Orchestra Bass Clarinet, Bass Trombone, Bassoon, Clarinet, Contrabass, Contrabassoon, English Horn, Flute 1, Flute 2, Horn 1, Horn 2, Horn 3, Horn 4, Oboe, Percussion, Trombone 1, Trombone 2, Trumpet 1, Trumpet 2, Tuba, Viola, Violin 1, Violin 2, Violoncello

SKU: PR.44641192L

For 5 Percussionists and Orchestra. Composed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Contemporary. Large Score. With Standard notation. Composed 2003. 72 pages. Duration 30 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #446-41192L. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.44641192L).

UPC: 680160610860. 11 x 14 inches.

One of my greatest pleasures in writing a concerto is exploring the new world that opens for me each time I enter the sometimes alien, but always fascinating, world of a solo instrument or instruments. For me, the challenge is to discover the deepest nature of the solo instrument (its karma, if you will) and to allow that essential character to guide the shape and form of the work and the nature of the interaction between soloists and orchestra. In recent years, many of us have become more aware of the musical world outside the Western tradition of musics that follow different procedures and spring from other aesthetics. And contemporary percussionists have opened many of these worlds to us, as they have ventured around the globe, participating in Brazilian Samba schools, studying Gamelan and African drumming with local experts, collecting instruments from Asia and Africa and South America and the South Pacific, widening our horizons in the process. I will never forget our first meeting in Toronto when Nexus invited me into their world of hundreds of exciting percussion instruments. The vast array of instruments in the collection of the Nexus ensemble is truly global in scope as well as offering a thrilling sound-universe. I was inspired by the incredible range of sound and moved by the fact that so many of these instruments were musical reflections of a spiritual dimension. After long consideration, I decided that it would not only be impossible, but even undesirable for this Western-tradition-steeped composer to attempt to use these instruments in a culturally authentic way. My goal was an existential kind of authenticity: searching instead for universal ideas that would be true to both myself and the performers while acknowledging the traditional uses of the instruments. Since many percussion instruments are associated with various kinds of ritual, I decided that I would allow that concept to shape my piece. Rituals is in four movements, each issuing from a ritual associated with percussion, but with the orchestral interaction providing an essential element in the musical form. I. Invocation alludes to the traditions of invoking the spirit of the instruments, or the gods, or the ancestors before performing. II. Ambulation moves from a processional, through march and dance to fantasy based on all three. III. Remembrances alludes to traditions of memorializing. IV. Contests progresses from friendly competition games, contests to a suggestion of a battle of big band drummers, to warlike exchanges. In the 2nd and 4th movements, another percussion tradition, improvisation, is employed. Written into these movements are a number of seeds for improvisation. Indications in the score call for the soloists to improvise in three different ways, marked A for percussion alone; marked B for percussion with and in response to the orchestra; and C where the percussionists are free to add and embellish the written parts. These improvisations should grow out of and embellish previous motives and gestures in the movement.

Symphonic winds, percussion, double basses

SKU: FG.55011-904-8

Composed by Einojuhai Rautavaara. Classical, contemporary. Score & parts. Fennica Gehrman #55011-904-8. Published by Fennica Gehrman (FG.55011-904-8).

ISBN 9790550119048.

Publ ished for the first time in 2024! Einojuhani Rautavaara's Concerto grottesco was composed in 1950 and is among his first orchestral works. With overall duration of six minutes, the work includes four movements.

This product includes the full score and the set of parts:
Flutes 1–2 (2nd flute also piccolo)
Oboes 1–2
Clarinets 1–2 in Bb & A
Bassoons 1–2
Horns 1–2 in F
Trumpets 1–2 in Bb
Trombone
Tuba
Timpani
Percussion (1 performer): Tamburo rullante, piatto sospeso, triangolo, Wood block
Double basses 1–2

Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928−2016) was one of Finland's internationally most successful composers. He made his major breakthrough with the Seventh Symphony, Angel of Light, in the 1990s, but his output includes numerous classic operas, concertos, chamber music works and choral works. Over his extensive career, he progressed from Neo-Classicism to strict dodecaphony to free-tonal Neo-Romanticism.