SKU: BT.EMBZ13548
At first sight, this publication appears to merely be a collection of pieces due to the lack of drier technical studies that are characteristic of tutors. Yet the selection of the works, their order according to the development of ensemble playing, and the advice towards technical realization included after the foreword - these all make this publication a tutor. The works form a cross-section of a longer period of the history of chamber music and offer an insight into the different methods of composition.Volume I contains easy chamber music from the Renaissance to Viennese Classicism for two violins and cello, in the first position. (In some works the 2nd violin part or others thecello part, respectively, can also be played on the viola.) The easier pieces can be played after two years of active instrumental study.
SKU: FG.55011-372-5
ISBN 9790550113725.
Images of the sea figure prominently throughout my life and memories: from holidays on the Atlantic coast during my Canadian childhood to my current Baltic home, and the imagined, only later experienced Mediterranean of my ancestral heritage. As an immigrant (son of an immigrant) bound to two northern countries, the sea is emblematic of my twin homelands, from the expanses of water surrounding them to those separating them. A Mari usque ad Mare. The sea is also an enduring image of the unknown, of expanses unexplored, of the raw power of nature and, for too many currently, of terror holding a hope of refuge - or the pain of loss. Such disparate ideas were captured for me in the seascapes of the New York painter MaryBeth Thielhelm, whom I met in 2008 during a residency on the Gulf of Mexico. Her vast, abstract, nearly monochromatic depictions of imaginary seas in wildly varying moods were the catalyst for a concerto where the piano is frequently far from a hero battling a collective, but rather acts as a channel for elemental forces surging up from the orchestra, floating - sometimes barely so - on its constantly shifting surface. There are few themes to speak of, beyond a handful of iconic ideas that periodically cycle upward. Rather, the piano's material is largely an ornamentation of the more primal rhythmic and harmonic impulses from the orchestra below - a poetic interpretation, if you will, of the more immediate experience of facing the vastness of some unknown body of water. The title Nameless Seas is borrowed from one of Thielhelm's exhibitions, as are those of the four movements, which are bridged together into two halves of roughly equal weight - one rhapsodic and free, the other more single-minded and direct, separated only by a short breath. The opening movement, Nocturne, is predominantly calm, if brooding, darkness and light alternating throughout. Lyrical arabesques sparkle over gently lapping cross-currents in the strings and mirrored timpani, the piano's full power only rarely deployed. The waves gradually build, drawing in the full orchestra for a meeting of forces in Land and Sea, a brighter, more warmly lyrical scene that unfolds in series of dreamlike, sometimes even nostalgic visions, which for me carry strong memories of sitting on rocks above surging Atlantic waves. The third movement, Wake, is a fast, perpetual-motion texture of glinting, darting rhythms and sudden shafts of light, with a prominent part for the steel drums, limning the piano's quicksilver figurations. An ecstatic climax crashes into a solo cadenza that grows progressively calmer and more introspective rather than virtuosic. Much of the tension finally releases into Unclaimed Waters, a drifting, meditative seascape in which the piano is progressively engulfed by a series of ever-taller waves, ultimately dissolving into a tolling, rippling continuum of sound. It has been a great privilege to realize such a long-held dream as this piece, and to write it for not one, but two great pianists. Risto-Matti Marin and Angela Hewitt, both of whose friendship and support have been unfailing and humbling, share the dedication. Nameless Seas was commissioned by the PianoEspoo festival and Canada's National Arts Centre, with the premieres in Ottawa and Helsinki led by Hannu Lintu and Olari Elts. Thanks are due also to the Jenny and Antti Wihuri fund, whose generous grant provided me with much-needed time, and Escape to Create in Seaside, Florida, the source to which I returned to do a large part of the work.
SKU: HL.14030961
ISBN 9788759857458. English.
Score of the Danish Composer's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra written in 1996. Bent Sorensen writes: 'The title of this piano concerto came, as usual, very early to me, when my thoughts about the work had started to circulate, but before 'real' music was written down. I held on to the Italian title, even though its association with Vivaldi had no influence on my music, and even when German, French, English, and Danish titles covering almost the same content -'Nachtmusik', 'Nocturne', 'By Night', 'Om Natten', were just about to get the upper hand. The piano concerto has, then, in my opinion, something to do with night, but to describe this further is at least as difficult to me as it is to defend the final Italian title against those which were rejected. The Piano Concerto is in two movements. The first, swarming, is perhaps the mystery of the night, and the second perhaps the dreams of the night; with this, however, I have already given the concerto a more programmatic content than I can defend. Each movement ends with a cadenza and perhaps the last of those - the ending of the work that is - is inspired by a sequence from Bruce Chatwin's wonderful book 'The Viceroy of Ouidah': Or the Amazons howling. 'No, No, No. It was not the leopard that killed him. Not the buffalo that killed him. It was night. Night that killed him!'.
SKU: SA.41762
ISBN 9781608741762. 9.5 x 12.5 inches.
