Viola Concerto: Do Not Go Gentle

SKU: HL.49019223

ISBN 9790001181747. UPC: 884088907389. 9.0x12.0x0.083 inches.

With his 'Concerto classico' composed in 1999, Bertold Hummel enables violin pupils with only limited technical skills to play an entire little violin concerto. The second movement, Elegy, is now also available as a separate edition for viola and piano. The melody of the Finnish folk song forming the thematic foundation of the movement is melancholy and gentle: a short simple theme which is introduced and then varied several times. To master this piece, it is sufficient for the violist to command the first position, and the piano part is easy to play as well. An ideal piece for pupils, competitions and for music-making at home.

SKU: PR.11440558S

UPC: 680160008971.

Concerto da Camera II is a work for six instruments which may be further grouped into three separate entities - clarinet, string quartet, piano. In this combination, chosen by the work's commissioning organizations (the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in conjunction with Mount Holyoke College), lies the work's first challenge. While pairings of any two of these three sound types abound in the concert literature, the three together form a far less common soundscape. The main difficulty appears in the necessity to reconcile the potential of both the clarinet and the piano of acting in a soloistic capacity when pitted against the string quartet. Indeed, the three movements of the Concerto deal with this problem in various ways, with the balance of power between the six instruments' potential for unity and contrast, solo and ensemble playing, continually shifting and changing.   Yet another, more delicate, balance of power is at play here, namely, the relationship between the external, foreground level of the piece and a subtler background level. What, at first, appear like small, gentle melodic strands, mere echoes or residues of the main events, gradually assume an inner life of their own. Never actually taking over yet always there, a salient, if quiet, factor within the work's compositional fabric and evolving organism.   Though each movement includes numerous tempo fluctuations, the overall thrust of the work clearly suggests a fast-slow-fast framework, with the last movement being a loosely structured, occasionally tempestuous Rondo.

SKU: PR.16400261S

UPC: 680160038411.

Since the bassoon is my own instrument, many people have asked me why I've written so little for the instrument. Beyond my early Concerto Da Camera for bassoon and small orchestra, written for Leonard Sharrow in 1975, I've not written a single piece that features the bassoon as a solo vehicle (though I have written three woodwind quintets). When I first began composing seriously, critics were quick to point out that my orchestral writing revealed nothing of my roots as a woodwind player--and bassoonists asked why my pieces didn't have more bassoon solos. Perhaps I was so aware that people were looking at me as a bassoonist/composer that I was determined to remove that stigma. Now that my transformation from performer to composer is complete, however, it's time to re-address my instrument. I wanted this new piece to be serious rather than whimsical. The Wind Won't Listen represents my return to the bassoon as the highly expressive, poetic soul that it is.   As such, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the piece is based on a poem, and that the title of the piece as well as both its movement titles come from lines in that poem. I first read Beth Gylys' poem Split at the MacDowell Colony in the summer of 2001, and it made a big impression on me. My personal life had been ruptured by divorce in the preceding year. This poem, with its dry insistence on observation rather than feeling, expressed the wrung-out state of my emotions at the time better than any I had seen. I set it to music, as a song, immediately. In this format, for voice and piano, I was able to put a musical note to every word of the poem. The first lines of the poem, Everyone I know is crying, or should be crying, became a melody that haunted me even without the words.   The work for bassoon and string quartet is an outgrowth of the song. The first movement is labeled Romanza, and has a loose formal arch structure of A-B-C-B-A, with B and C being fast sections framed by the lamenting A music. In addition to hearing the bassoon's first notes attached to the lines Everyone I know is crying, there's a sense of agitation, of loss, of longing, and at times of desperation in the music. At one point, the opening theme from Tristan even appears in the strings.   The second movement follows, without a real pause--the pizzicato final chords of the first movement becoming the increasingly aggressive opening chords of the second. The recitative is actually a foreshadowing of the basic theme that will be varied, again to the words of the song: Life makes itself without us. Don't let me tell you how it is. Go out. Look. The recitative begins in an anguished state, but subsides into more gentle singing by the end, when it simply falls into an ostinato 5/8-3/4 pattern to begin the variations. Marked Very steady tempo; Dancing, this set of variations consists of three dances, each faster than the previous. The first, in the aforementioned 5/8-3/4 meter, gives way to a 3/8 scherzo, which in turn takes on a furious 2/4 scurrying motion. The music becomes breathless, almost pulse-less, and an ethereal theme appears in the violins while the rushing music continues, sotto voce in the bassoon. This new theme is also from the song: Why do I do this? The wind won't listen. The bassoon re-states its Everyone I know is crying melody from the first movement, and at length the 5/8-3/4 music returns, more subdued this time. The piece ends on a major-minor chord, suspended.   The Wind Won't Listen is dedicated to the man who commissioned it, bassoonist Steven Dibner--who shares my passion for poetry and language. --Dan Welcher.

SKU: BR.OB-5533-19

The present setting of the Seven Last Words of Jesus Christ grippingly depicts the story of Christ's Crucifixion in fourteen Musical Dialogues. Listen to the world premiere recording of this major work of the Neapolitan Baroque, performed by the Akadem. Solo concerto; Baroque. Part. 28 pages. Breitkopf and Haertel #OB 5533-19. Published by Breitkopf and Haertel (BR.OB-5533-19).

ISBN 9790004341193. 10 x 12.5 inches.

Hermann Scherchen, who was the first to take up the cause of the one-hour-plus long, colorfully scored work, came to the conclusion: One of the most heartfelt works of art, full of gentleness and profound sensitivity. Since 1936, when two manuscripts of monastic provenance were discovered, musical scholars have been asking themselves whether the Septem verba is authentic or solely attributable to Sig. Pergolese. It is only thanks to the scholarly comparison of all manuscripts and to the discovery of two new sources which impressively confirm the existence of an active reception of this work in the mid 18th century, that the authorship and transmission can be newly evaluated.