SKU: HL.49017864
ISBN 9790220131288. UPC: 884088567637. 9.0x12.0x0.107 inches.
Sacrificium was commissioned by the St Albans International Organ Festival for what has become one of the most influential organ competitions in the world. It is a demanding 8 minute work that will challenge performers with an abundance of contrasting material whilst still leaving space for individual interpretation. Casken refers to the story of Alban who sacrificed his life to save another Christian thereby becoming the first British Martyr in his programme note and more specifically the act of exchanging cloaks and deception which led to Alban's execution. This idea of taking on a new appearance is apparent in the music as recurring themes undergo transformations, gradually becoming absorbed into new musical textures.
SKU: HL.49019330
ISBN 9790220133725. 8.25x11.75x0.242 inches.
The work explores something of how we might experience winter. The title is a play on words and the normal meaning of reels as dances infects both the first movement, with its lilting triplet rhythms, and the last movement which incorporates a vigorous reel-like unison melody that unfolds as part of a series of energetic episodes. The song of the second movement is a long singing line given to the cello, and the ensemble here, as elsewhere, is coloured in the percussion by the use of a steel pan.John Casken.
SKU: HL.49045179
ISBN 9790220136801. UPC: 841886027442. 9.0x12.0x0.115 inches.
Stolen Airs takes as its starting point an episode from Sylvie and the Songman, an opera I am writing in collaboration with the novelist Tim Binding. The Songman has developed the technique of stealing the voices and songs of birds and animals, and eventually humans. Slowly stealing Sylvie's voice, the Songman offers to give back her song if she will tell him the secret of a group of instruments invented by her father that have produced an all-powerful single sonority. Using this scenario, the music of Stolen Airsmoves from a dark place towards three simple airs, with a distant, different air as a quiet coda. -John Casken.
SKU: HL.49046269
ISBN 9781540064660. UPC: 842819104353. 0.139 inches.
In spite of having written many works including piano, before composing my new suite of pieces there were only two for solo piano: The Haunting Bough and Pleasure Ground. I decided to incorporate these in a new set of pieces extending the theme of trees and wood (I cut The Haunting Bough into two pieces which frame the suite as the first and last movements; Pleasure Ground is renamed SwingingBough), and further developing my interest in the poetry, history and appearance of landscape and its features as extra-musical sources. John Casken Difficult.
