SKU: PR.46500013L

UPC: 680160600151. 11 x 14 inches.

I n 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clarks Corps of Discovery to find a water route to the Pacific and explore the uncharted West. He believed woolly mammoths, erupting volcanoes, and mountains of pure salt awaited them. What they found was no less mind-boggling: some 300 species unknown to science, nearly 50 Indian tribes, and the Rockies. I have been a student of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which Thomas Jefferson called the Voyage of Discovery, for as long as I can remember. This astonishing journey, lasting more than two-and-a-half years, began and ended in St. Louis, Missouri and took the travelers up more than a few rivers in their quest to find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. In an age without speedy communication, this was akin to space travel out of radio range in our own time: no one knew if, indeed, the party had even survived the voyage for more than a year. Most of them were soldiers. A few were French-Canadian voyageurs hired trappers and explorers, who were fluent in French (spoken extensively in the region, due to earlier explorers from France) and in some of the Indian languages they might encounter. One of the voyageurs, a man named Pierre Cruzatte, also happened to be a better-than-average fiddle player. In many respects, the travelers were completely on their own for supplies and survival, yet, incredibly, only one of them died during the voyage. Jefferson had outfitted them with food, weapons, medicine, and clothing and along with other trinkets, a box of 200 jaw harps to be used in trading with the Indians. Their trip was long, perilous to the point of near catastrophe, and arduous. The dream of a Northwest Passage proved ephemeral, but the northwestern quarter of the continent had finally been explored, mapped, and described to an anxious world. When the party returned to St. Louis in 1806, and with the Louisiana Purchase now part of the United States, they were greeted as national heroes. I have written a sizeable number of works for wind ensemble that draw their inspiration from the monumental spaces found in the American West. Four of them (Arches, The Yellowstone Fires, Glacier, and Zion) take their names, and in large part their being, from actual national parks in Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. But Upriver, although it found its voice (and its finale) in the magnificent Columbia Gorge in Oregon, is about a much larger region. This piece, like its brother works about the national parks, doesnt try to tell a story. Instead, it captures the flavor of a certain time, and of a grand adventure. Cast in one continuous movement and lasting close to fourteen minutes, the piece falls into several subsections, each with its own heading: The Dream (in which Jeffersons vision of a vast expanse of western land is opened); The Promise, a chorale that re-appears several times in the course of the piece and represents the seriousness of the presidential mission; The River; The Voyageurs; The River II ; Death and Disappointment; Return to the Voyage; and The River III . The music includes several quoted melodies, one of which is familiar to everyone as the ultimate river song, and which becomes the through-stream of the work. All of the quoted tunes were either sung by the men on the voyage, or played by Cruzattes fiddle. From various journals and diaries, we know the men found enjoyment and solace in music, and almost every night encampment had at least a bit of music in it. In addition to Cruzatte, there were two other members of the party who played the fiddle, and others made do with singing, or playing upon sticks, bones, the ever-present jaw harps, and boat horns. From Lewis journals, I found all the tunes used in Upriver: Shenandoah (still popular after more than 200 years), Vla bon vent, Soldiers Joy, Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier, Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy (a hymn sung to the tune Beech Spring) and Fishers Hornpipe. The work follows an emotional journey: not necessarily step-by-step with the Voyage of Discovery heroes, but a kind of grand arch. Beginning in the mists of history and myth, traversing peaks and valleys both real and emotional (and a solemn funeral scene), finding help from native people, and recalling their zeal upon finding the one great river that will, in fact, take them to the Pacific. When the men finally roar through the Columbia Gorge in their boats (a feat that even the Indians had not attempted), the magnificent river combines its theme with the chorale of Jeffersons Promise. The Dream is fulfilled: not quite the one Jefferson had imagined (there is no navigable water passage from the Missouri to the Pacific), but the dream of a continental destiny.

SKU: BT.DHP-1125277-130

9x12 inches. English-German-French-Dutch.

