Piano

SKU: ST.Y215

Composed by Morgan Hayes. 6 minutes. Score. Stainer & Bell Ltd. #Y215. Published by Stainer & Bell Ltd. (ST.Y215).

ISBN 9790220221309.

1st perf: Sarah Nicolls, The Warehouse, London, 12 December 2003

Lute Stop, inspired by the legendary playing of Glen Gould and Alexis Weissenberg, is the latest bravura solo from Morgan Hayes, an outstanding young British composer of piano music. The interpretative style of these performers, favouring a block-like rather than a nuanced approach to dynamics, is mirrored in the formal aspect of the piece and the extreme dynamic contrasts of its material. Sudden shifts in register, octave doublings and quiet left-hand punctuations also feature prominently in the textures, suggesting changes of registration on a harpsichord - hence the title.

Piano

SKU: FG.55011-717-4

Composed by Einar Englund. Score. Fennica Gehrman #55011-717-4. Published by Fennica Gehrman (FG.55011-717-4).

ISBN 9790550117174.

It was through Einar Englund (1916-1999) that the Neoclassicism already familiar elsewhere in the world landed on Finnish shores in the late 1940s. A composer especially of large-scale orchestral and chamber works, Englund is one of the greatest Finnish symphonists.

Sinuh e is an example of a Finnish composition founded on a non-Finnish subject handled in a non-National-Romantic way. This probably partly explains why the score has fallen into oblivion in Finland: the Oriental moods and the Nile do not correspond to the view of a Finnish composition as one favouring topics from the national epic, the Kalevala, and lakeland scenery. The music also incorporates motifs derived from Lapp yoiks used by Englund in his score for the film The White Deer (1952). When it was written, the ballet's combination of a historical subject with an exotic, stylised idiom showed that Englund had his finger on the international pulse, unlike, say, Samuel Barber's ballet Medea (1946) and Aram Khachaturian's ballet Spartacus (1956).

The suite from Sinuhe is in five scenes. It omits the original overture and almost all the music for the second half of the ballet. Sinuhe's hapless love for the courtesan Nefernefer is described with languorous sensuality. His servant Kaptah throws himself into a frenzied dance with the Cretan maidens. The suite ends with the rhythmic war dance of his friend Horemheb.

Piano, elektrische organ (harmonium) and percussion (5 player)

SKU: HL.49006313

Chamber music No. 2. Composed by Wilhelm Killmayer. This edition: Saddle stitching. Sheet music. Edition Schott. Classical. Score (also Performance Score). Composed 1972. 16 pages. Duration 8'. Schott Music #ED 6431. Published by Schott Music (HL.49006313).

ISBN 9790001068468.

Wilh elm Killmayer puts a single note at the heart of this composition. Butwhereas Robert Schumann took it as the starting point of his romanticism,Killmayer doesn't allow himself the freedom to develop poetic melodies. Just as Schumann deliberately decided to live within the constraints of a mental asylum in Endenich, Killmayer favours the constraints of a very limited tonal space. Recurring seconds in the piano part illustrate the confines in the life of the ill composer. Even the addition of a vibraphone,bongo and conga cannot overcome these boundaries in the end. The only option left is to look inwards for an escape. And when refined tone colours are revealed in a dialogue between piano and glockenspiel, Schumann in Endenich turns into a journey into the consciousness of an enigmatic fellow human being.

Schlagzeug I: Glockenspiel, Ruhrtrommel, hohe Pedalpauke; Schlagzeug II: Glockenspiel, Xylophon, Bongo (mittel), Holzfass (oder grosses Holzbrett mit Resonanz); Schlagzeug III: Vibraphon, Marimbaphon, 2 Congas (mittel-tief), Ruhrtrommel; Schlagzeug IV: Gong in c, Steinspiel (a''), Bongo (tief), Ruhrtrommel, Pauke in g; Schlagzeug V: grosses Tamtam, Gegenschlagholzer (yoshigi), Pauke in E und A (cis), Conga (mittel).