SKU: FJ.ST6470

UPC: 241444398470. English.

Go underground to explore the deep, dark sounds of the orchestra's lowest strings. A ponderous, minor theme weaves through every section of the orchestra along with a few easy off-beat rhythms. The absence of low 2 finger patterns make this helpful for teaching and reinforcing note reading on the G, C, and E (bass) strings, while also being extremely satisfying musically.

About FJH Beginning Strings

Appropriate for first year string students. All instruments stay in first position, and optional third violin (viola) parts and piano are included to aid in rehearsal and performance situations. Grade 1 - 1.5

SKU: HL.44012088

9.25x12.25x1.382 inches.

Moving Heaven and Earth consists of a theme and 4 variations; although the theme is original it contains a phrase heavily influenced by a 14-bar passage from the Libera Me in Faure's Requiem. It is a sequence that the composer finds harmonically compelling and, although it is never quoted directly, it appears in altered form in the theme and each of the variations. In the original, the passage is set to the words: Quando c''li movendi sunt et terra (When the heavens and the earth shall be moved) which gave inspiration for the title.

SKU: BT.AMP-322-010

9x12 inches. English-German-French-Dutch.

Named after the leaf displayed on Canada’s flag, Maple Leaf Overture was composed specifically to open a Canadian school’s symphonic band tour of England. A short fanfare during the overture smoothly transitions to a jazzy, syncopated section. The main theme is first played by the horns and saxophones, and then by the entire ensemble. This lively theme then alternates with a slower second theme, building momentum before a brisk coda culminates in a rousing finale!

Maple Leaf Overture gaat natuurlijk over het bekendste herkenningsteken van Canada: het blad van de esdoorn, in de vlag. Sparke componeerde dit openingswerk speciaal voor een Canadees schoolorkest uit Calgary, voor hun tour door Groot-Brittannië.Een korte fanfare gaat in deze ouverture naadloos over in een jazzachtig, syncopisch vivo. Eerst nemen de hoorns en saxofoons het hoofdthema voor hun rekening. Daarna speelt het hele orkest dit thema. Spanning ontstaatwanneer het snelle hoofdthema een langzaam tweede deel afwisselt. Daarna keert het snelle hoofdthema weer terug. Een snel coda beëindigt de ouverture. Maple Leaf Overture: feestelijk en sprankelend!

Maple Leaf Overture trägt das kanadische Wahrzeichen, das Ahornblatt im Titel. Eine kurze Fanfare geht in dieser Ouvertüre nahtlos in eine jazzig synkopiertes Vivo über. Das Hauptthema dürfen erst die Hörner und Saxophone vorstellen, dann spielt das gesamte Blasorchester. Es entsteht Spannung durch den Wechsel zwischen dem schnellen Hauptthema, einem langsameren zweiten Thema und zurück, bevor eine schnellere Coda das Werk beendet.

Maple Leaf Overture porte l’emblème du Canada (la feuille d’érable) jusque dans son titre… Ce morceau, composé par Philip Sparke, a été joué par l’Orchestre Symphonique du Lycée de Calgary dans le cadre de sa tournée en Angleterre. La pièce s’ouvre avec une fanfare maestoso, puis un passage en tempo vivo introduit peu peu des rythmes syncopés de style jazzy. Un motif plus doux nous conduira progressivement vers un apogée où le thème central réapparaît. Le morceau se termine par une brève référence la fanfare d’ouverture, suivie d’une rapide coda.

Maple Leaf Overture, il cui titolo riporta all’emblema della bandiera canadese (la foglia di acero), è un brano commissionato a Philip Sparke dall’Orchestra Sinfonica di un liceo di Calgary che l’ha eseguita in occasione di una serie di concerti tenutisi in Inghilterra. Il brano apre con una fanfara maestosa che alterna fraseggi affidati alle varie sezioni della banda. Questa successione omogenea in un tempo vivo introduce progressivamente ritmi sincopati in stile jazz. Un tema principale, all’inizio eseguito dai corni e dai sassofoni, sar in seguito ripreso da tutto l’organico. Segue un motivo più dolce che si intercala progressivamente verso un’apoteosi nella qualeviene riproposto il tema principale. Il brano si conclude con un breve richiamo alla fanfara di apertura, seguita da una rapida coda.

SKU: CF.BAS80F

ISBN 9781491151624. UPC: 680160909124. 9 x 12 inches.

