SKU: ST.Y279

ISBN 9790220223068.

Such is the character of the accordion that any work featuring its distinctive voice within an ensemble is likely to be a piece d'occasion. Written for the prizewinning young soloist Milos Milivojevic and performed with the Juritz String Quartet at the 2011 Machynlleth Festival in Wales, Rhian Samuel's Mist on the Hills is no exception. The composer has used the rare opportunity of writing for the instrument in combination with solo strings to exploit its illustrative powers and create a fourteen-minute score inspired by the changing weather over the hills around her Welsh home on the Dyfi Estuary.

In particular, its three movements are suggestive of the appearance of mist in the landscape, 'settling', 'lingering' and 'swirling'. In the first movement, which is a gentle prelude, brief accordion motifs break through the timbre of strings like glints of sunshine through mist. The second movement, more song-like, presents three verses of a lament; in the first half of each verse the accordion sings as if from afar, while in the second half (led by the viola) the music intensifies greatly. In the dance-like and virtuosic last movement a short, constantly changing refrain alternates with two types of material: 'swirling' music and lighter, more rhythmical ideas. Finally, scale passages invade the texture, ceasing only as the accordion ascends to the top of its range in the closing bars.

SKU: CA.1605014

Language: all languages.

Score available separately - see item CA.1605000.

SKU: CA.1605015

Language: all languages.

Score available separately - see item CA.1605000.

SKU: BT.WHKP01684

English.

Three Little Nocturnes was composed by Hans Abrahamsen in 2005. Commissioned by the Cikada Ensemble, with support from NOMUS, and written for Frode Haltli and the Cikada String Quartet. Programme Note: In the first nocturne a slow, falling music emerges on an irregular pulse, filled with high harmonics in the strings. The second nocturne is fast and unrestful music, with a lot of passion, which in a moment runs into a glimpse of a tango. In this movement the accordion is employed in its traditional fashion, using the chord bass, with its “oom-pah-pah” standard chords. The third nocturne is again slow, indeed very slow, and it has German tempo and expression markings. Thepiece ends with a lullaby in the accordion, played with an unusual technique, imitating the string portato. This is accompanied by high harmonics in the strings, while the first violin slowly and softly plays a melody from the second nocturne. Hans Abrahamsen.