Tilt for flute

SKU: PR.11641139S

UPC: 680160682119.

Barcarolles for a Sinking City was inspired by the city of Venice, a place that has long held the fascination of artists, writers and composers, and which I have been lucky enough to visit on several occasions. Sadly it seems that future generations may not be so lucky: in addition to the city's slow sinking and recently discovered tilting, studies predict that if global warming and the resultant rise of ocean levels is unabated, the entire city (as well as many other coastal cities around the globe) will be under water by 2100.   I. Funeral Gondola The late, cryptic piano works of Franz Liszt made a profound impression on me as a young composer, among them two works he entitled La Lugubre Gondola (usually translated as The Funeral Gondola ) which were said to be a premonition of Wagner's death in Venice, his coffin transported through the canals in a black gondola. These late pieces of Liszt acquired even greater significance to me after I spent two summers in Bayreuth under the patronage of Friedelind Wagner, the granddaughter of Wagner and great-granddaughter of Liszt. This movement is a meditation on Wagner, Liszt, Venice and its own evanescence. II. Barcarolle/Quodlibet The Quodlibet (Latin for what pleases) is a musical form dating back to the 15th century where many disparate melodies are juxtaposed. Popular in the Renaissance, sacred and secular melodies were combined, often to comical effect due to the resultant incongruity of the words. The form was considered the ultimate test of a composer's mastery of counterpoint. The most famous Quodlibet is without doubt the final Variation of Bach's Goldberg Variations. As a form the Quodlibet is less common in more recent music, although examples can be found in the works of Kurt Weill and David Del Tredici.   My own Barcarolle/Quodlibet was inspired by the (perhaps apocryphal) story of the funeral where musicians were asked to play a Bach Choral, but due to miscommunication played instead the Bacarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann. Here, the Bach Choral Allen Menschen mussen sterben (All Men Must Die) is heard in the strings pizzicato, with a tempo indication In slow motion. The alto line of the Bach suggests a phrase from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (Alle Menchen werden Bruder) heard in the muted trombone. Before long, the famous tune from Offenbach's opera is heard, followed by quotations from iconic Barcarolles by Chopin, Mendelssohn and Faure, as well as two Venetian popular songs and more Beethoven.   III. Barcarola/Ostinato/Carillon An ostinato is a repeated musical figure, and carillon is Italian for music box. This movement references the obsolete genre of salon pieces that imitated music boxes: such works by composers like Liadov and Gretchaninov used to be a mainstay of pianists' encore repertoire. This movement is however much darker in conception than those pleasant trifles. Utilizing the full battery of percussion, the carefully notated temporal slowing of the ostinato becomes overwhelmed by a poignant chorale melody before this box is snapped shut.   IV. Barcarolle Oubliee (Forgotten Barcarolle) Marked limpido (still) the final movement begins with the sound of rain produced by a percussion instrument called (appropriately) a rain stick. Halting phrases in the harp coalesce into the accompaniment for a plangent melody heard in the clarinet. The central Adagio of this movement leads to a shattering climax, before the opening phrases return and dissipate into nothingness.

SKU: HL.49002518

ISBN 9790220120466. UPC: 073999913347. 9.0x12.0x1.015 inches. English.

Like few other theatre worksThe Magic Flute, A Midsummer Night's DreamTippett's first opera creates a wholly other place, one where human actions can be seen as in a tilted mirror. Since this is indeed an opera, the place, or dreamspace, is conjured by music: by luminescent music that, in its flowing abundance, radiant harmonies and evocative wind colourings, represents the natural world within which the characters have to integrate themselves. The central couple, those whose marriage is at first subverted and then gloriously celebrated, are Mark and Jenifer: he a young man of the earth and the senses, she a young woman of lofty spirituality. Each is only half a person, and before they can be united they have to be made whole, have to find within themselves an understanding of the other. Overseeing their mythic initiation and psychic healing are two Ancients, votaries of a temple on a wooded hilltop.As in the Mozart precedent, which the composer certainly had in mind, there is also a more workaday couple, Jack and Bella. The other principals are Jenifer's businessman father King Fisher, who wants to stop the wedding for reasons of his own, and an Erda-like seer. There is also a dancer, Strephon, leading the exuberant ballet in which the orchestra completes the story of enlightenment and passion. It is ultimately a victory of love and, before love, self-knowledge.(Paul Griffiths).