Orchestra

SKU: BA.BA06861

Sinfonie (1923-1928). Composed by Leos Janacek. Arranged by Leoš Faltus and Miloš Štedron. This edition: complete edition, urtext edition. Linen. Complete Critical Edition of the Works of Leos Janacek H/3. Complete edition, Score, Set of parts. Duration 40 minutes. Baerenreiter Verlag #BA06861_00. Published by Baerenreiter Verlag (BA.BA06861).

ISBN 9790260104211. 34.3 x 27 cm inches.

Leoš Janácek’s symphonic fragment Dunaj (The Danube) dates from the period of the composition of “Katya Kabanova”. The composer was not concerned with a musical-picturesque description of a river landscape, but with the mythical link between women’s destinies and water.

“Pale green waves of the Danube! There are so many of you, and one followed by another. You remain interlocked in a continuous flow. You surprise yourselves where you ended up – on the Czech shores! Look back downstream and you will have an impression of what you have left behind in your haste. It pleases you here. Here I will rest with my symphony.” Thus Leoš Janácek described the idea behind the composition project which occupied him in 1923/24. However, after further work, it remained incomplete in 1926. His “symphony” entitled Dunaj has survived as a continuously-notated, four-movement bundle of sketches in score form. It is one of the works which occupied him until his death. The scholarly reconstruction by the two Brno composers Miloš Štedron and Leoš Faltus closely follows the original manuscript.

A whole conglomeration of motifs stands behind the incomplete work. What at first seems like a counterpart to Smetana’s Vltava, in fact doesn’t turn out to be a musical depiction of the Danube. On the contrary, the fateful link between the destiny of women, water and death permeates the range of motifs found in the work. It seems to be no coincidence that Janácek, whilst working on the opera Katya Kabanova, in which the Volga, as the river bringing death plays an almost mythical role, planned a Danube symphony, and that its content was linked with the destiny of women: in the sketches, two poems were found which may have provided the stimulus for several movements of the symphony. He copied a poem by Pavla Kriciková into the second movement, in which a girl remarks that whilst bathing in a pond, she was observed by a man. Filled with shame, the young naked woman jumps into the water and drowns. The outer movements likewise draw on the poem “Lola” by the Czech writer Sonja Špálová, published under the pseudonym Alexander Insarov. This is about a prostitute who asks for her heart’s desire: she is given a palace, but then goes on a long search for it and is finally no longer wanted by anyone. She suffers, feels cold and just wants a warm fire. Janácek adds his remark “she jumps into the Danube” to the inconclusive ending.

To these tangible literary models is added Adolf Veselý’s verbal account which reports that the composer wanted to portray “in the Danube, the female sex with all its passions and driving forces”. The third movement is said to characterise the city of Vienna in the form of a woman.

It is evident that in his composition, Janácek was not striving for a simple, natural lyricism. The River Danube is masculine in the Slavic language – “ten Dunaj” – and assumes an almost mythical significance in the national character, indeed often also a role bringing death. The four movements are motivically conceived. Elements of sound painting, small wave-like figures in the first movement, motoric, driving movements in the third are obvious evocations of water. And the content and the literary level are easy to discover. The “tremolo of the four timpani”, which was amongst Janácek’s first inspirations, appears in the second movement. It is not difficult to retrace in it the fate of the drowning bather. The oboe enters lamentoso towards the end of the movement over timpani playing tremolo, its descending figure is taken over by the flute, then upper strings and intensified considerably. The motif of drowning – Lola’s despair – returns again in the fourth movement in the clarinet, before the work ends abruptly and dramatically.

One special effect is the use of a soprano voice in the motor-driven third movement. The singer vocalises mainly in parallel with the solo oboe, but also in dialogue with other parts such as the viola d’amore, which Janácek used in several late works as a sort of “voice of love”.

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Orchestra (Score) - Grade 4

SKU: HL.14027994

Composed by Poul Ruders. Music Sales America. Classical. Set. 86 pages. Edition Wilhelm Hansen #WH29830. Published by Edition Wilhelm Hansen (HL.14027994).

ISBN 9788759864593.

New York is the city which fascinates and inspires Ruders. Time and again he goes back there to work. 'Manhattan Abstraction' (1982) subtitles - a symphonic skyline for large orchestra - was conceived there. Ruders' Brittish colleague Oliver Knussen defines the piece as: - a performance of an extraordinary Morden-Times-like construction. It is a sort of symphonic sculpture, which in the composer's own words words propels forth from one particular inspiration: the New York profile, as seen from Liberty Island, one icy cold January day with it's open, clear sky and dazzling sun light. 'Manhatten Abstraction' appears as an amalgam of some of the compositorical habits found in present pieces. For instance, are present here compositorical ideas and melodic loans from 'Capriccio Pian'e Forte', 2nd String Quartet(1979), 'Four Compositions' (1980), and 2nd Piano Sonata(1982). The question at hand is mainly concerned with the enhanced elaboration of Ruders' use of the classic English change-ringing system: a permuting method pre-determining the order of tone-appearances and /or tone groups; a serial technique in other words. In spite of the rigidly fixed material, Ruders somehow manages to chisel out a personal expression by way of emphasising contrasting elements already existing within the material itself. The spiky, repetitive sections form a counterpart to a more human violin-solo. This dialectical tension is - as hinted by the title - a symphonic abstraction of a fascinating metropolis; the most beautiful and the ugliest. The subtitle: a symphonic skyline reflects the musical erection of the Manhattan profile, which under the clear sky, materializes into the most powerful and compelling man-made sculpture on earth. Thus 'Manhattan Abstraction' is a homage to, as well as a vision of, this giant contraption of concrete, glass, and chrome.

Orchestral Score. Composed by John Powell. Sheet music. Study score. Composed 2014 (2021). 404 pages. Omni Music Publishing #OMNI 50799. Published by Omni Music Publishing

Orchestral Score. Composed by John Powell. This edition: Paperback/Softcover. Sheet music. Study score. Composed 2010. 412 pages. Omni Music Publishers #OMNI 50792. Published by Omni Music Publishers

(study score). By Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). Edited by Clive Brown. For orchestra. Breitkopf Full Scores. Parts, Urtext. 120 pages