Joseph Compello's Great Plains Saga for the beginning string orchestra students depicts wide open spaces, rugged terrain, and covered wagons heading West through the American plains. Students will love playing this contest selection, written in a minor mode. This piece can be learned in as little as 10 weeks, yet showcases the students' abilities and growth.
Great Plains Saga is an easy concert piece for a young string ensemble. The music should be performed in a manner which evokes the rustic openness of the American continent at the time when Native American tribes inhabited it. Accordingly, the music is modal and thus provides an ancient character to the melodies. The first theme appearing at m. 9 consists of six notes. It repeats at m. 17 in the cello part with a countermelody in the violins.  After a brief transition m. 25, the second section begins with a quiet two-measure phrase that is answered forte by the low strings.  This call-and-response episode continues until m. 43 where the transition to the opening theme begins. At m. 49 the director may wish to slow the tempo just a bit to give the music a heavier feel. The coda at m. 57 may be played freely and dramatically.

About Carl Fischer Beginning String Orchestra Series

This series of Grade 1 pieces is designed for first year string groups. The pieces in this series are characterized by:

• Limited parts (often 2nd violin and viola are the same part, cello and bass are same part)
• Limited keys and rhythms - only simple 8th note patterns
• Limited independence of parts
• Playable after limited study time
• First position and natural bowings
• Piano for rehearsal and reinforcement

SKU: FG.55011-372-5

ISBN 9790550113725.

Images of the sea figure prominently throughout my life and memories: from holidays on the Atlantic coast during my Canadian childhood to my current Baltic home, and the imagined, only later experienced Mediterranean of my ancestral heritage. As an immigrant (son of an immigrant) bound to two northern countries, the sea is emblematic of my twin homelands, from the expanses of water surrounding them to those separating them. A Mari usque ad Mare. The sea is also an enduring image of the unknown, of expanses unexplored, of the raw power of nature and, for too many currently, of terror holding a hope of refuge - or the pain of loss.
Such disparate ideas were captured for me in the seascapes of the New York painter MaryBeth Thielhelm, whom I met in 2008 during a residency on the Gulf of Mexico. Her vast, abstract, nearly monochromatic depictions of imaginary seas in wildly varying moods were the catalyst for a concerto where the piano is frequently far from a hero battling a collective, but rather acts as a channel for elemental forces surging up from the orchestra, floating - sometimes barely so - on its constantly shifting surface. There are few themes to speak of, beyond a handful of iconic ideas that periodically cycle upward. Rather, the piano's material is largely an ornamentation of the more primal rhythmic and harmonic impulses from the orchestra below - a poetic interpretation, if you will, of the more immediate experience of facing the vastness of some unknown body of water.
The title Nameless Seas is borrowed from one of Thielhelm's exhibitions, as are those of the four movements, which are bridged together into two halves of roughly equal weight - one rhapsodic and free, the other more single-minded and direct, separated only by a short breath. The opening movement, Nocturne, is predominantly calm, if brooding, darkness and light alternating throughout. Lyrical arabesques sparkle over gently lapping cross-currents in the strings and mirrored timpani, the piano's full power only rarely deployed. The waves gradually build, drawing in the full orchestra for a meeting of forces in Land and Sea, a brighter, more warmly lyrical scene that unfolds in series of dreamlike, sometimes even nostalgic visions, which for me carry strong memories of sitting on rocks above surging Atlantic waves. The third movement, Wake, is a fast, perpetual-motion texture of glinting, darting rhythms and sudden shafts of light, with a prominent part for the steel drums, limning the piano's quicksilver figurations. An ecstatic climax crashes into a solo cadenza that grows progressively calmer and more introspective rather than virtuosic. Much of the tension finally releases into Unclaimed Waters, a drifting, meditative seascape in which the piano is progressively engulfed by a series of ever-taller waves, ultimately dissolving into a tolling, rippling continuum of sound.
It has been a great privilege to realize such a long-held dream as this piece, and to write it for not one, but two great pianists. Risto-Matti Marin and Angela Hewitt, both of whose friendship and support have been unfailing and humbling, share the dedication. Nameless Seas was commissioned by the PianoEspoo festival and Canada's National Arts Centre, with the premieres in Ottawa and Helsinki led by Hannu Lintu and Olari Elts. Thanks are due also to the Jenny and Antti Wihuri fund, whose generous grant provided me with much-needed time, and Escape to Create in Seaside, Florida, the source to which I returned to do a large part of the work.

SKU: FG.55009-541-0

ISBN 979-0-55009-541-0.

Heinio's Symphony No. 2 'Songs of Night and Love' is reminiscent more of a song cycle; it has a baritone soloist in each of its movements. The texts are based on sensual poems by Lassi Nummi. Night or love, or both together are fundamental themes running right through the symphony. Its dream-like landscapes are dominated by quiet and lyrical tones but the finale has the heat of the dark Mediterranean nights.