everywhere. Remember Me, remember me! My spirit is wagging a grateful tail. Published by: Subito Music Publishing Release Date: July 9, 2013.