SKU: PR.41641512L

UPC: 680160621323.

This movement is, in turns, both lighthearted and serious. The music depicts a young, naive Pandora who, while dancing around her house, spies a mysterious box. She tries to resist opening it, but her curiosity ultimately gets the best of her. When she cracks the lid open and looks inside, all evils escape into the world. Dismayed by what she has done, she looks inside the box once more. She discovers hope still in the box and releases it to temper the escaped evils and assuage mankind's new burden.
This movement is, in turns, both lighthearted and serious. The music depicts a young, naïve Pandora who, while dancing around her house, spies a mysterious box. She tries to resist opening it, but her curiosity ultimately gets the best of her. When she cracks the lid open and looks inside, all evils escape into the world. Dismayed by what she has done, she looks inside the box once more. She discovers hope still in the box and releases it to temper the escaped evils and assuage mankind's new burden.

SKU: PR.41541156L

UPC: 680160642953. 11 x 17 inches.

The Mythology Suite consists of three movements of my Mythology Symphony, which I arranged for large wind ensemble. The arrangements of The Lovely Sirens and Penelope Waits were commissioned by James Ripley and Carthage College for the Carthage Wind Orchestra's 2017 Japan tour. I added Pandora Undone to complete the set; Stephen Squires and the Chicago College of Performing Arts gave the premiere of the entire Suite in February 2017. Movement 1: The Lovely Sirens The Sirens were sea nymphs, usually pictured as part woman and part bird, who lived on a secluded island surrounded by rocks. Their enchanting song was irresistible to passing sailors, who were lured to their deaths as their ships were destroyed upon the rocks. The Lovely Sirens presents three ideas: the Sirens' beautiful song, an unfortunate group of sailors whose course takes them near the island, and the disaster that befalls the sailors. The sailors' peril is represented by the Morse code S.O.S. signal (three dots, three dashes, and three dots--represented musically by short and long rhythms). The S.O.S. signal grows increasingly more insistent and distressed as it becomes obvious that the sailors, smitten with the voices of the Sirens, are headed for their demise. Movement 2: Penelope Waits This quiet movement represents Queen Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus, as she patiently waits twenty years for her husband's return from fighting the Trojan Wars. Penelope herself is represented as an oboe. She is accompanied by the ensemble as she keeps at bay the suitors who wish to marry her and inherit her riches. Movement 3: Pandora Undone This movement is, in turns, both lighthearted and serious. The music depicts a young, naive Pandora who, while dancing around her house, spies a mysterious box. She tries to resist opening it, but her curiosity ultimately gets the best of her. When she cracks the lid open and looks inside, all evils escape into the world. Dismayed by what she has done, she looks inside the box once more. She discovers hope still in the box and releases it to temper the escaped evils and assuage mankind's new burden.
The Mythology Suite consists of three movements of my Mythology Symphony, which I arranged for large wind ensemble. The arrangements of The Lovely Sirens and Penelope Waits were commissioned by James Ripley and Carthage College for the Carthage Wind Orchestra’s 2017 Japan tour. I added Pandora Undone to complete the set; Stephen Squires and the Chicago College of Performing Arts gave the premiere of the entire Suite in February 2017.Movement 1: The Lovely SirensThe Sirens were sea nymphs, usually pictured as part woman and part bird, who lived on a secluded island surrounded by rocks. Their enchanting song was irresistible to passing sailors, who were lured to their deaths as their ships were destroyed upon the rocks. The Lovely Sirens presents three ideas: the Sirens’ beautiful song, an unfortunate group of sailors whose course takes them near the island, and the disaster that befalls the sailors. The sailors’ peril is represented by the Morse code S.O.S. signal (three dots, three dashes, and three dots—represented musically by short and long rhythms). The S.O.S. signal grows increasingly more insistent and distressed as it becomes obvious that the sailors, smitten with the voices of the Sirens, are headed for their demise.Movement 2: Penelope WaitsThis quiet movement represents Queen Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus, as she patiently waits twenty years for her husband's return from fighting the Trojan Wars. Penelope herself is represented as an oboe. She is accompanied by the ensemble as she keeps at bay the suitors who wish to marry her and inherit her riches.Movement 3: Pandora UndoneThis movement is, in turns, both lighthearted and serious. The music depicts a young, naïve Pandora who, while dancing around her house, spies a mysterious box. She tries to resist opening it, but her curiosity ultimately gets the best of her. When she cracks the lid open and looks inside, all evils escape into the world. Dismayed by what she has done, she looks inside the box once more. She discovers hope still in the box and releases it to temper the escaped evils and assuage mankind's new burden.

SKU: PR.31241902S

UPC: 680160690589. English.

