SKU: HL.14008409

This is - so far - the earliest composition by Davies to be available for performance, and mighty interesting it is. Written while he was still a young student, it provides a candid glimpse of the thing that concerned him: how music could be both forward-moving in the classical Western sense (this is, after all, a piece for a wholly conventional medium) and repetitive in the manner of the Indian and medieval music in which he was interested. What results is a singular machine geared to an intermittent ostinato in the first violin. This movement for string quartet was first performed by the Arditti Quartet in May 1983, as part of the 40th Anniversary Gala concert of the Society for the Promotion of New Music at the Barbican Hall, London. Score (miniature). Duration c. 5mins.

SKU: MN.56-0095

UPC: 688670221057. English.

Originally conceived for the ensemble Enchanted Voices, these carols for SSA voices and organ (or piano) represent the composer’s desire for the tunes and texts to be heard in a new and fresh way. Largely contemplative, sometimes set against a gently-undulating foundation, these work well for concert and church use. Sometimes ethereal, sometimes other-worldly, the pieces succeed in bringing together the ancient purity of the medieval past and the here and now. Duration 3:32.

SKU: B7.B495

8.5x11 inches.

La Sonata modello The Template Sonata for solo piano by Howard J. Buss is dedicated to pianist James Helton. The music traverses a wide rage of moods and sonic atmospheres. The composer designed a template of meter changes derived from the numerical series in mathematics codified by the medieval Italian mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci. In this adaptation of the Fibonacci sequence each number represents a quarter note and is expressed in the succession of meters 4/4, 3/4, 5/4, 4/4, 4/4, 5/4, 3/4, 5/4, 4/4, 4/4, 4/4, 4/4, and 5/4. This series of measures is repeated throughout the work. While each 13-bar segment implies that the music fits into a particular metrical scheme, the composer exerts independence in a variety of ways, such as with phrasing that sometimes ignores the underlying structure. Buss states: This metrical template was at times useful, but often seemed arbitrary and counter to the thrust and development of the musical material. My challenge was to find a way to work with the template while using its rigidity to spark creative solutions. Although the music evolves within the template, my ultimate goal was that the listener be unaware of the structural underpinnings and simply enjoy the beauty of the music..

SKU: GI.G-RCA425

English.

A rising young composer has given us a spirited 21st-century madrigal set to a medieval Christmas text. A finalist in the BBC Radio 3 Carol of the Year Composition Competition 2016, the music throws singer and listener alike into a joyous dance in Dorian mode that culminates in a cascade of alleluias when the mode shifts to Ionian (major) at the close.

SKU: MN.56-0088

UPC: 688670220982. English.

Originally conceived for the ensemble Enchanted Voices, these carols for SSA voices and organ (or piano) represent the composer’s desire for the tunes and texts to be heard in a new and fresh way. Largely contemplative, sometimes set against a gently-undulating foundation, these work well for concert and church use. Sometimes ethereal, sometimes other-worldly, the pieces succeed in bringing together the ancient purity of the medieval past and the here and now. Duration 5:27.

SKU: MN.56-0100

UPC: 688670221149. Latin. John 1:14.

Originally conceived for the ensemble Enchanted Voices, these carols for SSA voices and organ (or piano) represent the composer’s desire for the tunes and texts to be heard in a new and fresh way. Largely contemplative, sometimes set against a gently-undulating foundation, these work well for concert and church use. Sometimes ethereal, sometimes other-worldly, the pieces succeed in bringing together the ancient purity of the medieval past and the here and now. Duration 4:31.

SKU: HL.14030979

Parts available: KP00248 The composer writes: The slow choral-like music which initiates Adieu was the result of an image or almost a dream that I had. Without being able to explain why, I imagined a procession of people, maybe medieval munks, wearing large gray mantles with Ku-Klux-Klan-like white cowls on their heads, something like a funeral procession. The title Adieu is partly a comment on this funeral procession, but also used because the piece is split up by three slow-ascending glissandi, a kind of farewell glissandi which removes the intervening music. The first absorbing glissando is soft and removes both the slow funeral choral and the agitating figures in the first half of the piece. The second glissando is given only to the cello and crawls out from the elegiac melodies in the middle part. The third and final glissando is intense and agitating, and prepares the way for the end of the piece. This end primarily deals with the relationship fast - slow. This relationship is turned topsy turvy: the music gets faster and faster until it is so fast that it suddenly becomes slow, so slow in fact that it is very quickly able to become extremely fast again.