SKU: PR.16500103F
ISBN 9781491131763. UPC: 680160680290.
Ever since the success of my series of wind ensemble works Places in the West, I've been wanting to write a companion piece for national parks on the other side of the north American continent. The earlier work, consisting of GLACIER, THE YELLOWSTONE FIRES, ARCHES, and ZION, spanned some twenty years of my composing life, and since the pieces called for differing groups of instruments, and were in slightly different styles from each other, I never considered them to be connected except in their subject matter. In their depiction of both the scenery and the human history within these wondrous places, they had a common goal: awaking the listener to the fragile beauty that is in them; and calling attention to the ever more crucial need for preservation and protection of these wild places, unique in all the world. With this new work, commissioned by a consortium of college and conservatory wind ensembles led by the University of Georgia, I decided to build upon that same model---but to solidify the process. The result, consisting of three movements (each named for a different national park in the eastern US), is a bona-fide symphony. While the three pieces could be performed separately, they share a musical theme---and also a common style and instrumentation. It is a true symphony, in that the first movement is long and expository, the second is a rather tightly structured scherzo-with-trio, and the finale is a true culmination of the whole. The first movement, Everglades, was the original inspiration for the entire symphony. Conceived over the course of two trips to that astonishing place (which the native Americans called River of Grass, the subtitle of this movement), this movement not only conveys a sense of the humid, lush, and even frightening scenery there---but also an overview of the entire settling-of- Florida experience. It contains not one, but two native American chants, and also presents a view of the staggering influence of modern man on this fragile part of the world. Beginning with a slow unfolding marked Heavy, humid, the music soon presents a gentle, lyrical theme in the solo alto saxophone. This theme, which goes through three expansive phrases with breaks in between, will appear in all three movements of the symphony. After the mood has been established, the music opens up to a rich, warm setting of a Cherokee morning song, with the simple happiness that this part of Florida must have had prior to the nineteenth century. This music, enveloping and comforting, gradually gives way to a more frenetic, driven section representative of the intrusion of the white man. Since Florida was populated and developed largely due to the introduction of a train system, there's a suggestion of the mechanized iron horse driving straight into the heartland. At that point, the native Americans become considerably less gentle, and a second chant seems to stand in the way of the intruder; a kind of warning song. The second part of this movement shows us the great swampy center of the peninsula, with its wildlife both in and out of the water. A new theme appears, sad but noble, suggesting that this land is precious and must be protected by all the people who inhabit it. At length, the morning song reappears in all its splendor, until the sunset---with one last iteration of the warning song in the solo piccolo. Functioning as a scherzo, the second movement, Great Smoky Mountains, describes not just that huge park itself, but one brave soul's attempt to climb a mountain there. It begins with three iterations of the UR-theme (which began the first movement as well), but this time as up-tempo brass fanfares in octaves. Each time it begins again, the theme is a little slower and less confident than the previous time---almost as though the hiker were becoming aware of the daunting mountain before him. But then, a steady, quick-pulsed ostinato appears, in a constantly shifting meter system of 2/4- 3/4 in alteration, and the hike has begun. Over this, a slower new melody appears, as the trek up the mountain progresses. It's a big mountain, and the ascent seems to take quite awhile, with little breaks in the hiker's stride, until at length he simply must stop and rest. An oboe solo, over several free cadenza-like measures, allows us (and our friend the hiker) to catch our breath, and also to view in the distance the rocky peak before us. The goal is somehow even more daunting than at first, being closer and thus more frighteningly steep. When we do push off again, it's at a slower pace, and with more careful attention to our footholds as we trek over broken rocks. Tantalizing little views of the valley at every switchback make our determination even stronger. Finally, we burst through a stand of pines and----we're at the summit! The immensity of the view is overwhelming, and ultimately humbling. A brief coda, while we sit dazed on the rocks, ends the movement in a feeling of triumph. The final movement, Acadia, is also about a trip. In the summer of 2014, I took a sailing trip with a dear friend from North Haven, Maine, to the southern coast of Mt. Desert Island in Acadia National Park. The experience left me both exuberant and exhausted, with an appreciation for the ocean that I hadn't had previously. The approach to Acadia National Park by water, too, was thrilling: like the difference between climbing a mountain on foot with riding up on a ski-lift, I felt I'd earned the right to be there. The music for this movement is entirely based on the opening UR-theme. There's a sense of the water and the mysterious, quiet deep from the very beginning, with seagulls and bell buoys setting the scene. As we leave the harbor, the theme (in a canon between solo euphonium and tuba) almost seems as if large subaquatic animals are observing our departure. There are three themes (call them A, B and C) in this seafaring journey---but they are all based on the UR theme, in its original form with octaves displaced, in an upside-down form, and in a backwards version as well. (The ocean, while appearing to be unchanging, is always changing.) We move out into the main channel (A), passing several islands (B), until we reach the long draw that parallels the coastline called Eggemoggin Reach, and a sudden burst of new speed (C). Things suddenly stop, as if the wind had died, and we have a vision: is that really Mt. Desert Island we can see off the port bow, vaguely in the distance? A chorale of saxophones seems to suggest that. We push off anew as the chorale ends, and go through all three themes again---but in different instrumentations, and different keys. At the final tack-turn, there it is, for real: Mt. Desert Island, big as life. We've made it. As we pull into the harbor, where we'll secure the boat for the night, there's a feeling of achievement. Our whale and dolphin friends return, and we end our journey with gratitude and celebration. I am profoundly grateful to Jaclyn Hartenberger, Professor of Conducting at the University of Georgia, for leading the consortium which provided the commissioning of this work.
SKU: PR.16500102F
ISBN 9781491131749. UPC: 680160680276.
SKU: PR.16500101F
ISBN 9781491131725. UPC: 680160680252.
