By John Pitts. For Recorder, Piano, Vocal and Guitar (with Chord Symbols). Education, Children. Sheet Music. 52 pages. Published by Music Sales.

Recorder and Piano - Advanced

SKU: FP.FDD02

Composed by David Dubery. Sheet Music and Books. An evocative piece for treble recorder or oboe and piano inspired by two historic Stockport landmarks. Classical. Collection. Forsyths Publications #FDD02. Published by Forsyths Publications (FP.FDD02).

ISBN 9790570503834.

Vernon Park, Stockport’s oldest park, was created on land donated by Lord Vernon (George John Warren). It was built by poor mill workers who called it pinch-belly park and opened on 20th September 1858. Comprising twenty-one acres, it houses a museum, a bandstand, ornamental fountains, a fernery, rockery, borders and sunken rose garden as well terraced walkways that overlook the river and weir. The piece depicts a solitary walker engrossed in his own thoughts on a winter’s day, the landscape, and the park’s Victorian past.

At the very end of the piece a reminder of the park’s Victorian origins can be detected in a quote from Elgar’s Salut d’amour of 1899, which may well have been played by a band in the bandstand. Stockport market celebrated its 750th anniversary in 2010. It dated back to September 1260 when a Royal Charter allowed Robert de Stokeport, the Mayor, to hold a weekly market within the defensive walls of the Norman Castle on the present site of Castle Yard.

The Glass Umbrella was a popular name given to the 1861 covered market built of timber, glass and iron - nine bays with open sides and a glass canopy. In 1912, one bay was removed to enable electric trams and trolley buses to turn a sharp corner.

The piece depicts a lively market day, the multiculturalism of the present day and the old cries of pick and pay without delay. The bells of St Mary’s Church are depicted by a cascading peel tuned to the ten bells of the church tower, and a fleeting reference to John Wainwright’s famous Christmas hymn Christians Awake, and the Westminster chimes striking the hour from St Mary’s, bring to piece to a conclusion. Separate parts are provided for recorder and oboe.

Recorder and Piano - Intermediate-Advanced

SKU: FP.FZZ26

Composed by Various. Edited by John Turner. Sheet Music and Books. This fourth volume in the Forsyth series of Recital Pieces for recorder and piano provides 8 superb concert pieces for the intermediate to advanced recorder player. Edited by recorder virtuosi John Turner, it includes works by Jim Parker and Peter Hope. N. Classical. Collection. Forsyths Publications #FZZ26. Published by Forsyths Publications (FP.FZZ26).

ISBN 9790570504046.

This new collection is bookended by beguiling and moderately easy works by two of Britain’s most distinguished composers of light music, Peter Hope and Jim Parker, whose music has been heard by millions of listeners and viewers. Sandwiched between these are several no less attractive concert pieces, including an evocation of the night sky in East Anglia, a gentle meditative view from a college window, and some finger-testing sparklers to entertain and test the virtuoso player’s technique.

Recorder and Piano - Intermediate

SKU: FP.FBM04

Composed by Martin Bussey. Sheet Music and Books. This fresh and appealing work lives up to its name. Particularly diverting is the finale, a hornpipe subtitled The Knotted Sailor, in which the nifty performers have to negotiate frequent and teasing changes of rhythm at speed. Classical. Collection. Forsyths Publications #FBM04. Published by Forsyths Publications (FP.FBM04).

ISBN 9790570504077.

The opening movement is a free fantasia, contrasting with the middle movement, a scherzetto, in homage to, and based on the letters of the name of, the composer Douglas Steele, an assistant to Sir Thomas Beecham and a founding father of Chethams School, and which quotes from Steele’s beautiful carol The Snow Falls.
Divertimento was first performed by John Turner and Janet Simpson at a concert in aid of the Peter Cunningham Memorial Fund at Mellor Church on 17th January 2005. It uses both treble and descant instruments. The second movement was originally composed for a concert in Manchester Cathedral in memory of Douglas Steele, one of the founding fathers of Chetham's School, and quotes (by kind permission of Forsyth Brothers Ltd.), from his well-known carol The Snow Falls. It has been separately recorded by John Turner and Stephen Hough on Autumn Sequence – the music of Douglas Steele and his Circle (Campion Cameo 2040/41).
Martin Bussey was born in London in 1958. He was a Choral Scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, during which time he studied composition with Robin Holloway. Following postgraduate singing study at the RNCM he settled in Manchester and held a number of posts, including Head of Academic Music and Director of Choirs at Chetham’s School of Music until 2013. He continues as Musical Director of the Chester Bach Singers, a Vocal Tutor at Manchester University, Chairman of the Finzi Friends and a Director of the Ludlow Song Weekend. Compositions include the highly successful monodrama about Mary I, Mary’s Hand, premiered in 2018; a significant collection of solo songs which includes settings of Housman, Hardy, and Walt Whitman, many recorded on the disc Through a glass; and much choral music, recorded by Sonoro under Neil Ferris in 2019.