Commissioned by the San Francisco Choral Society and the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, Terra Nostra is a 70-minute oratorio on the relationship between our planet and humankind, how this relationship has shifted over time, and how we can re-establish a harmonious balance. Part I: Creation of the World explores various creation myths from different cultures, culminating in a joyous celebration of the beauty of our planet. Part II: The Rise of Humanity examines human achievements, particularly since the dawn of our Industrial Age, and how these achievements have impacted the planet. Part III: Searching for Balance questions how to create more awareness for our planet’s plight, re-establish a deeper connection to it, and find a balance for living within our planet’s resources. In addition to the complete oratorio, stand-alone movements for mixed chorus, and for solo voice with piano, are also available separately.
Terra Nostra focuses on the relationship between our planet and mankind, how this relationship has shifted over time, and how we can re-establish a harmonious balance. The oratorio is divided into three parts:Part I: Creation of the World celebrates the birth and beauty of our planet. The oratorio begins with creation myths from India, North America, and Egypt that are integrated into the opening lines of Genesis from the Old Testament. The music surges forth from these creation stories into “God’s World” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, which describes the world in exuberant and vivid detail. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “On thine own child” praises Mother Earth for her role bringing forth all life, while Walt Whitman sings a love song to the planet in “Smile O voluptuous cool-breathed earth!” Part I ends with “A Blade of Grass” in which Whitman muses how our planet has been spinning in the heavens for a very long time.Part II: The Rise of Humanity examines the achievements of mankind, particularly since the dawn of the Industrial Age. Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” sets an auspicious tone that mankind is on the verge of great discoveries. This is followed in short order by Charles Mackay’s “Railways 1846,” William Ernest Henley’s “A Song of Speed,” and John Gillespie Magee, Jr.’s “High Flight,” each of which celebrates a new milestone in technological achievement. In “Binsey Poplars,” Gerard Manley Hopkins takes note of the effect that these advances are having on the planet, with trees being brought down and landscapes forever changed. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “A Dirge” concludes Part II with a warning that the planet is beginning to sound a grave alarm.Part III: Searching for Balance questions how we can create more awareness for our planet’s plight, re-establish a deeper connection to it, and find a balance for living within our planet’s resources. Three texts continue the earth’s plea that ended the previous section: Lord Byron’s “Darkness” speaks of a natural disaster (a volcano) that has blotted out the sun from humanity and the panic that ensues; contemporary poet Esther Iverem’s “Earth Screaming” gives voice to the modern issues of our changing climate; and William Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much With Us” warns us that we are almost out of time to change our course. Contemporary/agrarian poet Wendell Berry’s “The Want of Peace” speaks to us at the climax of the oratorio, reminding us that we can find harmony with the planet if we choose to live more simply, and to recall that we ourselves came from the earth. Two Walt Whitman texts (“A Child said, What is the grass?” and “There was a child went forth every day”) echo Berry’s thoughts, reminding us that we are of the earth, as is everything that we see on our planet. The oratorio concludes with a reprise of Whitman’s “A Blade of Grass” from Part I, this time interspersed with an additional Whitman text that sublimely states, “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love…”My hope in writing this oratorio is to invite audience members to consider how we interact with our planet, and what we can each personally do to keep the planet going for future generations. We are the only stewards Earth has; what can we each do to leave her in better shape than we found her?

SKU: PR.31241902A

UPC: 680160690510. English.

Commissioned by the San Francisco Choral Society and the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, Terra Nostra is a 70-minute oratorio on the relationship between our planet and humankind, how this relationship has shifted over time, and how we can re-establish a harmonious balance. Part I: Creation of the World explores various creation myths from different cultures, culminating in a joyous celebration of the beauty of our planet. Part II: The Rise of Humanity examines human achievements, particularly since the dawn of our Industrial Age, and how these achievements have impacted the planet. Part III: Searching for Balance questions how to create more awareness for our planet’s plight, re-establish a deeper connection to it, and find a balance for living within our planet’s resources. In addition to the complete oratorio, stand-alone movements for mixed chorus, and for solo voice with piano, are also available separately.
Terra Nostra focuses on the relationship between our planet and mankind, how this relationship has shifted over time, and how we can re-establish a harmonious balance. The oratorio is divided into three parts:Part I: Creation of the World celebrates the birth and beauty of our planet. The oratorio begins with creation myths from India, North America, and Egypt that are integrated into the opening lines of Genesis from the Old Testament. The music surges forth from these creation stories into “God’s World” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, which describes the world in exuberant and vivid detail. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “On thine own child” praises Mother Earth for her role bringing forth all life, while Walt Whitman sings a love song to the planet in “Smile O voluptuous cool-breathed earth!” Part I ends with “A Blade of Grass” in which Whitman muses how our planet has been spinning in the heavens for a very long time.Part II: The Rise of Humanity examines the achievements of mankind, particularly since the dawn of the Industrial Age. Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” sets an auspicious tone that mankind is on the verge of great discoveries. This is followed in short order by Charles Mackay’s “Railways 1846,” William Ernest Henley’s “A Song of Speed,” and John Gillespie Magee, Jr.’s “High Flight,” each of which celebrates a new milestone in technological achievement. In “Binsey Poplars,” Gerard Manley Hopkins takes note of the effect that these advances are having on the planet, with trees being brought down and landscapes forever changed. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “A Dirge” concludes Part II with a warning that the planet is beginning to sound a grave alarm.Part III: Searching for Balance questions how we can create more awareness for our planet’s plight, re-establish a deeper connection to it, and find a balance for living within our planet’s resources. Three texts continue the earth’s plea that ended the previous section: Lord Byron’s “Darkness” speaks of a natural disaster (a volcano) that has blotted out the sun from humanity and the panic that ensues; contemporary poet Esther Iverem’s “Earth Screaming” gives voice to the modern issues of our changing climate; and William Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much With Us” warns us that we are almost out of time to change our course. Contemporary/agrarian poet Wendell Berry’s “The Want of Peace” speaks to us at the climax of the oratorio, reminding us that we can find harmony with the planet if we choose to live more simply, and to recall that we ourselves came from the earth. Two Walt Whitman texts (“A Child said, What is the grass?” and “There was a child went forth every day”) echo Berry’s thoughts, reminding us that we are of the earth, as is everything that we see on our planet. The oratorio concludes with a reprise of Whitman’s “A Blade of Grass” from Part I, this time interspersed with an additional Whitman text that sublimely states, “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love…”My hope in writing this oratorio is to invite audience members to consider how we interact with our planet, and what we can each personally do to keep the planet going for future generations. We are the only stewards Earth has; what can we each do to leave her in better shape than we found her?

