SKU: HL.48024663

ISBN 9783793142171. UPC: 888680951511. 9.0x12.0x2.92 inches.

Jacques Offenbach's more than 100 stage works are an endless treasure trove of vocal highlights with highly different musical moods and lyrical themes. To mark the 200th birthday of the great composer in 2019, which is at the same time the year of the 20th anniversary of the Offenbach Edition Keck OEK, the editor and Offenbach expert Jean-Christophe Keck has assembled a selection of arias. The four-part collection arranged according to voice category shows a rather unknown, romantic side of Offenbach. Apart from rediscovered works and first editions, however, the collection is not complete without some of his unrivalled hits. Among the characters figuring in the soprano volume are not only title figures like the Beautiful Helen, the Grand Duchess of Gerolstein or the Princess of Trébizonde but also figures from more serious operas: Armgard from Les Fées du Rhin or Elsbeth from Fantasio. The volume presents stage works, including excerpts from Barkouf, Les Bergers or Le Roi Carotte, that are accessible for performances only as of recently. Romantic Offenbach is aimed at fully trained and budding professionals as well as at Offenbach fans of every shade and colour, providing repertoire pieces for recitals, studies or private music-making.

SKU: HL.49046394

ISBN 9781540086570. UPC: 840126910186. 9.0x12.0 inches.

In 2010 I lived in Rome as a Villa Massimo scholarship holder. During my time there I came across a few poems by Michelangelo that touched me a lot and soon had the plan to set some of them to music. But I wanted to combine it with something contemporary - just like in Rome the old and the new always meet. The poet Marcel Beyer, whom I met in Rome, then wrote the cycle of poems Die Grillmeisterin for me, which takes up many motifs from the Michelangelo texts (fire, tears, getting burned, loneliness, etc.). I then alternately combined this cycle of poems with the Michelangelo poems. The Italian songs have a sometimes melancholy, sometimes dramatic character, while the German songs are rather bizarre, sometimes even humorous. Despite these contrasts in character, there are also many musical connections between the German and Italian songs. Individual motifs and chord sequences sometimes return in completely different contexts, and there is even a direct connection between the first and last song, in that the same vocal line is underlaid with a completely different text. This creates a musical framework that holds the very heterogeneous selection of texts together. -Anno Schreier.

SKU: PR.111403210

UPC: 680160687947.

With an original text by the composer, Nkeiru Okoye’s WE MET AT THE SYMPHONY is a monodrama in three songs for soprano and string quartet or piano. The songs tell the story of a Black woman surprised to find a Black man in the sea of white faces at an orchestra concert, their subsequent romance, and her struggle to trust another Black man after betrayal and heartbreak. Okoye’s poignant, insightful, and sharp-witted poetry is set to dramatic and striking music that blends sensibilities from jazz, Broadway, and contemporary classical styles, with an unforgettable solo role for the soprano.

SKU: HL.49033271

ISBN 9790001136877. 9.0x12.0x0.088 inches. German.

Kafka's ouvre is interspersed with moments of utter anxiety. Moments in which, induced by adrenalin, the blood pressure rises. Blood vessels which seem to constrict, pump enormous quantities of blood the pressure of which might make one believe that the head is going to explode. In The Judgment, an innocent opening story leads to one of the most unusual showdowns in world literature: The beloved father sentences his son to death by drowning; the son immediately obeys since his life, his existence almost explodes, becomes blurred, dissolves at the moment the judgment is pronounced. For me, the 'self' driving him - I imagine this as a high sound in the inner ear - could only be a soprano. This is why the actual 'fall' has turned out to be clear, almost friendly and why Georg only seems to want to breathe a soft and quiet 'Dear parents, I have always loved you' during the fall while no longer keeping the singing tone, shortly before death, almost casually, takes hold of him. Christian Jost.