SKU: PR.114418750

ISBN 9781491129524. UPC: 680160655489. 9 x 12 inches.

The seven-movement in the snowy margins might be considered a sort of atomic suite, as each movement is succinct, yet a microcosmic powerhouse inspired by “The Comet,” by Polish writer and Holocaust victim Bruno Schulz. Hersch’s intensity is expressed through dramatically captivating violin gestures, pushing the boundaries of texture, technique, and emotion.
Michael Hersch’s in the snowy margins was written in 2010. Like much of his work, it is grounded in literature and art. The title is drawn from a short story, The Comet by Polish writer, poet, and artist, Bruno Schulz (1892-1942). This forms the last of his collection The Street of Crocodiles, published in 1934. Schulz was shot by a Nazi officer in 1942.Both the title of Hersch’s work, and the ‘motto’ found on the composer’s manuscript (‘Thus far and no further. But what has become of the end of the world…’) are to be found in The Comet. It’s interesting that in in the snowy margins, unlike his earlier Fourteen Pieces which were inspired by the poetry of Primo Levi, Hersch chose to not title each individual movement with a quote. However his choices of text are applied, there is a clear quality of distillation. In every case, the texts which the composer has chosen to eschew lie beneath the music, akin to the greater mass of an iceberg, submerged, but imminent.Hersch also has very particular taste in visual art, and there seems to be common ground between the intensely expressionist drawing of Schulz, and those of Michael Mazur, which inspired his string quartet Images from a Closed Ward. The parallels between these artists reflect common traits shared between these two pieces, which provide a window on how the music should be approached, expressively and technically. I would argue, that from a violinist’s point of view, this pertains directly to how bow and left hand should approach the string: the febrile vibrancy of both Mazur and Schulz’s pencil and charcoal strokes, perhaps what T.S. Eliot called the ‘circulation of the lymph’, in every gesture, speaks to the intense experience, physically and emotionally, of playing (and hearing) this music. There is an intense sense of ‘truth to materials’ at every moment, the sense that every note sings on the edge of, or even beyond, total collapse.— Peter Sheppard-Skaerved.

SKU: HL.156357

UPC: 876964009508. 5.5x7.5x0.58 inches.

This DVD covers 200 years of musical history of African-American Christianity, featuring the legends of gospel music, including the Staple Singers, the Clara Ward Wingers, the Dixie Hummingbirds, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Culled from hundreds of hours of music, tracing the evolution of gospel music thorugh its many styles – the spirituals and early hymns, the four-part harmony-based quartets, the integration of blues and swing, the emergence of “soul” and the blending of rap and hip-hop elements. It connects the history of African-American culture with gospel as it first impacted popular culture at large and captures so much of what is special about this music and African-American Christianity.

SKU: GI.G-CD-992

For many years, GIA has published some of the finest arrangements for brass ensembles. Deo Gratias offers quartets, antiphonal trumpet duos, trumpets with handbells, and other configurations—and for a variety of seasons and occasions. Whether it’s a transcription of a Renaissance motet, a fantasie on a beloved German hymn, or something triumphant for Christmas or Easter, if you’re in need of a piece for your group, you just might find what you’re looking for here. Of course, the performances on Deo Gratias make it a great choice as a gift for anyone—including yourself! CONTENTS: Lift High the Cross, TUCKER (G-6572) • Two Renaissance Motets, Vol. 1, trans. EVANS (G-6796) • Two Renaissance Motets, Vol. 1, trans. EVANS (G-6796) • O Come, O Come Emmanuel, arr. TUCKER (G-6568) • People Look East, arr. TUCKER (G-6570) • Chorale from Christmas Oratorio, arr. TUCKER (G-6516) • Two Renaissance Motets, Vol. 2, trans. and ed. EVANS (G-6797) • Two Renaissance Motets, Vol. 2, arr. EVANS (G-6797) • This Joyful Eastertide, arr. EVANS (G-6798) • Immortal , Invisible, God Only Wise, arr. KELLERMEYER (G-7928) • Fantasie on “Ein’ Feste Burg,” arr. EVANS (G-6799) • Sing a New Song to the Lord, arr. HENDERSON (G-5676) • Psallite II: Two Dances, arr. HYSLOP (G-5743) • Deo Gratias, Fantasy on the Plainchant, PROULX (G-6869) • Antiphony, PROULX (G-4457) • All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, arr. EVANOVICH (G-8077).

