SKU: IS.PN6534EM

ISBN 9790365065349.

Charles Camilleri (1931 - 2009) was a Maltese composer. As a teenager, he composed a number of works based on folk music and legends of his native Malta. He moved from his early influences by Maltese folk music to a musical form in which nothing is fixed and his compositions evolve from themselves with a sense of fluency and inevitability. He composed over 100 works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, voice and solo instruments. Camilleri's work has been performed throughout the world and his research of folk music and improvisation, the influences of the sounds of Africa and Asia, together with the academic study of European music, helped him create a universal style. Camilleri is recognized in Malta as one of the major composers of his generation. He died on 3 January 2009 at the age of 77. His funeral took place two days later at Naxxar, his long-time town of residence. Flags across Malta were flown at half-mast in tribute to him.

SKU: BT.EMBZ1764

English-German-Hungarian.

'In August [Bartók] heard the fifty-year-old Áron Balogh playing the peasant flute in Gyergyóteker patak in Cs k district. He arranged three songs under the title From Gyergyó, for tilinkó [peasant flute] and piano, and the piano transcription of this occasional composition presented to Stefi Geyer as 'Three Hungarian Folksongs from the Cs k District'. In all three versions Bartók retained the rich ornamentation of the flute version, and added a modal accompaniment to the melodies in a church mode. After the first two rubato melodies, notated in alternating time signatures, he concluded with a melody in strict 'giusto' rhythm. It is in this latter that the pentatonic skeletonbeneath the diatonic surface can best be felt. Bartók notated the pentatonic vocal version of this melody on this same field trip, and arranged it in the series 'Eight Hungarian Folksongs'.' (HCD 32524 Bartók New Series Vol. 24, István G. Németh).

SKU: HL.14020312

ISBN 9781844492619. 9.75x13.75x0.113 inches.

Stuart MacRae's Piano Sonata was commissioned by the City Music Society and first performed by Philip Fowke at a City Music Society lunchtime concert on 27 October 1998. The composer writes: 'By the time I started writing the Piano Sonata in 1998 I had been thinking for a while about the possibilities of making works out of two separate parts which would balance one another. In order for this to be effective the two parts would have to be more or less self-sufficient, and have their own internal balance: in fact the first movement has been performed several times as a piece in its own right; the second movement has its own material until near the end when a sort of coda mixes the material from the two movements (albeit inconclusively).'.

SKU: ST.C463

ISBN 9790570814633.

This volume contains contrasting works by Federico Ruiz spanning quite a large and rich period of his compositional output that goes from his early Micro-Suite (1971), to lilting, sweet and rhythmic Venezuelan waltzes passing by the mysterious, intimate, and intense Nocturno (1994) plus pieces originally composed for film, and theatre. Real eclecticism in styles, moods and atmospheres that show Ruizâ??s talents and scope.

The Nocturno is a deep, intriguing, substantial piece presenting a satisfying length which moves from different paths of the mind and the heart written in an abstract, chromatic idiom, that does not dissociate itself from the Venezuelan waltz and the joropo. One could perhaps say that there is a deconstruction of the latter. For the interpretation, the composer has suggested to me that it is allowed to have some flexibility in the tempo. Ruiz kindly dedicated it to me, and I have had the pleasure of performing it in many concerts.

Although all highly expressive, the Three Venezuelan Waltzes present in this collection as well as the piece titled Aliseo, are works that are close to the colourful Venezuelan folk tradition. Federico Ruiz had given me two of them when we first met: â??Tu Presenciaâ?? (1981) and â??Eloísaâ?? (1989) and then I attended a performance of the play â??Office Number Oneâ?? by Miguel Otero Silva with a fantastic actor, Elba Escobar in the role of Carmen Rosa and, I just fell in love and was very moved by the incidental music that I later discovered, by reading the programme, had been written by Federico Ruiz. Later that evening, I called him and asked to please make a piano score of the composition, so I could have the desired piece in my hands. That is how â??Carmen Rosaâ? waltz (1987) came to exist in a piano version.

â??Eloisaâ?? is another Venezuelan waltz with more jazzy harmonies where precision in the rhythm and elegant playing is also essential, as it is in most of his pieces.

â??Tu Presenciaâ?? was dedicated to his mother, Margarita. It is written with the structure of the Venezuelan waltz, which consists of a nostalgic subject that leads to a faster, happier middle section where the typical graceful rhythm is given by the left-hand accompaniment figure of a dotted crotchet followed by a quaver and a crotchet.

The craft and magic found in the five movements of the Micro-Suite is based on a dodecaphonic row by Ernst Krenek. They remind us of the idiom of the Second Viennese School. These real miniatures seem to tell short stories. The â??Preludioâ?? is full of humour. I imagine dancing figures given by the jumps all over the keyboard and extreme dynamics; the phrases give the impression of a conversation with many questions and answers. The â??Invenciónâ?? is a kaleidoscopic piece where the hands mirror each other. The â??Passacagliaâ?? is the longest movement, at just over a minute where the prime motif is repeated three times on the bass line. For its construction Federico Ruiz uses as well the retrograde and the retrograde inversion of the twelve-tone series. It must be played expressively with dynamic contrasts between pianissimo and louder events. The â??Scherzoâ?? has repetitive motifs of a minor third in both hands and the â??Finalâ?? displays virtuosic passages for the pianist.

Aliseo was originally written for the film â??Aire libreâ? (1995), by Luis Armando Roche. It contains elements of diverse types of Venezuelan joropo. In the film, the character of Aliseo Carvallo is played by the composer himself who performs this piece on a harpsichord to welcome scientists Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland one day at the turn of the 1800â??s, as a sample of the new music from the South American land. It presents the refinement of the late European classical era in fusion with Venezuelan folk music.