Piano

SKU: BT.EMBZ8377

Composed by Gyorgy Kurtag. Educational Tool. Book Only. Composed 1979. 88 pages. Editio Musica Budapest #EMBZ8377. Published by Editio Musica Budapest (BT.EMBZ8377).

English-German-Hungari an.

The idea of composing 'Games' was suggested by children playing spontaneously, children for whom the piano still means a toy. They experiment with it, caress it, attack it and run their fingers over it. They pile up seemingly disconnected sounds, and if this happens to arouse their musical instinct they look consciously for some of the harmonies found by chance and keep repeating them. Thus this series does not provide a tutor, nor does it simply stand as a collection of pieces. It is a possibility for experimenting and not for learning to play the piano.Pleasure in playing, the joy of movement - daring and if need be fast movement over the entire keyboard right from the firstlessons instead of clumsy groping for keys and the counting of rhythms - all these rather vague ideas lay at the outset of the creation of this collection. Playing - is just playing. It requires a great deal of freedom and initiative from the performer. On no account should the written image be taken seriously but the written image must be taken extremely seriously as regards the musical process, the quality of sound and silence. We should trust the picture of the printed notes and let is exert its influence upon us. The graphic picture conveys an idea about the arrangement in time of even the most free pieces. We should make use of all that we know and remember of free declamation, folk-music parlando-rubato, of Gregorian chant and of all that improvisational musical practice has ever brought forth.Let us tackle bravely even the most difficult task without being afraid of making mistakes: we should try to create valid proportions, unity and continuity out of the long and short values - just for our own pleasure! (BMC CD 139).

String quartet String Quartet

SKU: PR.16400272S

Cassatt. Composed by Dan Welcher. Premiere: Cassatt Quartet, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL. Contemporary. Full score. With Standard notation. Composed 2007. WRT11142. 52 pages. Duration 24 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #164-00272S. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.16400272S).

UPC: 680160588442. 8.5 x 11 inches.

My third quartet is laid out in a three-movement structure, with each movement based on an early, middle, and late work of the great American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. Although the movements are separate, with full-stop endings, the music is connected by a common scale-form, derived from the name MARY CASSATT, and by a recurring theme that introduces all three movements. I see this theme as Mary's Theme, a personality that stays intact while undergoing gradual change.   I The Bacchante (1876) [Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]   The painting shows a young girl of Italian or Spanish origin, playing a small pair of cymbals. Since Cassatt was trying very hard to fit in at the French Academy at the time, she painted a lot of these subjects, which were considered typical and universal. The style of the painting doesn't yet show Cassatt's originality, except perhaps for certain details in the face. Accordingly the music for this movement is Spanish/Italian, in a similar period-style but using the musical signature described above. The music begins with Mary's Theme, ruminative and slow, then abruptly changes to an alla Spagnola-type fast 3/4 - 6/8 meter. It evokes the Spanish-influenced music of Ravel and Falla.   Midway through, there's an accompanied recitative for the viola, which figures large in this particular movement, then back to a truncated recapitulation of the fast music. The overall feeling is of a well-made, rather conventional movement in a contemporary Spanish/Italian style. Cassatt's painting, too, is rather conventional.   II At the Opera (1880) [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts]   This painting is one of Cassatt's most well known works, and it hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The painting shows a woman alone in a box at the opera house, completely dressed (including gloves) and looking through opera glasses at someone or something that is NOT on the stage. Across the auditorium from her, but exactly at eye level, is a gentleman with opera glasses intently watching her - though it is not him that she's looking at. It's an intriguing picture.   This movement is far less conventional than the first movement, as the painting is far less conventional. The music begins with a rapid, Shostakovich-type mini-overture lasting less than a minute, based on Mary's Theme. My conjecture is that the woman in the painting has arrived late to the opera, busily stumbling into her box. What happens next is a kind of collage, a kind of surrealistic overlaying of two different elements: the foreground music, at first is a direct quotation of Soldier's Chorus from Gounod's FAUST (an opera Cassatt would certainly have heard in the brand-new Paris Opera House at that time), played by Violin II, Viola, and Cello. This music is played sul ponticello in the melody and col legno in the marching accompaniment. On top of this, the first violin hovers at first on a high harmonic, then descends into a slow melody, completely separate from the Gounod. It's as if the woman in the painting is hearing the opera onstage but is not really interested in it. Then the cello joins the first violin in a kind of love-duet (just the two of them, at first). This music isn't at all Gounod-derived; it's entirely from the same scale patterns as the first movement and derives from Mary's Theme and its scale. The music stays in a kind of dichotomy feeling, usually three-against-one, until the end of the movement, when another Gounod melody, Valentin's aria Avant de quitter ce lieux reappears in a kind of coda for all four players. It ends atmospherically and emotionally disconnected, however. The overall feeling is a kind of schizophrenic, opera-inspired dream.   III Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun (1909) [Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts]   The painting, one of Cassatt's last, is very simple: just a figure, looking sideways out of the picture. The colors are pastel and yet bold - and the woman is likewise very self-assured and not in the least demure. It is eight minutes long, and is all about melody - three melodies, to be exact (Young Woman, Green, and Sunlight). No angst, no choppy rhythms, just ever-unfolding melody and lush harmonies. I quote one other French composer here, too: Debussy's song Green, from Ariettes Oubliees. 1909 would have been Debussy's heyday in Paris, and it makes perfect sense musically as well as visually to do this.   Mary Cassatt lived her last several years in near-total blindness, and as she lost visual acuity, her work became less sharply defined - something akin to late water lilies of Monet, who suffered similar vision loss. My idea of making this movement entirely melodic was compounded by having each of the three melodies appear twice, once in a pure form, and the second time in a more diffuse setting. This makes an interesting two ways form: A-B-C-A1-B1-C1.   String Quartet No.3 (Cassatt) is dedicated, with great affection and respect, to the Cassatt String Quartet, whose members have dedicated themselves in large measure to the furthering of the contemporary repertoire for quartet.

