(for High Voice and Viola). By David Diamond. For Viola, High Voice (High Voice). Peermusic Classical. 10 pages. Peermusic #61578-224. Published by Peermusic

Voice; Viola (Soprano)

SKU: PE.EP73727

Composed by Emily Howard. Mixed Instruments - Soprano and Viola; Solo Small Ensembles; Vocal. Edition Peters. Contemporary. Score. 28 pages. Edition Peters #98-EP73727. Published by Edition Peters (PE.EP73727).

ISBN 9790577024004.

Ombr a (2022) is a 40' dramatic vocalise for mezzo-soprano and viola in three parts, first performed as part of The Wernicke's Area, a mixed media installation led by ANU Productions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The work can be performed in its acoustic version or accompanied by sound design, created by Bofan Ma, based on the original immersive sound design from The Wernicke's Area.

The work responds to the story and medical condition of Debbie Boss, wife of ANU's co-artistic director and visual artist Owen Boss. In 2014 Debbie was admitted to hospital for surgery to remove a previously undiagnosed meningioma tumour from a part of the brain known as the Wernicke's Area. Since the surgery her everyday life has been affected by epilepsy. When Debbie suffers a seizure the symptoms manifest as audio hallucinations and aphasia: a loss of comprehension of both heard and spoken words.

Ombra takes inspiration from a series of diaries kept by Debbie, a trained soprano who can no longer remember the lyrics to even the simplest of songs. Responding to George F. Handel's 'Ombra mai fu', which was Debbie's favourite aria to perform, as well as to the mirage-like sounds of an AI-inflected Dublin cityscape, Ombra is a mental theatre, embodying an inward, ever circling wonder about meaning and comprehension.

In Ombra I, mezzo-soprano and viola unite in an intense unison exploration of a brief melodic fragment from 'Ombra mai fu'. A set of 8 short dramatic vignettes form Ombra II. In Ombra III, Handel's original melody is foregrounded with an instruction in the score 'Repeat ad infinitum'. As mezzo-soprano alternates between singing, humming and silence, viola is instructed to play at times with gradual or sudden transitions between p e dolce sempre and sounding 'like concete being grated', a final reference to the diaries.

Ombra is dedicated to Debbie.

Commission ed by ANU Productions as part of The Wernicke's Area, funded by the Arts Council.

Piano Accompaniment; Viola (Viola With Piano Accompaniment)

SKU: HL.48025323

Viola and Piano. Composed by Elena Kats-Chernin. Boosey & Hawkes Chamber Music. Classical. Softcover. Duration 180 seconds. Bote & Bock #M202536339. Published by Bote & Bock (HL.48025323).

UPC: 196288175438.

The piece is part of the ballet Wild Swans, choreographed by Meryl Tankard at the Sydney Opera House in 2002, based on the fairy tale The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen. Originally scored for soprano and orchestra, Eliza Aria introduces Princess Elisa and expresses her pure soul, innocence and belief in the goodness of the world: Without saying a word, she must weave stinging nettles into cloth to save her enchanted brothers. The short, enchanting vocalise is perhaps Elena Kats-Chernin's best-known creation and went around the world as music in a promotional video on YouTube. It is now available in numerous versions for `ifferent instruments and instrumentations.

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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