SKU: LM.28194A

ISBN 9790230931571.

Bleu - Les Fees - L'Ivresse - BWV 1007.

SKU: HL.14030973

9.5x14.25x0.172 inches.

This is The Score for Schattenlinie, a Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano by contemporary Danish composer, Bent Sorensen, written in 2005.

SKU: LM.29201

ISBN 9790230992015.

SKU: PR.164002720

UPC: 680160573042. 8.5 x 11 inches.

My third quartet is laid out in a three-movement structure, with each movement based on an early, middle, and late work of the great American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. Although the movements are separate, with full-stop endings, the music is connected by a common scale-form, derived from the name MARY CASSATT, and by a recurring theme that introduces all three movements. I see this theme as Mary's Theme, a personality that stays intact while undergoing gradual change.   I The Bacchante (1876) [Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]   The painting shows a young girl of Italian or Spanish origin, playing a small pair of cymbals. Since Cassatt was trying very hard to fit in at the French Academy at the time, she painted a lot of these subjects, which were considered typical and universal. The style of the painting doesn't yet show Cassatt's originality, except perhaps for certain details in the face. Accordingly the music for this movement is Spanish/Italian, in a similar period-style but using the musical signature described above. The music begins with Mary's Theme, ruminative and slow, then abruptly changes to an alla Spagnola-type fast 3/4 - 6/8 meter. It evokes the Spanish-influenced music of Ravel and Falla.   Midway through, there's an accompanied recitative for the viola, which figures large in this particular movement, then back to a truncated recapitulation of the fast music. The overall feeling is of a well-made, rather conventional movement in a contemporary Spanish/Italian style. Cassatt's painting, too, is rather conventional.   II At the Opera (1880) [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts]   This painting is one of Cassatt's most well known works, and it hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The painting shows a woman alone in a box at the opera house, completely dressed (including gloves) and looking through opera glasses at someone or something that is NOT on the stage. Across the auditorium from her, but exactly at eye level, is a gentleman with opera glasses intently watching her - though it is not him that she's looking at. It's an intriguing picture.   This movement is far less conventional than the first movement, as the painting is far less conventional. The music begins with a rapid, Shostakovich-type mini-overture lasting less than a minute, based on Mary's Theme. My conjecture is that the woman in the painting has arrived late to the opera, busily stumbling into her box. What happens next is a kind of collage, a kind of surrealistic overlaying of two different elements: the foreground music, at first is a direct quotation of Soldier's Chorus from Gounod's FAUST (an opera Cassatt would certainly have heard in the brand-new Paris Opera House at that time), played by Violin II, Viola, and Cello. This music is played sul ponticello in the melody and col legno in the marching accompaniment. On top of this, the first violin hovers at first on a high harmonic, then descends into a slow melody, completely separate from the Gounod. It's as if the woman in the painting is hearing the opera onstage but is not really interested in it. Then the cello joins the first violin in a kind of love-duet (just the two of them, at first). This music isn't at all Gounod-derived; it's entirely from the same scale patterns as the first movement and derives from Mary's Theme and its scale. The music stays in a kind of dichotomy feeling, usually three-against-one, until the end of the movement, when another Gounod melody, Valentin's aria Avant de quitter ce lieux reappears in a kind of coda for all four players. It ends atmospherically and emotionally disconnected, however. The overall feeling is a kind of schizophrenic, opera-inspired dream.   III Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun (1909) [Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts]   The painting, one of Cassatt's last, is very simple: just a figure, looking sideways out of the picture. The colors are pastel and yet bold - and the woman is likewise very self-assured and not in the least demure. It is eight minutes long, and is all about melody - three melodies, to be exact (Young Woman, Green, and Sunlight). No angst, no choppy rhythms, just ever-unfolding melody and lush harmonies. I quote one other French composer here, too: Debussy's song Green, from Ariettes Oubliees. 1909 would have been Debussy's heyday in Paris, and it makes perfect sense musically as well as visually to do this.   Mary Cassatt lived her last several years in near-total blindness, and as she lost visual acuity, her work became less sharply defined - something akin to late water lilies of Monet, who suffered similar vision loss. My idea of making this movement entirely melodic was compounded by having each of the three melodies appear twice, once in a pure form, and the second time in a more diffuse setting. This makes an interesting two ways form: A-B-C-A1-B1-C1.   String Quartet No.3 (Cassatt) is dedicated, with great affection and respect, to the Cassatt String Quartet, whose members have dedicated themselves in large measure to the furthering of the contemporary repertoire for quartet.

SKU: PR.11441382S

UPC: 680160585847.

Another prize-winning composition from Needham is his String Quartet No. 1, which sprang from an afternoon's exposure to Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Says the composer, The work itself is about cycles. Nature cycles (day to night, seasonal, moon, tides, etc.), life cycles, and even cycles in music make their way into the piece, both consciously and subconsciously. The work is a homage to nature and to the affective spirit found in the music of Vivaldi..

SKU: FH.VA8

ISBN 978-1-55440-570-1.

