SKU: BT.EMBZ40015

Debussy decided in 1892, at the age of thirty, to compose a work for orchestra after Mallarmé's poem, L'aprés-midi d'un faune. Originally he had thought of writing three movements (Prélude - Interlude - Paraphrase) but when the first movement was completed in September 1894 he came to the conclusion that the continuation would be superfluous.The Prélude was first performed in Paris with Gustave Doret as conductor on 22 December of the same year yet, as it achieved immediate succes it had to be repeated. Source for the present edition was the first printed score (1895) which had been revised by the composer. Debussy's original, French expressions and markings have been retained.

SKU: PR.11440719S

UPC: 680160011087. 8.5 x 11 inches.

Sambuca, which most people know today as a licorice-flavored liqueur, was the name the Greeks gave to a kind of sharp, shrill-sounding harp, of Eastern, possibly Jewish origin. The Greeks then gave this same name to a wooden flute made from the elder bush, and in the middle ages it was also associated with the viol, at least to the extent that the Hurdy-gurdy, an instrument shaped like a viol and played by means of a rotating wheel, was sometimes called a Sambuca rotata. Thus, the word Sambuca is tied up with the ancestors - in each case, ancestors of ow birth, as it were - of the modern harp, flute, and viola. Somehow, the present-day association with alcohol seems very meet, in that a certain objectionable quality seems to have gone with the name - in 1545 one George Ascham wrote, This I am sure... all maner of pypes, barbitons, sambukes... be condemned of Aristotle. The word Sambucistria - for a female Sambuca player - was used by Plutarch and others to evoke a feeling of foreign-inspired decadence [Grove's Dictionary of Musical Instruments, 1984]. Currier's work is truly a Sambuca sonata. Written for the three Sambuca instruments, Currier has first of all seemingly endeavoured to make the harp part particularly Sambuca-like (i.e., sharp and shrill) with its many nail and xylophonic effects, but more importantly, has used musical material that corresponds to the low-brow, somewhat Dionysian, indeed, today even Bacchanalian implication of the name - thus, rock music seems to inspire a great deal Currier's work [the Samba, an appropriately Bacchanalian Brazilian Carnival dance, in duple meter with syncopations, while apparently having no etymological connection to Sambuca, might seem to be musically involved, too]. The Sambuca which lies behind this rather drunken piece is probably the only musical instrument which became a model for an instrument of war; one Craxton wrote in 1489 that Sambuce is an engyn whiche is made in manere of a harpe able to perce a walle. But whether talking of the modern liqueur or the ancient instrument condemned of Aristotle and mentioned four times in the Book of Daniel, it is a shame that Debussy - inspired by the Dionysian side of classical culture (as in Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune) - seems to have remained ignorant Sambuca, a word which to some extent must lie behind all works for this wonderful instrumentation which he invented, and which I might seem to have striven unconsciously, equally ignorant, to make the sole basis of Currier's work - until, having completed this piece, written for harpist Marie-Pierre Langlamet, and rummaging around for a title, I chanced upon it in an old dictionary.

SKU: FA.MFRO001P

8.27 x 11.69 inches.

Over the years 1908-16, Debussy had produced a viable scenario for Usher on his third attempt. Butwhen he came to making a complete draft of the music, he seems to have lost interest during Roderick Usher's long monologue, even though he was setting his own text. As in No-ja-li he jumped to the next passage that interested him, in this case the exciting final melodrama and the collapse of the Usher house itself. In the process of completing the missing half of the score, I discovered that by reusing Debussy's material for similar psychological situations across the opera, and by metamorphosing existing ideas (as Debussy does with Melisande's theme in his opera Pelleas et Melisande), the only things I really needed to add were linking material and any passages where fast music was required. So the 'nightmare scherzo', and Lady Madeline's escape from her coffin and her final bloody revenge on her brother are all mine, but most of the rest is existing Debussy in changing contexts (in which the Russian technique of 'changing backgrounds', both harmonic and textural, proved extremely useful, as it did to Debussy in his Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune). Eventually, both my completed ballet No-ja-li and the House of Usher were successfully premiered in 2006 and the latter soon began to find its way into the established repertoire in Europe and the US. To further support this, I transcribed some of the highlights of Debussy's score as A Night in the House of Usher for organ, and subsequently piano--with a focus on Scene 2 and the final, horrific and maca-bre melodrama. This climaxes in the double deaths of Roderick Usher and his Sister Madeline, together with the disintegration of the ill-fated House of Usher into the stagnant lake-all beneath a blood-red moon.In this form it was first performed by Ian Buckle in the Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds in 2010.

SKU: BR.OB-5399-23

ISBN 9790004338377. 10 x 12.5 inches.

The three symphonic sketches La Mer are, after Prelude a Lapresmidi dun faune, no doubt Debussys most frequently performed orchestral work. This success derives in part from its formal resemblance to a symphony, which had already been noted by the composers contemporaries, and in part from its sound, which was associated from the very start with the shimmer and iridescence of Impressionism.Peter Jost takes all major sources into consideration. Ultimately, the musical text of his Urtext edition is based on a copy of the second edition of the score, published in 1909, in which the composer incorporated his experiences as auditor and conductor into a last authorized version. After the cool reception given La Mer at its world premiere, Debussy revised the work and conducted the extraordinarily successful performances of it in early 1908 in Paris,London and Rome.

SKU: BR.OB-5399-19

ISBN 9790004338360. 10 x 12.5 inches.

The three symphonic sketches La Mer are, after Prelude a Lapresmidi dun faune, no doubt Debussys most frequently performed orchestral work. This success derives in part from its formal resemblance to a symphony, which had already been noted by the composers contemporaries, and in part from its sound, which was associated from the very start with the shimmer and iridescence of Impressionism.Peter Jost takes all major sources into consideration. Ultimately, the musical text of his Urtext edition is based on a copy of the second edition of the score, published in 1909, in which the composer incorporated his experiences as auditor and conductor into a last authorized version. After the cool reception given La Mer at its world premiere, Debussy revised the work and conducted the extraordinarily successful performances of it in early 1908 in Paris,London and Rome.