SKU: CF.YAS13F

ISBN 9780825848339. UPC: 798408048334. 8.5 X 11 inches. Key: G major.

IApart from some of his Sonatinas, Opus 36, Clementi's life and music are hardly known to the piano teachers and students of today. For example, in addition to the above mentioned Sonatinas, Clementi wrote sixty sonatas for the piano, many of them unjustly neglected, although his friend Beethoven regarded some of them very highly. Clementi also wrote symphonies (some of which he arranged as piano sonatas), a substantial number of waltzes and other dances for the piano as well as sonatas and sonatinas for piano four-hands.In addition to composing, Clementi was a much sought after piano teacher, and included among his students John Field (Father of the 'Nocturne'), and Meyerbeer.In his later years, Clementi became a very successful music publisher, publishing among other works the first English edition of Beethoven's Violin Concerto, in the great composer's own arrangement for the piano, as well as some of his string quartets. Clementi was also one of the first English piano manufacturers to make pianos with a metal frame and string them with wire.The Sonatina in C, Opus 36, No. 1 was one of six such works Clementi wrote in 1797. He must have been partial to these little pieces (for which he also provided the fingerings), since they were reissued (without the fingering) by the composer shortly after 1801. About 1820, he issued ''the sixth edition, with considerable improvements by the author;· with fingerings added and several minor changes, among which were that many of them were written an octave higher.IIIt has often been said, generally by those unhampered by the facts, that composers of the past (and, dare we add, the present?), usually handled their financial affairs with their public and publishers with a poor sense of business acumen or common sense. As a result they frequently found themselves in financial straits.Contrary to popular opinion, this was the exception rather than the rule. With the exception of Mozart and perhaps a few other composers, the majority of composers then, as now, were quite successful in their dealings with the public and their publishers, as the following examples will show.It was not unusual for 18th- and 19th-century composers to arrange some of their more popular compositions for different combinations of instruments in order to increase their availability to a larger music-playing public. Telemann, in the introduction to his seventy-two cantatas for solo voice and one melody instrument (flute, oboe or violin, with the usual continua) Der Harmonische Gottesdienst, tor example, suggests that if a singer is not available to perform a cantata the voice part could be played by another instrument. And in the introduction to his Six Concertos and Six Suites for flute, violin and continua, he named four different instrumental combinations that could perform these pieces, and actually wrote out the notes for the different possibilities. Bach arranged his violin concertos for keyboard, and Beethoven not only arranged his Piano Sonata in E Major, Opus 14, No. 1 for string quartet, he also transposed it to the key of F. Brahm's well-known Quintet in F Minor for piano and strings was his own arrangement of his earlier sonata for two pianos, also in F Minor.IIIWe come now to Clementi. It is well known that some of his sixty piano sonatas were his own arrangements of some of his lost symphonies, and that some of his rondos for piano four-hands were originally the last movements of his solo sonatas or piano trios.In order to make the first movement of his delightful Sonatina in C, Opus 36, No. 1 accessible to young string players, I have followed the example established by the composer himself by arranging and transposing one of his piano compositions from one medium (the piano) to another. (string instruments). In order to simplify the work for young string players, in the process of adapting it to the new medium it was necessary to transpose it from the original key of C to G, thereby doing away with some of the difficulties they would have encountered in the original key. The first violin and cello parts are similar to the right- and left-hand parts of the original piano version. The few changes I have made in these parts have been for the convenience of the string players, but in no way do they change the nature of the music.Since the original implied a harmonic framework in many places, I have added a second violin and viola part in such a way that they not only have interesting music to play, but also fill in some of the implied harmony without in any way detracting from the composition's musical value. Occasionally, it has been necessary to raise or lower a few passages an octave or to modify others slightly to make them more accessible for young players.It is hoped that the musical value of the composition has not been too compromised, and that students and teachers will come to enjoy this little piece in its new setting as much as pianists have in the original one. This arrangement may also be performed by a solo string quartet. When performed by a string orchestra, the double bass part may be omitted.- Douglas TownsendString editing by Amy Rosen.

About Carl Fischer Young String Orchestra Series

This series of Grade 2/Grade 2.5 pieces is designed for second and third year ensembles. The pieces in this series are characterized by:
--Occasionally extending to third position
--Keys carefully considered for appropriate difficulty
--Addition of separate 2nd violin and viola parts
--Viola T.C. part included
--Increase in independence of parts over beginning levels

SKU: NR.94534

Trauermusik aus Zenobia, opus 194, Pastorale Ihr Hirten erwacht, opus 63, Märchen-Vorspiel, opus 177, Kaempevisa, opus 173, Aus Tausend und eine Nacht, opus 154, Frieden der Nacht, opus 75, Nordische Romanze, opus 47, Friedensmarsch aus Zenobia, opus 194, Weihnachtsabend, opus 46, Drosselmeyer's Uhrenlied, opus 46, Minuetto, opus 47, Ballettmusik aus Prinzessin Glückskind, opus 177.

SKU: BT.PWM4901

Concerto for String Orchestra - the magnum opus of Grayna Bacewicz (1909-1969), the outstanding composer and violinist - was composed in 1948 and at once became one of the most frequently performed works of this Polish artist. This masterpieceof neoclassicism fascinates as much by its invention and virtuosic briliance as its harmonious combination of formal elements of a traditional nature with new tonal ideas. The form of the three-movement Concerto oscillates between that of the baroqueconcerto grosso and the early classical sonata cycle. The neoclassical tendency is evident, above all, in the articulation of the musical structure in keeping with the rigours of periodicity and the manner of developing thematic threads derived fromthem, while the concertato character of particular movements and the generally linear texture indicate baroque connections. The first movement (Allegro) - in the form of an early classical sonata allegro - begins with a subject with energeticfigurations, emblematic for the whole piece and based on a constant, pendulum-like semiquaver movement anchored securely on D. It is precisely because of the nature of this subject that Bacewiczs work has been compared to the Brandenburg Concertosby Jan Sebastian Bach The second movement (Andante), while retaining its concertato charakter, is, at the same time, an example of the composers ability to create emotionally serene lyrical moods, and her sense of cantilena derived from the spiritof romantic song (a motto-subject presented at the beginning by cello solo). In this movement it is both the process of evolution and the instrumental colouring which constitute the constructional agents forming here a self-containedvalue. In thethird movement (Vivo) the composer returns to her favourite type of music, understood as an expression of pure motion in the form of figural motives with infinite transformational possibilities. The spontaneity of the music, the constant mutabilityof the tonal situations, and the sophisticated, acerbic harmonies - as Witold Lutosawski described them - form a colourful mosaic built in the structural skeleton of a sonata rondo. Concerto for String Orchestra is not only proof of thestylizing tendency of the composer but also of an unerring intuition concerning the technical and expressive possibilities inherent in a string instruments ensemble. [Magorzata Gsiorowska, translated by Ewa Cholewka].