PARTITIONS GRATUITES :
- Songs of Mortality

SKU: CA.940205

ISBN 9790007314439. German/English. Text: Rückert, Friedrich.

“L� �¶sche die Lampe getrost, hülle in Frieden dich ein” (“Put out thy lamp with good heart, lay thee then peacefully down”) – Johannes Brahms’s final cycle of secular songs for mixed choir a cappella paints a striking picture of mortality, ultimate happiness and lost youth. The 4- to 6-part songs fascinate with their immense power and range of expression, which runs from short, quiet, melancholy phrases (“breathe tremblingly forth”, “O lifeless falleth”) to elements of folk song (the horn calls in Nightwatch II) to mighty climaxes and double-choir effects produced with great economy of means. The closing movement In Autumn, with its idiosyncratic harmonies, is certainly one of Brahms’s best secular compositions.

All the songs are also available separately and as digital editions. The accompanying English text is the translation authorized by the composer himself.

SKU: BT.MUSM570365456

English.

Ed Hughes ' Against That Time - Three Songs To Sonnets By Shakespeare for Mezzo Soprano, Viola and Piano. ' Against That Time...Against My Love is a song cycle comprising of three related settings of Shakespeare sonnets(numbers 49,63 and 126). The sonnets are drawn from a collection of 154 of William Shakespeare's poems on love, beauty and mortality, first published together in 1609. The three sonnets chosen for this sequence meditate particularly on the effect of time upon the appearance of the beloved. In setting these extraordinary lines, I let their rhythms permeate the melodic writing for the singer. The viola and piano act as a kind of echo chamber for the poet's very directand intimate thoughts. The poems seem both timeless and modern in attitude and perceptions; the music's harmonies, though often tonally clear, are occasionally fractured and in tension, like the many images in thesepoignant texts. ' - Ed Hughes.