SKU: BO.B.3542

Staeliana was commissioned by the Fundacio Caixa de Catalunya in 2007 for the inauguration of an exposition of the work of Nicolas Staël at La Pedrera, Barcelona. In this work I wanted to compose homage to a painter who knew how to join together in his unique works both the traditions of the past along with the vanguard of his time. Beginning with figurative works which lead toward abstraction, his body of work can be defined as a contrast between these two concepts which, with extreme simplicity, define his entire artistic conception. Staeliana, an expressive chorale, at times both luminous and dramatic, dissolves into the most minimal expression. From the first joining together of the voices it concludes with utter simplicity of expression. The suicide of the artist in 1955 is representative of the dissolution of his existence as well as of his artistic works. This contrast between figurative and abstraction is reflected in the music by the contrast between stability and tension. I believe that this duality may be found both in his work and in his life, always oscillating between living a creative life or opting for death, which may be seen as a fusion in nothingness with the plenitude of purest simplicity.

SKU: FG.55011-874-4

Tiina Myllärinen's (b. 1979) (Bad) Dreams come true for strings quartet (2022) was composed when war broke out in Europe. The composer tells: The shock, and the daily news barrage of battles could not help making an impression on my work and its material. I wondered what dreams and plans people had in Ukraine before the war, and how everything became a nightmare in a single night. Terror, fear and tension found their way into the work, along with memories of life in the past and dreams of a different future. The work is dedicated to the people of Ukraine; to the dreams that will hopefully soon come true.

This product includes the full score and a set of parts.

Tiina Myllärinen’s music has been described as cheerfully inquisitive, vigorous and original. Her works include Squarcio for ensemble, the orchestral what? (2010) and Traces (2013, commissioned by the Pro Musica Foundation and premiered at the Helsinki Music Centre on 5 June 2014) and Three Songs for voice, guitar and cello (2007).

SKU: ST.Y296

ISBN 9790220223525.

Nature and landscape have been the dominant themes of much of Rhian Samuel's vocal music of the last ten years, projected chiefly through the poetry of Anne Stevenson, and in her most recent song-settings, the writings of the Pakistan-born Texas-based poet Zulfikar Ghose. His poem 'Conspiracy of the Clouds' describes how, the clouds having chosen to become invisible, 'Even the astronauts on the space shuttle / looked down on a cloudless America' as hurricanes ravage Louisiana and storms engulf Nebraska. An intriguing conceit in the tradition of magic realism, the text is presented as a scena lasting around 16 minutes, with interpolations from 'Haze' by the nineteenth-century New England transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. Thus modern fable and romantic nature-description are juxtaposed, and their interaction becomes the source of musical contrasts too. Thoreau's words are assigned predominantly to the vocalist's highest register, those of Ghose to her lower tessitura; and the suggestive and dramatic accompaniment builds tension steadily to the final ironic response of an incredulous American public: not one of awe and wonder, but the question 'Why weren't we told about it?

SKU: FG.55011-775-4

ISBN 9790550117754.

Alex Freeman found initial inspiration for his string quartet (2015) in a series of photographs a geologist friend showed him of en échelon veins in rock formations. The open strings punctuated with pizzicato unisons that begin the single-movement work call to mind something crystalline and shimmering, which is immediately infused with tumbling lyrical lines in something of a rapid caccia technique throughout. The middle of the work becomes more suspended in slower material loosely based on a technique of prolation canon, comprises layers of free, expressive, lyrical, and even elegiac music moving at different speeds. As the work concludes, the materials converge in a rhythmically pulsating stasis and an almost chorale-like statement.

Duration: c. 13'

This product includes the score and the parts (A4 sized).


American-Finnish composer Alex Freeman (b.1972) has established himself among the foremost composers of choral music in Finland. A dedicated citizen of his musical community, a teacher, and a choral singer himself, he composes music that reflects an appreciation for a wide range of aesthetics and a passion for communicating with listeners and performers. In his choral works, in particular, we find music that aims to be sonorous, melodic, and resonant, but is always crafted to carefully avoid the cliches that can burden conventional tonality.

His instrumental works run the gamut: a cantata with orchestra based on poetry of Whitman; a significant body of solo piano works that reveal deep roots in everything from austere absolute music to soaring elegaic rhetoric (see Albany Records, Inner Voice); his chamber work Blueshift (Navona Records), which is a kind of paean to Reich and Adams in miniature; open-ended modular works, like various iterations of his Slow All Clocks for electronic media, solo clarinet, and mixed choirs of kanteles; and, recently, some new directions in microtonal music.

SKU: BR.EB-9271

ISBN 9790004185711. 0 x 0 inches.

I fell in love with the remarkable singing of the Tenores di Bitti on hearing their recordings as a student. Their uniquely intense vocal timbre, their harmony, which seemed pure and rough at once, and the sense that this music was, at root, not so much about performance as simply being together in the world, in a community of spirit. At the time, I had no intention of using this music to my own creative ends, but now, here we are: Sardinian Songbook is the second in a cycle of works for the Ligeti Quartet, all based on transcriptions of music from different throat-singing traditions. Like string quartets, the tenores usually sing in groups of four voices, but being free from instruments they stand very close together enabling the resonances of their voices to blend and interact in a special way. The quartet, of course, can only sit so close before their bows clash, so I have chosen instead to reflect this physical closeness inversely, by getting the players to stand increasingly far from one another as the piece progresses. In so doing, the initial state of sonic blend gives way to hocketing lines, opening up the sense of space.Christian Mason, 2018 The four movements may be played separately or as a collection. If played together the following order should be observed (see table of contents).

World premiere: Sheffield/UK, Firth Hall, April 14, 2018, Commissioned by Ligeti Quartet.