SKU: BR.CHB-5308-02

ISBN 9790004412244. 7.5 x 10.5 inches. Latin.

Although the organ works of Sigfrid Karg-Elert are enjoying ever greater popularity, his choral pieces are still waiting to be discovered. This, however, is now only a matter of time. During his middle creative period, Karg-Elert developed his own, unmistakable choral style. His few choral works, which stem from the years 1912 and 1913, unquestionably belong to his major works from this period.In the Benedictus, the violin, organ and harp (ad libitum) join the chorus to create a specific soundscape which Karg-Elert shapes with great imaginativeness.

SKU: HL.14008374

ISBN 9781846096150. UPC: 884088435202. 8.25x11.75x0.105 inches.

The Full Score for Peter Maxwell Davies' fourth in a series of ten string quartets commissioned by the Naxos Recording company, first performed by the Maggini Quartet on 20th August 2004 at the Chapel of the Royal Palace, Oslo, Norway, as part of the Olso Chamber Music Festival. Composer Note: The fourth Naxos quartet was written in January and February of 2004, with the intention of producing something lighter and much less fierce than its predecessor, an unpremeditated and spontaneous reaction to the illegal invasion of Iraq. I returned to the well-known Brueghel picture of children's games (1560, now in Vienna), which had been the inspiration for my sixth Strathclyde Concerto, for flute and orchestra. These illustrations liberated my musical imagination, but I feel it would limit the listener's perception to be too specific about which game relates to exactly which section of the work. Suffice it to say that there is vigorous play - leap-frog, bind the devil with a cord, truss, wrestling - alongside quieter pastimes - masks, guess whom I shall choose, courting, odds and evens. The single movement juxtaposes these activities as abruptly and intimately as they occur in Brueghel. Rather as the eye is taken into different perspectives and proportions of scale within the picture, taking liberties which would never be present in, for instance, Brunelleschi architectural drawings, so here, with a constant sequence of transformation processes, I have distorted the neat, precise implications of modal progression, expressed in the unison opening phrase (from F to B through A sharp/B flat), so that the ear is led, en route, into the sound equivalents of strange passageways and closed rooms: sicut exposition ludus. As work on the quartet progressed I became aware that I was reading into, and behind the games, adult motives and implications, concerning aggression and war, with their consequences. It was impossible to escape into innocent childhood fantasy. The nature of the F to B progression underlying the whole construction derives from a passage in the development of the first movement of Mahler's Third Symphony, and the opening of Schoenberg's Second String Quartet. However, unlike in these models, here a real - if temporary - sense of resolution occurs at the close of the quartet: as when the curtain falls on the reconciled Count and Countess in 'Figaro' one wonders how long the F/B truce will hold, and games break out again. The quartet is dedicated to Giuseppe Rebecchini, Roman architect, and friend since the nineteen-fifties.

SKU: FG.55011-348-0

ISBN 9790550113480.

Shiki began as a request for a short winter-themed piece for the Hamalais-Osakunnan Laulajat choir in Helsinki. It eventually grew into a four seasons-type cycle on haiku by a 20th century Japanese monk Santoka Taneda.
The music of Shiki is a progression through various states of near-stasis. The main impression the composer wished to convey was the one of absolute stillness at the heart of each scene, of communion with the outer world, as if the viewer were drawing the landscape into him, and at the same time dissolving himself into it. The voices are treated texturally, as well as textually, moving on slow masses, with the soft but precisecely colored vowels of Japanese creating the basic sounds, and the sharper consonants giving them shape and definition.