Orchestra Saxophones and Strings

SKU: PR.446411060

Composed by Steven Stucky. Large Score. With Standard notation. Theodore Presser Company #446-41106. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.446411060).

UPC: 680160096275. 11x14 inches.

Steven Stucky has described the saxophone quartet as surprisingly comparable to the string quartet as a classic chamber music medium, while in the concerto format providing a worthy counterweight to the string orchestra. At times, the saxophones in Music for Saxophones and Strings “whisper, murmur, sigh, sing, squeal, or even scream” as the composer has written in notes about the work. Commissioned for the Raschèr Quartet, the work falls into two main sections. The composer continues that “the opening slow movement is dark, nocturnal, troubled; the language is densely chromatic. Mysterious, barely audible rustlings become increasingly more alarming; creatures cry in the night; and the movement climaxes in a lyric outpouring of melancholy, even tragic character. The music subsides by way of cadenzas for the baritone and tenor saxophone. The second, fast movement arrives almost unnoticed, since at first it too is made up of disconnected fragments — quirky, skittish, playful. There are irregular rhythmic accents, gliding quarter-tone runs, scurrying saxophone figures (suggesting, perhaps, a distant echo the bebop style), and screaming excursions into the altissimo register. Briefly the melancholy of the slow, nocturnal opening returns, before a quick coda leads to an emphatic conclusion.”.

By Janet Gardner. Children's Musicals and Programs. Choral. Director's Score and 10 Singer's Editions. Published by Alfred Publishing.

By Gyorgy Kurtag. Arranged by Jatekok. EMB. Size 9x12 inches. 25 pages. Published by Editio Musica Budapest.

Chamber Music String Quartet

SKU: PR.164002720

Cassatt. Composed by Dan Welcher. Spiral and Saddle. Premiere: Cassatt Quartet, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL. Contemporary. Set of Score and Parts. With Standard notation. Composed 2007. WRT11142. 52+16+16+16+16 pages. Duration 24 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #164-00272. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.164002720).