SKU: PR.16500104F
ISBN 9781491132159. UPC: 680160681082.
SKU: PR.164002480
UPC: 680160038237.
This work is my second for a solo woodwind and a solo percussionist, following Firewing: The Flame and the Moth for oboe and percussion by nine years. The earlier piece followed a specific story line, and pitted the oboe against the percussionist as both adversary and lover. In Spirit Realms, my aim was not only to juxtapose the very different sounds of flute (plus alto flute and piccolo) against a large array of percussion, but also to attempt three different meditative spaces, each named for a different type of spiritual practice. The musical means of expression is very different for each of the three movements (as is the instrumentation), although they share a common scale-source: the looped pentatonic scale I have been developing over the last several years. The first movement is called Prayer Tunnel, and is named for the Eskimo practice of solo meditation within a tunnel of ice blocks. This is said to be a means of overcoming demons within, and in my musical rendering it takes the form of an unaccompanied alto flute solo. The flute begins rather angrily, full of tension, but in the course of the solo passage manages to slowly unwind. The percussionist then plays the exact same music the alto flute had played....on seven tuned cymbals. Toward the end, the alto flute re-enters, its original meditation having fused with its mirror. Kiva represents the circular, subterranean pit in which the Anasazi practiced their religion, a form of which still can be found in the Hopi tribes of the American southwest. These are not spaces for solo meditation, but rather a group meeting place in which only the sanctified are permitted. After an introductory invocation (dove call), the music begins. At first, it is flowing, in a repetitive double-five meter. It then traces several sections, with metric shifts forcing the pulse to race faster and faster, until it halves itself in the coda and returns to the exact pulse of the beginning. The flutist here uses the C flute, and the percussionist plays on both pitched (marimba) and unpitched instruments (various drums and struck sources). Zendo is the meditation room used by Zen Buddhists. My music begins with another invocation (wind chimes, temple cup gongs, and temple blocks), then moves on to a slow subject stated by the flute. The subject is taken up by the vibraphone, and after several modulations and tempo changes, the flutist takes up the piccolo. The music continues higher and higher, and faster and faster (Zen meditation is NOT all about becoming lost!) until it breaks free at the very end. The percussionist is put through his paces in this movement, having to reach a staggering number of instruments in a short time. Spirit Realms was commissioned by, and is dedicated to, the Armstrong Duo. -- Dan Welcher.
SKU: PR.16400248S
UPC: 680160038244.
SKU: BA.BA11309
ISBN 9790006577705. 27 x 19 cm inches. Text Language: English.
It is a small music history sensation: Thanks to Yves Grard an unknown and unpublished manuscript penned by Camille Saint-Saëns has been unearthed in the Mdiathèque Jean Renoir in Dieppe in France.It is the top four instrumental parts which make this manuscript something of a sensation. Placed under each other are â??Saxophone Soprano en Si bâ?, â??Saxophone Alto en Mi bâ?, â??Saxophone Tnor en Si bâ? and â??Saxophone Baryton en Mi bâ?, strings, soprano solo with chorus and organ. Musical history has hitherto credited Jean-Baptiste Singele (1812â??1875) with having written the first saxophone quartet, his opus 53, which he completed in 1857. Now this historiography clearly has to be revised. The date 1854 has been found under the first page of the treasure from Dieppe, which is pasted over and also sewn, meaning that Saint-Saënsâ?? work was written three years earlier than that of Singele.In contrast to Singele, Saint-Saëns does not have the wind instruments taking solo parts but rather uses their tonal colour to depict textual moods and nuances. On the one hand the saxophones accompany the choral parts (certainly singable by amateurs) and support the human voices in fugal passages. On the other hand, they take the melody in the purely orchestral passages.Saint-Saëns wrote the motet in the period when he had taken up his first permanent appointment as organist at the Church of Saint-Merri in Paris. He revised the work several times over the decades, changing the motifs at the beginning, correcting obvious mistakes, reworking the ending, eventually changing the instrumentation several times and even â?? probably in the final stage â?? replacing the Latin text with an English one. Today, three-and-a-half versions have been handed down, one of them stopping after just a few pages. The compositional steps have been successfully reconstructed by means of detailed detective work. Furthermore, the first saxophone version (BA 11305) and the last English piano version (BA 11309) have been edited to produce a scholarly-critical edition.The present edition of the English version for soprano solo, choir and piano (BA 11309) serves both as a full score and as a vocal score due to the instrumentation.
About Barenreiter Urtext
What can I expect from a Barenreiter Urtext edition?
MUSICOLOGICALLY SOUND - A reliable musical text based on all available sources - A description of the sources - Information on the genesis and history of the work - Valuable notes on performance practice - Includes an introduction with critical commentary explaining source discrepancies and editorial decisions ... AND PRACTICAL - Page-turns, fold-out pages, and cues where you need them - A well-presented layout and a user-friendly format - Excellent print quality - Superior paper and binding
SKU: HL.263232
ISBN 9781540021038. UPC: 888680729318. 9.0x12.0x0.586 inches.
Romance, heartbreak, optimism, melancholy, or just a lovely autumn day - it's all been captured by American songwriters. A generation of the country's finest songwriters captured universal feelings and experiences in such an infectious combination of words and music that their songs still inspire today. This collection features 100 classics by treasured composers arranged for ukulele: All the Things You Are (Jerome Kern) * Blue Skies (Irving Berlin) * Come Fly with Me (Sammy Cahn) * Georgia on My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael) * Mood Indigo (Duke Ellington) * On the Street Where You Live (Lerner & Loewe) * People Will Say We're in Love (Rodgers & Hammerstein) * Somebody Loves Me (George Gershwin) * You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To (Cole Porter) * and more.
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