SKU: PR.140401330

ISBN 9781491134412. UPC: 680160684939.

Nathaniel Dett was among America’s leading composers in the early 20th century, and MAGNOLIA SUITE is a beautiful example of his rich, hybrid style. Deeply inspired by the music and mission of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Dett’s piano music springs from the late Romantic traditions of florid texture and embellishment, along with programmatic titles and raw emotion. It is notable for melody writing inspired by and paraphrasing African-American song. The 18-minute MAGNOLIA SUITE contains five movements, any of which may also be performed separately. This edition by Lara Downes provides a clean, new engraving that corrects the many errors and unclear indications appearing in the historical printing.
Robert Nathaniel Dett was born in a place that was built on freedom. The little village of Drummondville, Ontario was founded by enslaved Africans – Dett’s ancestors among them – who traveled the Underground Railroad out of the American South into Canada. Their journey brought them to a safe haven, a place where fortunes and futures could be transformed in the span of one generation, to lives full of new possibilities. You could call it “the place where the rainbow ends,” which is the title of the last movement of Dett’s Magnolia Suite.When Dett wrote these pieces, he was a young teacher at Lane College in Tennessee, a historically Black college that had been founded in 1882, the year of his birth. A place built on freedom, with the purpose of educating newly-emancipated slaves – a place designed to nurture the blossoming of ideas, the vibrant flowering of minds set free. This music is inspired by the gorgeous splendor of the magnolia blooms on that college campus, and also by the shared histories, experiences, and aspirations of the community that Dett found there.These five pieces pay affectionate tribute to lineage and legacy. They express gratitude for the bittersweet beauties of the present; nostalgia for the past (a bit romanticized, as the past always is); and an effervescent optimism for the future that awaits us in the place where the rainbow ends.

SKU: HL.14010480

ISBN 9788759870082. Danish.

Esperanza - Eremitkrebs-Tango (1997) Hermit Crab Tango, Esperanza is part of Norgard's Animals in Concert, a suite of piano pieces, so far comprised of:  1. A Tortoise's Tango (1984) - dur.: 4'  2. Light of a Night - Paul meets bird (1989) - dur.: 6'  3. Hermit Crab Tango - Esperanza (1997) - dur.: 5'  The pieces can be performed together or one by one.  In the1980s, quite a few “finds” turned up in Per Norgard's music. The material could be, say, a number of song birds' equilibrist melodic lines, the overtones of the ocean surf, or waltzing themes by the schizophrenic artist Adolf Wolfli (1864-1930). Or again, as heard here, it can be the rhythms and motifs of the tango and a Beatles song (with bird), explored in three independent piano pieces that form the Animals in Concert suite, about which the composer writes:  Programme note for Animals in Concert:  1. A Tortoise's Tango (1984) - dur.: 4'  2. Light of a Night - Paul meets bird (1989) - dur.: 6'  3. Hermit Crab Tango - Esperanza (1997) - dur.: 5'  The pieces can be performed together or one by one.  In the1980s, quite a few “finds” turned up in Per Norgard's music. The material could be, say, a number of song birds' equilibrist melodic lines, the overtones of the ocean surf, or waltzing themes by the schizophrenic artist Adolf Wolfli (1864-1930). Or again, as heard here, it can be the rhythms and motifs of the tango and a Beatles song (with bird), explored in three independent piano pieces that form the Animals in Concert suite, about which the composer writes:  “A Tortoise's Tango”: The tortoise as tango dancer must presumably possess certain rhythmic peculiarities, which I have chosen to express by letting the tune of the tortoise shuffle broadly, tripartite through the strict four partite time of tango.  Tortoise Tango was the original title of this piece, “written for Achilles” (the pianist Yvar Mikhashoff), for his so called tango project”, including new tangos for piano by composers from all over the world.  “Light of a Night (Paul meets bird)” was commissioned by pianist Aki Takahashi. It is a “reworked” arrangement for piano of the Beatles song ”Blackbird”. As some of us will recall, the Beatles on “The White Album” let the beautiful song to the blackbird be accompanied by an (apparently) live blackbird song. It is this authentic bird-motif world that in “Light of a Night” weaves itself into the Beatles melody and in turn is gradually infected by it, so that a completely new third entity ensues: a kind of Bird-rock ballad (or maybe it is a Beatle-bird?).  “Hermit Crab Tango (Esperanza)”: The tango situation is quite special for a Hermit Crab. It is a well-known fact that the hermit crab - this soft animal - must run the gauntlet among the many perils at the bottom of the sea when it must move hose. I have chosen to express the angers by a.