Composed in the late summer of 1876, Dvorak's first effort at a full-blown concerto shows signs of an unusual amount of revision in the composer's hand - especially for the solo piano part. This might explain the delay in the concerto's premiere, which was given at the Provisional Theatre in Prague on March 24, 1878 with Karel Slavkovsky as soloist accompanied by the Provisional Theatre Orchestra under the baton of Adolf Cech. The composer himself wrote: I see I am unable to write a Concerto for a virtuoso; I must think of other things. The ungainly solo part no doubt also played a role in the work's dely in publication, which didn't take place until 1883. Even after this, and despite much beauty in the music itself, performances were scarce due to the difficulty and charchter of the solo part. The solo part was revised heavily by the Czech pianist Vilem Kurz (1872-1945), whose version was premired by his daughter Ilona KurzovA! and the Czech Philharmonic on December 9, 1919 and is the one most often performed today. This new study score is a digitally enhanced reissue of the full score first published in 1956 by the Czech State Publishers as part of the Dvorak collected works, edited by Jiri Berkovec and Karel Solc, which includes both the composer's original solo part and the re-arranged one made by Kurz. Unlike so many of the on-demand scores now available, this one comes with all the pages and the images have been thoroughly checked to make sure it is readable. As with all PLP scores a percentage of each sale is donated to the amazing online archive of free music scores and recordings, IMSLP - Petrucci Music Library.
SKU: BR.PB-15160
ISBN 9790004215654. 10 x 12.5 inches.
Paganini's Capricci served as inspiration for many composers. In addition to Brahms, Schumann and Liszt, Rachmaninoff was also inspired by the idea. His Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini has since become one of his best known and most popular works and was an immediate success. In 1934, between two intense concert seasons, Rachmaninoff took advantage of the peace and quiet at his villa on Lake Lucerne to compose the Variations. Paganini's virtuosity and joy of playing are juxtaposed with the Gregorian sequence Dies irae. A symbol of the evil spirit to which Paganini sold his soul? At least that is how Rachmaninoff wrote it in a letter to the choreographer Fokine. For the demanding piano part, the composer and celebrated pianist himself had to start practicing very early: The composition is very difficult, and I should really start practicing now, but I get lazier with my finger exercises year after year.The editor, Norbert Gertsch, presents with this edition for the first time an Urtext edition of the work that Joachim Kaiser described as Rachmaninoff's most spiritual, witty, elegant work for piano..
SKU: BR.EB-10859
ISBN 9790201808598. 9.5 x 12 inches.
After achieving sensational success with the musical Lady, be good! , with evergreens such as Fascinating Rhythm and The Man I love, as well as with his Rhapsody in Blue , Gershwin premiered his Concerto in F for piano and orchestra as a soloist at Carnegie Hall in 1925. Now, the new superstar of Broadway had also arrived at the center of New York's classical music scene. In its eventful history, the work went through numerous changes, cuttings, arrangements, many of which doubtful and unauthorized. Even the first and so far only printed orchestral score, edited by Frank Campbell-Watson, published in 1942 five years after Gershwin's death, contains many unauthorized interventions. Through years of research, editor Norbert Gertsch has succeeded in ridding the work of all unauthorized additions and alterations and thus reconstructing an Urtext in its original literal sense from the complex source material - from autograph sketches to early recordings. The first text-critical edition of the work is a joint production of Breitkopf (score/orchestral parts) and G. Henle Verlag (piano reduction).
SKU: BR.PB-15140
ISBN 9790004214763. 10 x 12.5 inches.
After achieving sensational success with the musical Lady, be good!, with evergreens such as Fascinating Rhythm and The Man I love, as well as with his Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin premiered his Concerto in F for piano and orchestra as a soloist at Carnegie Hall in 1925. Now, the new superstar of Broadway had also arrived at the center of New York's classical music scene. In its eventful history, the work went through numerous changes, cuttings, arrangements, many of which doubtful and unauthorized. Even the first and so far only printed orchestral score, edited by Frank Campbell-Watson, published in 1942 five years after Gershwin's death, contains many unauthorized interventions. Through years of research, editor Norbert Gertsch has succeeded in ridding the work of all unauthorized additions and alterations and thus reconstructing an Urtext in its original literal sense from the complex source material - from autograph sketches to early recordings. The first text-critical edition of the work is a joint production of Breitkopf (score/orchestral parts) and G. Henle Verlag (piano reduction).
SKU: BR.EB-11450
In Cooperation with G. Henle Verlag
ISBN 9790201814506. 9.5 x 12 inches.
Composed by Manuel de Falla during his lengthy residence in Paris, these three symphonic impressions for piano and orchestra are an expressive work bringing the southern Spanish gardens, which are laid out in the European and Arabic-Moorish tradition, to life. The influence of contemporary French music is noticeable in this composition. Despite many modifications, involving among other things, the scoring, number of movements, as well as layout and content, the basic idea of a nocturnal impression is retained from the outset. The work was finished - and likewise the orchestral material - only shortly before its premiere on 9 April 1916, which was a great success. World War I prevented its publication, though further performances followed, played then from manuscript material. The Urtext edition presented by Ullrich Scheideler takes as the main source the first edition of the score. The Critical Report gives detailed information about the source situation.
SKU: BR.PB-15153
ISBN 9790004215586. 10 x 12.5 inches.
