Grade 3?4This piece combines the simple elegant thematic material of the Elizabethan church composer Tallis expanded and modernized through the luxurious harmonies of Vaughan Williams. Jamin Hoffman\'s lush settingis adapted and re-scored from the original version for two string orchestras plus solo quartet. Fantasia was used with great effect in the recent film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Dur: 2:30

A magnificent suite written in 1987 by Eric Wetherell for String Orchestra. The first movement is based on the sea shanty Santiano hinting at the danger as well as the romance of life at sea. The second is a gentle waltz; perhaps the eighteenth century sailor putting into port found an opportunity to show his gentler side. The Polish folk-song River Wisla is the theme of the third movement and the finale is a fast 6/8 firmly rooted in the English musical tradition.

Heard in the final scenes of “Master and Commander: Far Side of the World ” this masterwork by Boccherini provides a lighthearted musical picture of a typical night in Spain's largest city including the posting of thenight watch the uncertain steps of the late-night revelers returning home and the changing of the guard at dawn. Dur: 10:25

With past commissions by groups such as the Baltimore and Miami Symphony Orchestras Brian Balmages now turns to a lighter side with this fun-spirited fiddle tune. Your students and audience will feel like part of a live hoedown as they get into the music and even stomp and clap to add to the authentic experience. Lots of fun!

Work for Solo Cello and Orchestral Cello Section. Premiered by Yo Yo Ma.Quoting Tavener: It was while pondering these traditional dicta that I began to write the opening solo melody for the cello. It is in fact a palindromebecause waking and dying are like two sides of a piece of paper. If you wake up spiritually then you will die to all that is not of God. In the middle section which is also a palindrome the orchestral cellos join in theparadoxical meditation providing a platform as it were while the cello line takes on a much more melismatic and decorative character.In fact the whole work is a series of intellectual contradictions realised by thesimplest of musical metaphysics. Dying life life dying waking up in order to die the solo cello always represents the individual mind dying and the individual mind waking up.Then of a sudden just before the end thesolo chant begins again only to be cut off by a distant sentimental memory the memory of 'the blues' reminding us of ordinary human emotion and of our fallen state. The very end suggests a waking up into a kind of peace (notsoul slumber since after death the soul becomes more intensely alive); but we know nothing of that so the music fades beyond our ears.