SKU: HL.383303

ISBN 9781705154137. UPC: 196288021421. 9.0x12.0x0.666 inches.

Do you need a perfect contemporary song for a vocal audition or performance? The Singer's Anthology of Pop/Rock Ballads gives you over 30 pop/rock classics to choose from––all transposed into appropriate keys and based on the original recorded hits. These songs fall into the new wave of standards that you are hearing more often at cabaret, concerts, and special occasions. These songs are most often identified with singer-songwriters, so this collection features the work of Billy Joel, Carole King, Adele, and others. These arrangements were custom made for this collection as authentic performing editions, friendly to both the singer and accompanist. Keys were carefully chosen, either preserving the original recorded key or transposing as near the original as possible to increase accessibility. This volume is presented in separate editions for Soprano/Alto and Tenor/Baritone, with some songs shared between the two, and others specific to the voice type. The Soprano/Alto edition features 31 songs, including: All by Myself • At Last • Don't Know Why • Hallelujah • Hello • I Can't Make You Love Me • I Will Always Love You • Killing Me Softly with His Song • Landslide • Million Reasons • (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman • New York State of Mind • She Used to Be Mine • Someone like You • A Thousand Years • Time After Time • When We Were Young • Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow) • and more.

SKU: BA.BA08522

ISBN 9790006563210. 27 x 19 cm inches. Text Language: Swedish, English. Libretto: Einar Askestad. Text: Einar Askestad.

“Ingenting utanför / Nothing Beyond” is another collaboration between Mårten Jansson and the Swedish poet Einar Askestad. This a cappella choral work deals with sorrow and loss. After a forceful, harmonically ambiguous section and a clear break in the music, the piece ends with a comforting decrescendo of reconciliation. It was commissioned by the Uppsala female choir “La Cappella” and is dedicated to its choral director Tony Margeta.

“My music is my own and I have never tried to be original. That has always been my motto and I have only tried to use music to express all the feelings which life has to offer. This has led people to describe my music as ‘so sad that it sounds like birds who have lost their wings’ but also as ‘the happiest classical music that we have ever heard‘.
My compositions are almost all sacred. They express not only my own faith but also my appreciation and respect for the timeless texts that have been used for centuries and centuries.“

Mårten Jansson (b. 1965), elected member of the Föreningen svenska tonsättare (the Society of Swedish Composers), graduated from the Royal College of Music, Stockholm (KHM) with an MFA degree in Music Education, Dalcroze Eurhythmics and Voice. For more than ten years he was the music director and conductor of “Carmen”, one of the most prominent womens’ vocal ensembles in Sweden. He currently teaches choral conducting and music theory as well as giving vocal tuition at the Bolandgymnasiet and Musikskolan in his home town of Uppsala.

SKU: PR.11641139S

UPC: 680160682119.

Barcarolles for a Sinking City was inspired by the city of Venice, a place that has long held the fascination of artists, writers and composers, and which I have been lucky enough to visit on several occasions. Sadly it seems that future generations may not be so lucky: in addition to the city's slow sinking and recently discovered tilting, studies predict that if global warming and the resultant rise of ocean levels is unabated, the entire city (as well as many other coastal cities around the globe) will be under water by 2100.   I. Funeral Gondola The late, cryptic piano works of Franz Liszt made a profound impression on me as a young composer, among them two works he entitled La Lugubre Gondola (usually translated as The Funeral Gondola ) which were said to be a premonition of Wagner's death in Venice, his coffin transported through the canals in a black gondola. These late pieces of Liszt acquired even greater significance to me after I spent two summers in Bayreuth under the patronage of Friedelind Wagner, the granddaughter of Wagner and great-granddaughter of Liszt. This movement is a meditation on Wagner, Liszt, Venice and its own evanescence. II. Barcarolle/Quodlibet The Quodlibet (Latin for what pleases) is a musical form dating back to the 15th century where many disparate melodies are juxtaposed. Popular in the Renaissance, sacred and secular melodies were combined, often to comical effect due to the resultant incongruity of the words. The form was considered the ultimate test of a composer's mastery of counterpoint. The most famous Quodlibet is without doubt the final Variation of Bach's Goldberg Variations. As a form the Quodlibet is less common in more recent music, although examples can be found in the works of Kurt Weill and David Del Tredici.   My own Barcarolle/Quodlibet was inspired by the (perhaps apocryphal) story of the funeral where musicians were asked to play a Bach Choral, but due to miscommunication played instead the Bacarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann. Here, the Bach Choral Allen Menschen mussen sterben (All Men Must Die) is heard in the strings pizzicato, with a tempo indication In slow motion. The alto line of the Bach suggests a phrase from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (Alle Menchen werden Bruder) heard in the muted trombone. Before long, the famous tune from Offenbach's opera is heard, followed by quotations from iconic Barcarolles by Chopin, Mendelssohn and Faure, as well as two Venetian popular songs and more Beethoven.   III. Barcarola/Ostinato/Carillon An ostinato is a repeated musical figure, and carillon is Italian for music box. This movement references the obsolete genre of salon pieces that imitated music boxes: such works by composers like Liadov and Gretchaninov used to be a mainstay of pianists' encore repertoire. This movement is however much darker in conception than those pleasant trifles. Utilizing the full battery of percussion, the carefully notated temporal slowing of the ostinato becomes overwhelmed by a poignant chorale melody before this box is snapped shut.   IV. Barcarolle Oubliee (Forgotten Barcarolle) Marked limpido (still) the final movement begins with the sound of rain produced by a percussion instrument called (appropriately) a rain stick. Halting phrases in the harp coalesce into the accompaniment for a plangent melody heard in the clarinet. The central Adagio of this movement leads to a shattering climax, before the opening phrases return and dissipate into nothingness.

SKU: HL.301272

ISBN 9781540064110. UPC: 888680964368. 9.0x12.0x0.337 inches.

The Strum Together series enables players of five different instruments – or any combination of them – to “strum together” on great songs. This easy-to-use format features melody, lyrics, and chord diagrams for five popular folk instruments: standard ukulele, baritone ukulele, guitar, mandolin, and banjo. This collection includes 70 all-time country favorites: Always on My Mind • Boot Scootin' Boogie • Could I Have This Dance • Deep in the Heart of Texas • Friends in Low Places • Green Green Grass of Home • Happy Trails • Hey, Good Lookin' • I Fall to Pieces • Jambalaya (On the Bayou) • King of the Road • On the Road Again • Ring of Fire • Sixteen Tons • Take Me Home, Country Roads • When Will I Be Loved • Your Cheatin' Heart • and more.