This groundbreaking series for viola offers a sound and progressive collection of Repertoire, Recordings, Etudes, Technique, and Orchestral Excerpts for the aspiring virtuoso. Representing all major style periods and a variety of genres, Viola Series, 2013 Edition offers all the music and tools needed to support a comprehensive course of study from the beginner to advanced levels. A rich and varied selection of music in each of these nine progressive volumes of repertoire appeals to violists of all ages. From the Preparatory Level through Level 8, students will be exposed to quality selections originally written for viola, fun arrangements of traditional fiddle and folk tunes, as well as contemporary pieces by notable composers such as Violet Archer, Carey Cheney, and Fritz Kriesler.
Preparatory Level:
Blast Off! - Cohen, Mary
Dragon Drama! - Harris, Paul
D Scale Waltz - Anderson, Gerald E. and Robert Frost
Pizzicato Puddle Stomp - Rapoport, Katharine
Level 1:
Gliding Along at the Octopus Ball - Cohen, Mary
The Little Eel - Entezami, Ramin
Nojack - Donkin, Christine
Bow Division - Anonymous
Level 2:
Rowing on the Lake - Keyser, Paul de
Sailing - Romberg, Bernhard Heinrich arr. A. Baird Knechtel
Charlie Is My Darling - Traditional Scottish melody arr. Mary Cohen
Kites - Rapoport, Katharine
Level 3:
Etude in C Major, op. 45, book 1, no. 4 - Wohlfahrt, Franz
Heidi Hi! - Cohen, Mary
The Fair Isle - Mackay, Neil
Spuzzam - Donkin, Christine
The First Skating Lesson - Geringas, Yaakov
Level 4:
Melodious Double Stops No. 9 - Trott, Josephine
Hot Chocolate Treat - Cohen, Mary
Preparatory Exercise for Chromatic Scales - Kinsey, Herbert transc. Margaret Banwell
Playing Ball - Geringas, Yaakov.

SKU: PE.EP71899

ISBN 9790577004402. English.

About Peters Contemporary Library

Mark Andre
Milton Babbitt
Daniel Bjarnason
Earle Brown
John Cage
Henry Cowell
James Dillon
Jonathan Dove
Brian Ferneyhough
Roxanna Panufnik
Rebecca Saunders
Erkki-Sven Tuur
Charles Wuorinen

These are just a few of the composers whose most adventurous scores are now available to purchase through the Peters Contemporary Library. A new global initiative of the Edition Peters Group, the Peters Contemporary Library is a project designed to put these bold 20th- and 21st-century works, once available only for rental, into the collections of libraries, performers, scholars, and conductors alike.

Kicked off in 2016, the Peters Contemporary Library already contains many cutting-edge works and is constantly expanding. We are proud to offer these bold new scores for sale, for the first time ever, to modern musicians and students of music all around the world.

SKU: BT.EMBZ14386

''The four parts of the piece originate from the piano cycles of Johannes Brahms. The identical nature of the themes is implied in their descending direction, while their differences lie in their distinct meters, key signatures and tempo. I further developed the differences through the use of different musical alterations (of melody, rhythm and timbre) while the melodic contours are always constant. Depending on the listener's attention, the melody lines written above one another will be audible separately or appear to be in unison.'' (Balázs Horváth)

''Der Stoff der vier Stimmen des Stückes stammt aus den Klavierzyklen von Johannes Brahms. Die Übereinstimmung liegt in ihrer abwärts tendierenden Richtung, ihr Unterschied hingegen in abweichender Metrik, Tonart und Tempi. Die Unterschiede habe ich mit Hilfe unterschiedlicher musikalischer (melodischer, rhythmischer und tonaler) Veränderungen weitergewoben, während die Struktur der Melodien immer konstant bleibt. Die übereinander gelegten Melodienbögen erklingen abhängig von der Aufmerksamkeit des Hörers teils jede für sich, teils eine Einheit bildend.'' (Balázs Horváth).

SKU: PE.EP72822

ISBN 9790577011769. 232 x 303mm inches. English.

I have only visited Damascus once, twenty years ago, on the way to Palmyra.  I had a purpose (I was writing music for a play about Palmyra’s Queen Zenobia) but essentially I was a tourist.  Like any visitor, I was thrilled to step out of the noisy modern city into the magical ancient world of the walled Old City, its vibrant souk leading to the magnificent mosque, and a labyrinth of winding, narrow streets filled with the smell of unleavened bread.

In Palmyra, I was met with extraordinary kindness everywhere.  On one occasion, a little Bedouin boy noticed that I was risking sunstroke wandering bare-headed among the spectacular ruins: he showed me how to tie a turban, then took me to have tea with his family in their tent.

Since then, I have watched helplessly as these places of wonder have been devastated and their inhabitants scattered and killed.  When the Sacconi Quartet suggested that I might choose a Syrian poet for our collaboration, I welcomed the idea.

I searched for a long time to find a contemporary poet whose work might gain from any music I could imagine.  I felt it was important to find first-hand accounts of the Syrian experience – but, of course, I was always reading them in translation.  In an anthology called Syria Speaks, I was astonished to read something that looked like prose, but was full of poetry.  It was Anne-Marie McManus’s fine translation of Ali Safar’s A Black Cloud in a Leaden White Sky – an eloquent, thoughtful, contained yet vivid account of life in a war-torn country, all the more moving for its restraint.

In setting these words, I have not attempted to imitate Syrian music.  However, there is what might be called a linguistic accommodation in my choice of scale, or mode.  Several movements are in a mode that I first discovered while writing a cantata commemorating the First World War: it has a tuning that I associate with war, its violence and desolation.  This eight-note mode is similar to scales found in Syrian music.  I did not choose it in the abstract: it emerged from the harmonies I was exploring in the earlier work, and emerged again as I was looking for the right musical colours to set Ali Safar’s words.  In this work, its Arabic aspect is more prominent. - Jonathan Dove