SKU: FG.55011-585-9

ISBN 9790550115859.

A pioneer of Finnish modern jazz, Heikki Sarmanto (1939-) is renowned for his renderings of jazz numbers. No wonder, therefore, that broken chords and familiar keys resonate and sit well under the hand in the piano part of this Northern Dreams suite. The solo passages for the piano are like stylised improvisations. In addition to jazz idioms, the suite features Chopin-style arpeggios. His music is melodic and communicative, painting feelings, situations and events. Northern Dreams was originally composed with the tenor sax of Juhani Aaltonen in mind, and the solo part is a transcription of his improvisation. The solo part is also available in arrangements for alto sax, flute, clarinet, bassoon and trumpet.

SKU: FG.55011-584-2

ISBN 9790550115842.

A pioneer of Finnish modern jazz, Heikki Sarmanto (1939-) is renowned for his renderings of jazz numbers. No wonder, therefore, that broken chords and familiar keys resonate and sit well under the hand in the piano part of this Northern Dreams suite. The solo passages for the piano are like stylised improvisations. In addition to jazz idioms, the suite features Chopin-style arpeggios. His music is melodic and communicative, painting feelings, situations and events. Northern Dreams was originally composed with the tenor sax of Juhani Aaltonen in mind, and the solo part is a transcription of his improvisation. The solo part is also available in arrangements for alto sax, flute, clarinet, bassoon and trumpet.

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: CA.7003849

ISBN 9790007227531. Key: E minor. Language: German/French.

The history of the composition of the oratorio is odd: the kernel of this three-part work were the movements from the middle section, the Flight to Egypt, which Berlioz composed on a whim in 1850 and which he passed off as the work of a baroque composer whose existence he himself had invented. In 1854 the triptych, which was completed with the parts entitled The dream of Herodes and The arrival at Sais, had its celebrated first performance. Starting from the Gospel of St. Matthew, with the visit of the astrologer to Herodes and the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt, Berlioz chose to relate the story of the events of Christmas from another angle. This skillful dramatisation, with impressive instrumental sections, such as the independent trio for two flutes and harp as well as the effective choruses with local color, make this sacred trilogy a grateful enrichment of the repertoire for Christmas music. Score and part available separately - see item CA.7003800.

SKU: FG.55009-539-7

ISBN 979-0-55009-539-7.

One of the finest Finnish chamber works of recent years involving a clarinet is Mikko Heinio's Treno della notte for clarinet, cello and piano (2000). The composer says of his work: I wanted to write a long, fairly fast-moving composition proceeding without a break in which the moods are at least to some extent dream-like, nocturnal. May 'Treno della notte', the term for a night train in Italian, be a tribute to my much-admired Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni, who in the film Citta della donne (City of Women) falls asleep on a train and is led by a representative of the stronger sex along the most fantastic paths. During a journey lasting a good 17 minutes the listener has time to proceed through 12 connected carriages: the composition has five calm, melodic sequences and four rhythmically dashing dances. It begins with an Introduzione, has a Transitio in the middle and ends with a Coda. In addition to its nocturnal shades, the Heinio work is of sizzling virtuosity, hot Latin rhythms and glowing, sustained melody. The clarinettist plays both a normal B flat instrument and a bass clarinet, thus enriching the timbral scale even further. Heinio does not expect the clarinettist to improvise or to master novel techniques, but otherwise the clarinet part is as challenging as many a concerto.

SKU: FG.55011-550-7

ISBN 9790550115507.

A pioneer of Finnish modern jazz, Heikki Sarmanto (1939-) is renowned for his renderings of jazz numbers. No wonder, therefore, that broken chords and familiar keys resonate and sit well under the hand in the piano part of this Northern Dreams suite. The solo passages for the piano are like stylised improvisations. In addition to jazz idioms, the suite features Chopin-style arpeggios. His music is melodic and communicative, painting feelings, situations and events. Northern Dreams was originally composed with the tenor sax of Juhani Aaltonen in mind, and the solo part is a transcription of his improvisation. The solo part is also available in arrangements for alto sax, flute, clarinet, bassoon and trumpet.