Chamber Music Bassoon, Piano

SKU: PR.114423350

Composed by Amanda Harberg. Set of Score and Parts. 32+12 pages. Duration 16 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #114-42335. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.114423350).

ISBN 9781491135112. UPC: 680160686339.

This stunning addition to the bassoon repertory features dramatic outer movements framing a slow and plaintive aria. Harberg’s program notes put the drama and its crying-out high notes in the context of writing in 2021: “The composition was deeply influenced by disruptive forces unfolding around us. While this unrest made writing difficult at times and brought me to uncomfortable places within myself, the process was also full of unexpected discoveries and musical solutions I never would have found in less troubled times.”.
Connect ions are all around us. I first met bassoonist Adrian Morejon while writing my Suite for Wind Quintet for the Dorian Wind Quintet in 2017. He and I quickly became fast friends and decided to collaborate on a new piece. Over the next two years, Adrian assembled a phenomenal group of 28 bassoonists from around the world to be co-commissioners. Adrian and I premiered the resulting sonata at the International Double Reed Society’s 2021 Virtual Symposium.The SONATA was composed between January and June 2021. In composing it, my goal was to offer bassoonists a substantial work that would show off the instrument’s remarkable strengths including its athletic agility, gorgeous singing qualities, and enormous range. While I generally avoid being programmatic, this composition was deeply influenced by the disruptive forces unfolding around us. While this unrest made writing difficult at times and often brought me to uncomfortable places within myself, the process was also full of unexpected discoveries and musical solutions I never would have found in less troubled times.I am deeply grateful to Adrian for our collaboration, and to everyone in the consortium for making the SONATA possible.

Piano - Grade 4

SKU: FA.MFRO001P

Composed by Claude Debussy and Robert Orledge. Rediscoverd Debussy. Classical : Impressionistic. Score. Musik Fabrik #MFRO001P. Published by Musik Fabrik (FA.MFRO001P).

8.27 x 11.69 inches.

Over the years 1908-16, Debussy had produced a viable scenario for Usher on his third attempt. Butwhen he came to making a complete draft of the music, he seems to have lost interest during Roderick Usher's long monologue, even though he was setting his own text. As in No-ja-li he jumped to the next passage that interested him, in this case the exciting final melodrama and the collapse of the Usher house itself. In the process of completing the missing half of the score, I discovered that by reusing Debussy's material for similar psychological situations across the opera, and by metamorphosing existing ideas (as Debussy does with Melisande's theme in his opera Pelleas et Melisande), the only things I really needed to add were linking material and any passages where fast music was required. So the 'nightmare scherzo', and Lady Madeline's escape from her coffin and her final bloody revenge on her brother are all mine, but most of the rest is existing Debussy in changing contexts (in which the Russian technique of 'changing backgrounds', both harmonic and textural, proved extremely useful, as it did to Debussy in his Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune). Eventually, both my completed ballet No-ja-li and the House of Usher were successfully premiered in 2006 and the latter soon began to find its way into the established repertoire in Europe and the US. To further support this, I transcribed some of the highlights of Debussy's score as A Night in the House of Usher for organ, and subsequently piano--with a focus on Scene 2 and the final, horrific and maca-bre melodrama. This climaxes in the double deaths of Roderick Usher and his Sister Madeline, together with the disintegration of the ill-fated House of Usher into the stagnant lake-all beneath a blood-red moon.In this form it was first performed by Ian Buckle in the Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds in 2010.