SKU: BT.MUSM570366699

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: IS.OR7575EM

ISBN 9790365075751.

The future of our fragile world is in our hands. As Sir David Attenborough stated on the Climate Conference in Glasgow on November, 1st, 2021: ... We are already in trouble. The stability we all depend on is breaking. This story is one of inequality, as well as instability. Today, those who’ve done the least to cause this problem, are being the hardest hit. Ultimately, all of us will feel the impact, some of which are now unavoidable. ... We’re going to have to learn together, how to achieve this, ensuring none are left behind. We must use this opportunity to create a more equal world and our motivation should not be fear, but hope. ... . We must be more caring about the wonderful place we live in... our unique home: Planet Earth. This music is both a shoutout to take care of our planet and a hymn to the beauty of this place. The composition is suited for stage as well as for the enjoyment in music school orchestral practice.

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: BR.PB-5432

World premiere of the orchestral version: Stuttgart, January 1, 2018World premiere of the piano version: Mito, June 17, 2017

Have a look into EB 9283.

ISBN 9790004212790. 10 x 12.5 inches.

Marche fatale is an incautiously daring escapade that may annoy the fans of my compositions more than my earlier works, many of which have prevailed only after scandals at their world premieres. My Marche fatale has, though, little stylistically to do with my previous compositional path; it presents itself without restraint, if not as a regression, then still as a recourse to those empty phrases to which modern civilization still clings in its daily utility music, whereas music in the 20th and 21st centuries has long since advanced to new, unfamiliar soundscapes and expressive possibilities. The key term is banality. As creators we despise it, we try to avoid it - though we are not safe from the cheap banal even within new aesthetic achievements.Many composers have incidentally accepted the banal. Mozart wrote Ein musikalischer Spass [A Musical Jape], a deliberately amateurishly miscarried sextet. Beethoven's Bagatellen op. 119 were rejected by the publisher on the grounds that few will believe that this minor work is by the famous Beethoven. Mauricio Kagel wrote, tongue in cheek, so to speak, Marsche, um den Sieg zu verfehlen [Marches for being Unvictorious], Ligeti wrote Hungarian Rock; in his Circus Polka Stravinsky quoted and distorted the famous, all too popular Schubert military march, composed at the time for piano duet. I myself do not know, though, whether I ought to rank my Marche fatale alongside these examples: I accept the humor in daily life, the more so as this daily life for some of us is not otherwise to be borne. In music, I mistrust it, considering myself all the closer to the profounder idea of cheerfulness having little to do with humor. However: Isn't a march with its compelling claim to a collectively martial or festive mood absurd, a priori? Is it even music at all? Can one march and at the same time listen? Eventually, I resolved to take the absurd seriously - perhaps bitterly seriously - as a debunking emblem of our civilization that is standing on the brink. The way - seemingly unstoppable - into the black hole of all debilitating demons: that can become serene. My old request of myself and my music-creating surroundings is to write a non-music, whence the familiar concept of music is repeatedly re-defined anew and differently, so that derailed here - perhaps? - in a treacherous way, the concert hall becomes the place of mind-opening adventures instead of a refuge in illusory security. How could that happen? The rest is - thinking.(Helmut Lachenmann, 2017)CD (Version for Piano):Nicolas Hodges CD Wergo WER 7393 2 Bibliography:Ich bin nicht ,,pietistisch verformt. Ein Gesprach [von Jan Brachmann] mit dem Komponisten Helmut Lachenmann, in: FAZ vom 7. Juni 2018, p. 15.

World premiere of the piano version: Mito/Japan, June 17, 2017, World premiere of the orchestral version: Stuttgart, January 1, 2018, World premiere of the ensemble version: Frankfurt, December 9, 2020.

SKU: AP.49898

ISBN 9781470657314. UPC: 038081575469. English.

Originally composed for piano as the final movement of African Suite, Danse begins with two introductory chords followed by energetic swinging rhythms and repeated angular melodies. Students will love the moods in this festive overture, evocative of later Broadway musicals. The artistic turning point of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's career happened in his twenties when he met the African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dunbar influenced the young composer to concentrate on his African heritage. Born in suburban London to Alice Martin, an Englishwoman and the daughter of a blacksmith, his father, Dr. Daniel Peter Hughes Taylor, was a Creole of Sierra Leone who qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) and returned to Africa before his son's birth. Called Coleridge by his family, he was raised in Croydon, Surrey, by his mother and her father, Benjamin Holmans, who taught him the violin. (3:00).

SKU: BR.EOS-20472-00

Today, it is hard to believe that Bedrich Smetana kept receiving rejections when he tried to get his enormously popular Moldau printed.

ISBN 9790004780008. 10 x 12.5 inches.

What is also amazing is that the first text-critical edition prepared by the Czech Smetana expert Milan Pospisil in 1999, which had entailed an exhaustive evaluation of the sources and been given a full text-critical editorial treatment as a Eulenburg study score, had no resonance of any kind among performers since no performance material had been published. After 15 years, Pospisils edition is finally being completed in a manner suitable for practice: with a conducting score and orchestral parts which will ensure that all future performances are based on a musical text that is as reliable as can be.

The work depicts the course of the river Vltava, beginning with its first two sources, the cold and warm Vltava, and the confluence of the two streams that join to form a single river; then the course of the Vltava through forests and meadows, and through open countryside where a peasant wedding is being celebrated; water-sprites dance by the light of the moon; on the nearby cliffs castles, mansions and ruins rise proudly into the air; the Vltava eddies in the St John's Rapids, then flows in a broad stream as it continues its course towards Prague, where the Vysehrad appears, before the river finally disappears into the distance as it flows majestically into the Elbe.

Vltava (The Moldau), Smetana's best-known and most frequently performed orchestral work, was written between 19 November and 8 December 1874, at a time when Smetana was already completely deaf. The world premiere took place in Prague on 4 April 1875, but the score was not published until 1880.