UPC: 680160573042. 8.5 x 11 inches.

My third quartet is laid out in a three-movement structure, with each movement based on an early, middle, and late work of the great American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. Although the movements are separate, with full-stop endings, the music is connected by a common scale-form, derived from the name MARY CASSATT, and by a recurring theme that introduces all three movements. I see this theme as Mary's Theme, a personality that stays intact while undergoing gradual change.   I The Bacchante (1876) [Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]   The painting shows a young girl of Italian or Spanish origin, playing a small pair of cymbals. Since Cassatt was trying very hard to fit in at the French Academy at the time, she painted a lot of these subjects, which were considered typical and universal. The style of the painting doesn't yet show Cassatt's originality, except perhaps for certain details in the face. Accordingly the music for this movement is Spanish/Italian, in a similar period-style but using the musical signature described above. The music begins with Mary's Theme, ruminative and slow, then abruptly changes to an alla Spagnola-type fast 3/4 - 6/8 meter. It evokes the Spanish-influenced music of Ravel and Falla.   Midway through, there's an accompanied recitative for the viola, which figures large in this particular movement, then back to a truncated recapitulation of the fast music. The overall feeling is of a well-made, rather conventional movement in a contemporary Spanish/Italian style. Cassatt's painting, too, is rather conventional.   II At the Opera (1880) [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts]   This painting is one of Cassatt's most well known works, and it hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The painting shows a woman alone in a box at the opera house, completely dressed (including gloves) and looking through opera glasses at someone or something that is NOT on the stage. Across the auditorium from her, but exactly at eye level, is a gentleman with opera glasses intently watching her - though it is not him that she's looking at. It's an intriguing picture.   This movement is far less conventional than the first movement, as the painting is far less conventional. The music begins with a rapid, Shostakovich-type mini-overture lasting less than a minute, based on Mary's Theme. My conjecture is that the woman in the painting has arrived late to the opera, busily stumbling into her box. What happens next is a kind of collage, a kind of surrealistic overlaying of two different elements: the foreground music, at first is a direct quotation of Soldier's Chorus from Gounod's FAUST (an opera Cassatt would certainly have heard in the brand-new Paris Opera House at that time), played by Violin II, Viola, and Cello. This music is played sul ponticello in the melody and col legno in the marching accompaniment. On top of this, the first violin hovers at first on a high harmonic, then descends into a slow melody, completely separate from the Gounod. It's as if the woman in the painting is hearing the opera onstage but is not really interested in it. Then the cello joins the first violin in a kind of love-duet (just the two of them, at first). This music isn't at all Gounod-derived; it's entirely from the same scale patterns as the first movement and derives from Mary's Theme and its scale. The music stays in a kind of dichotomy feeling, usually three-against-one, until the end of the movement, when another Gounod melody, Valentin's aria Avant de quitter ce lieux reappears in a kind of coda for all four players. It ends atmospherically and emotionally disconnected, however. The overall feeling is a kind of schizophrenic, opera-inspired dream.   III Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun (1909) [Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts]   The painting, one of Cassatt's last, is very simple: just a figure, looking sideways out of the picture. The colors are pastel and yet bold - and the woman is likewise very self-assured and not in the least demure. It is eight minutes long, and is all about melody - three melodies, to be exact (Young Woman, Green, and Sunlight). No angst, no choppy rhythms, just ever-unfolding melody and lush harmonies. I quote one other French composer here, too: Debussy's song Green, from Ariettes Oubliees. 1909 would have been Debussy's heyday in Paris, and it makes perfect sense musically as well as visually to do this.   Mary Cassatt lived her last several years in near-total blindness, and as she lost visual acuity, her work became less sharply defined - something akin to late water lilies of Monet, who suffered similar vision loss. My idea of making this movement entirely melodic was compounded by having each of the three melodies appear twice, once in a pure form, and the second time in a more diffuse setting. This makes an interesting two ways form: A-B-C-A1-B1-C1.   String Quartet No.3 (Cassatt) is dedicated, with great affection and respect, to the Cassatt String Quartet, whose members have dedicated themselves in large measure to the furthering of the contemporary repertoire for quartet.

