SKU: HL.48025074

ISBN 9783793143147. UPC: 196288059721. 9.0x12.0x0.061 inches.

Russian Rag is one of Elena Kats-Chernins most famous pieces. It was arranged by her for various instrumentations and was used, among other things, as film music in the clay animation film Mary & Max. The composer herself says: Ragtimes are such fun to write and they have a somewhat dark melancholy. Russian music often has a melancholic quality, and I was brought up on Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. I rarely write in major keys it seems and Russian Rag is no exception, however it concludesoptimistically on a major chord..

SKU: HL.48025073

ISBN 9783793143123. UPC: 196288059714. 9.0x12.0x0.079 inches.

Composer's note: In 2000 I wrote a piece called Sand Waltz for the Canberra Wind Players. In the middle of it I wrote a four-chord progression. WhenI started working on the ballet Wild Swans (2003) I came back to this material and it became something that I grew to rather like. Eventually it became the basis for the overture to the whole ballet. It had somewhat dreamy quality but also a sense of anticipationand mystery. Later, when writing this as the first movement of the Concert Suite Wild Swans I gave it a title Green Leaf as it refected the way the princess Eliza was making a hole in a green leaf to look through it, imagining far-away exotic lands and birds..