SKU: P2.10021

The second part of the Chthonic Flute Suite commissioned by Areon Flutes in 2012. This suite has two main inspirations: ideologically it draws guidance from the book The Dream and the Underworld (1979) by James Hillman (1926-2011) and musically it explores the textural possibilities of a flute ensemble within the context of the heavy chamber music style I have developed with Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet since 1996. This style draws virtuosic precision from the classical realm; innovation and texture from jazz; and power, rhythm and overall perspective from rock and metal. The term chthonic [thon-ik] generally means underworld. However, Hillman thoroughly elaborates that its true meaning extends below the earth and beyond it into invisible, non-physical and far distant psychic realms: the deeper mysteries of the invisible. The duo is divided into two sections: Nekyia and Hypnoia. Each of these is a Greek myth-nerd term for some key aspect of an archetypal descent into the underworld. In fact, nekyia is a term that specifically means archetypal descent as one finds in myths across the ages from Dante to the Greeks and beyond. Hillman sees a lack of sufficient nekyia myths in our modern culture, yet our popular heroes in films and music are shady underworld characters. Dante's underworld was our culture's last, and it was imagined even before the Renaissance had properly begun. Our ethnic roots reach back to great underworld configurations: the Celtic Dagda or Cerunos, the Germanic Hel, and the Biblical Sheol. All have faded... (p.64) Hyponoia is a more subtle term used by Plato that refers to an undersense or a deeper meaning. The search for undersense is what we express in common speech as the desire to understand. We want to get below what is going on and see its basis, its fundamentals, how and where it is grounded. (p. 137) This deeper understanding is one of the motivations and constant characteristics of the underworld descent: but the discoveries made and experiences experienced are not always as they seem to be. Hillman recommends over and over that we see and see into each thing for what it is, and not force a dayworld perspective onto dream images and occurrences. As a duo movement, the term enantiodromia (counter enantio, and running dromia) is particularly appropriate as it is a grounding principle by which Jung understands the regulative function of opposites. As Hillman tends to turn things on their metaphorical heads, he fleshes out dualism and oppositionalism in such a way that in the underworld this actually becomes a unifying principle: If you go far enough with any one movement, a countermovement will set in...The way up and the way down are one and the same: the manifestation of one power by opposite forces. (p. 76) This implies a union of the two opposites, a conjunction as contrasted with an opposition. There are two voices but they are both flutes; there are two contrasting halves to the piece, yet they balance each other even in their differences.

SKU: HL.303991

ISBN 9781540066442. UPC: 888680969318. 9.0x12.0x0.2 inches.

THE FIFTH BOOK of the title refers to what Stephen Hartke considers his fifth book of madrigals, only two of which books are actually for voices, with the others being for string instruments. Hartke writes madrigals for string instruments due to their inherent singing quality, but also due to the fluid structural character of the madrigal as a genre that often responds in quite mercurial ways to the emotional unfolding of its text. These five movements are thus abstract madrigals whose larger outlines, shifts in mood, and various internal reminiscences are intended to convey a private, unspoken drama. Commissioned for the Brentano String Quartet by the Frankfurt Burgerstiftung im Holzhausenschlosschen sponsored by the Ernst Max von Grunelius-Stiftung.

SKU: P2.80080

Composer Lon W. Chaffin asks, What is a Vortex? A basic definition would be a whirling mass of something, especially water or air, that draws everything near towards its center... such as that relatively mysterious occurrence in space that is often referred to as a black hole - a location in space where the gravitational pull is so powerful that everything, even light, is pulled into its center. That spacial anomaly and the concept of composing for a newly formed tuba ensemble became mingled in my mind and served to generate the ideas that have gone into this piece..