Composed by Grey E. Larsen. Saddle-stitched. First Lessons. Folk. Book and online audio/video/pdf. 40 pages. Mel Bay Publications, Inc #30043M. Published by Mel Bay Publications, Inc

Piano

SKU: BT.EMBZ8378

Composed by Gyorgy Kurtag. Educational Tool. Book Only. Composed 1979. 60 pages. Editio Musica Budapest #EMBZ8378. Published by Editio Musica Budapest (BT.EMBZ8378).

English-German-Hungari an.

The idea of composing 'Games' was suggested by children playing spontaneously, children for whom the piano still means a toy. They experiment with it, caress it, attack it and run their fingers over it. They pile up seemingly disconnected sounds, and if this happens to arouse their musical instinct they look consciously for some of the harmonies found by chance and keep repeating them. Thus this series does not provide a tutor, nor does it simply stand as a collection of pieces. It is a possibility for experimenting and not for learning to play the piano.Pleasure in playing, the joy of movement - daring and if need be fast movement over the entire keyboard right from the firstlessons instead of clumsy groping for keys and the counting of rhythms - all these rather vague ideas lay at the outset of the creation of this collection. Playing - is just playing. It requires a great deal of freedom and initiative from the performer. On no account should the written image be taken seriously but the written image must be taken extremely seriously as regards the musical process, the quality of sound and silence. We should trust the picture of the printed notes and let is exert its influence upon us. The graphic picture conveys an idea about the arrangement in time of even the most free pieces. We should make use of all that we know and remember of free declamation, folk-music parlando-rubato, of Gregorian chant and of all that improvisational musical practice has ever brought forth.Let us tackle bravely even the most difficult task without being afraid of making mistakes: we should try to create valid proportions, unity and continuity out of the long and short values - just for our own pleasure! (BMC CD 139).

By Gyorgy Kurtag. Arranged by Jatekok. EMB. Size 9x12 inches. Published by Editio Musica Budapest.

By Janet Gardner. Children's Musicals and Programs. Choral. 5 Singer's Editions. Published by Alfred Publishing.

By Janet Gardner. Children's Musicals and Programs. Choral. 48 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing.

Piano

SKU: BT.EMBZ8379

Composed by Gyorgy Kurtag. Contemporary Music. Book Only. Composed 1979. 84 pages. Editio Musica Budapest #EMBZ8379. Published by Editio Musica Budapest (BT.EMBZ8379).

English-German-Hungari an.

The idea of composing 'Games' was suggested by children playing spontaneously, children for whom the piano still means a toy. They experiment with it, caress it, attack it and run their fingers over it. They pile up seemingly disconnected sounds, and if this happens to arouse their musical instinct they look consciously for some of the harmonies found by chance and keep repeating them. Thus this series does not provide a tutor, nor does it simply stand as a collection of pieces. It is a possibility for experimenting and not for learning to play the piano.Pleasure in playing, the joy of movement - daring and if need be fast movement over the entire keyboard right from the firstlessons instead of clumsy groping for keys and the counting of rhythms - all these rather vague ideas lay at the outset of the creation of this collection. Playing - is just playing. It requires a great deal of freedom and initiative from the performer. On no account should the written image be taken seriously but the written image must be taken extremely seriously as regards the musical process, the quality of sound and silence. We should trust the picture of the printed notes and let is exert its influence upon us. The graphic picture conveys an idea about the arrangement in time of even the most free pieces. We should make use of all that we know and remember of free declamation, folk-music parlando-rubato, of Gregorian chant and of all that improvisational musical practice has ever brought forth.Let us tackle bravely even the most difficult task without being afraid of making mistakes: we should try to create valid proportions, unity and continuity out of the long and short values - just for our own pleasure! (BMC CD 139).

By Gyorgy Kurtag. Arranged by Jatekok. EMB. Size 9x12 inches. 52 pages. Published by Editio Musica Budapest.