The Golden Pass is a rail line in the Swiss Alps that connects Montreux, located by Lake Geneva, to Lucerne, in central Switzerland. This composition echoes the thoughts and feelings of a passenger who watches the changing landscapes he observes on this journey: green meadows full of grazing cows and traditional chalets, beautiful mountain lakes, waterfalls and mountain tops, including the scenic Brüning Pass. Is this real or just a dream? We may never know!

De Golden Pass verwijst naar een prachtige reis per trein die vanuit Montreux aan het meer van Genève door de Zwitserse Alpen voert naar Luzern in Centraal-Zwitserland. Als een echo weerklinken de gevoelens van een passagier. Vol verrukking slaat hij het afwisselende landschap gade tijdens de reis: grazende koeien op sappige groene weides, traditionele chalets, fantastische bergmeren, watervallen en indrukwekkende bergtoppen, waaronder de Brüningpass. Is dit werkelijkheid of slechts een droom…?

Der Goldene Pass ist eine Panorama-Zuglinie, die durch die Schweizer Alpen von Montreux am Genfer See nach Luzern in der Zentralschweiz führt. Diese Komposition ist ein Echo der Seele eines Passagiers, der die abwechslungsreiche Landschaft während der Reise bewundert: weidende Kühe auf saftig grünen Wiesen, traditionelle Chalets, wunderschöne Bergseen, Wasserfälle und beeindruckende Berggipfel, darunter auch der Brüning-Pass. Ist dies Wirklichkeit oder Traum? Egal, reisen Sie einfach mit!

La Golden Pass est une ligne ferroviaire dans les Alpes suisses qui relie la ville de Montreux, située aux abords du lac Léman, Lucerne en Suisse centrale. Cette composition fait écho aux états d’ me d’un passager, admirant la diversité du paysage lors de son périple : les vertes prairies, les chalets pittoresques, les magnifiques lacs de montagne, les cascades et les sommets alpins. Est-ce réel ou s’agit-il d’un rêve ? Difficile de savoir...

La linea ferroviaria Golden Pass collega Montreux a Lucerna via Chateau-d’Oex, Gstaad e Interlaken. Un viaggio di 5 ore su vagoni panoramici attraverso i paesaggi più pittoreschi della Svizzera. Questa composizione fa eco allo stato d’animo di un passeggero che ammira la diversit del paesaggio: i vigneti a terrazza del lago di Ginevra, le distese di pascoli e foreste dell’Alto Gruyère, gli splendidi chalets del Saanenland, i laghi e le montagne. Si tratta di un sogno o della realt ? Difficile a dirsi….

SKU: HL.14030970

ISBN 9788759805725.

Work for Chamber dating from 1988. The composer writes: MINNEWATER means 'love water'/'love lake', but when I began to compose the work, this direct meaning of the title was not very important to me. Rather the word itself had a magical sound. Later on, however, it occurred to me that the piece was full of mumbling swells and swarming cascades, and the sensation of water is perhaps most perceptible towards the end where lots of falling water movements are felt behind the emphasized rhythmic surface. Falls that moreover, quite literally at the end, sinks into the water. MINNEWATER has a subtitle: THOUSANDS OF CANONS, which directly refers to a compostion technique where all layers and elements in the music constantly are imitated; possibly waves imitating each other? The mudded and impalpable beginning of the work takes its starting point in one of my earlier pieces, the sextett LES TUCHINS (in fact the first 5 or 6 pages of the two pieces are quite identical but in MINNEWATER it is all 'blown up' to a larger ensemble). Quite soon, however, the thread to LES TUCHINS is cut off and it goes its own way; From the mumbling in the start - through swarming trills and pointilistic staccato movements - to a long section where the trumpet appears as a soloist and in a way conducts the movements of the remaining ensemble right to the rhythmic final section of the piece. MINNEWATER was commissioned by the Danish Radio for the German Ensemble Modern.