SKU: FG.55011-372-5

ISBN 9790550113725.

Images of the sea figure prominently throughout my life and memories: from holidays on the Atlantic coast during my Canadian childhood to my current Baltic home, and the imagined, only later experienced Mediterranean of my ancestral heritage. As an immigrant (son of an immigrant) bound to two northern countries, the sea is emblematic of my twin homelands, from the expanses of water surrounding them to those separating them. A Mari usque ad Mare. The sea is also an enduring image of the unknown, of expanses unexplored, of the raw power of nature and, for too many currently, of terror holding a hope of refuge - or the pain of loss.
Such disparate ideas were captured for me in the seascapes of the New York painter MaryBeth Thielhelm, whom I met in 2008 during a residency on the Gulf of Mexico. Her vast, abstract, nearly monochromatic depictions of imaginary seas in wildly varying moods were the catalyst for a concerto where the piano is frequently far from a hero battling a collective, but rather acts as a channel for elemental forces surging up from the orchestra, floating - sometimes barely so - on its constantly shifting surface. There are few themes to speak of, beyond a handful of iconic ideas that periodically cycle upward. Rather, the piano's material is largely an ornamentation of the more primal rhythmic and harmonic impulses from the orchestra below - a poetic interpretation, if you will, of the more immediate experience of facing the vastness of some unknown body of water.
The title Nameless Seas is borrowed from one of Thielhelm's exhibitions, as are those of the four movements, which are bridged together into two halves of roughly equal weight - one rhapsodic and free, the other more single-minded and direct, separated only by a short breath. The opening movement, Nocturne, is predominantly calm, if brooding, darkness and light alternating throughout. Lyrical arabesques sparkle over gently lapping cross-currents in the strings and mirrored timpani, the piano's full power only rarely deployed. The waves gradually build, drawing in the full orchestra for a meeting of forces in Land and Sea, a brighter, more warmly lyrical scene that unfolds in series of dreamlike, sometimes even nostalgic visions, which for me carry strong memories of sitting on rocks above surging Atlantic waves. The third movement, Wake, is a fast, perpetual-motion texture of glinting, darting rhythms and sudden shafts of light, with a prominent part for the steel drums, limning the piano's quicksilver figurations. An ecstatic climax crashes into a solo cadenza that grows progressively calmer and more introspective rather than virtuosic. Much of the tension finally releases into Unclaimed Waters, a drifting, meditative seascape in which the piano is progressively engulfed by a series of ever-taller waves, ultimately dissolving into a tolling, rippling continuum of sound.
It has been a great privilege to realize such a long-held dream as this piece, and to write it for not one, but two great pianists. Risto-Matti Marin and Angela Hewitt, both of whose friendship and support have been unfailing and humbling, share the dedication. Nameless Seas was commissioned by the PianoEspoo festival and Canada's National Arts Centre, with the premieres in Ottawa and Helsinki led by Hannu Lintu and Olari Elts. Thanks are due also to the Jenny and Antti Wihuri fund, whose generous grant provided me with much-needed time, and Escape to Create in Seaside, Florida, the source to which I returned to do a large part of the work.

SKU: BR.PB-15153

In Cooperation with G. Henle Verlag

ISBN 9790004215586. 10 x 12.5 inches.

Composed by Manuel de Falla during his lengthy residence in Paris, these three symphonic impressions for piano and orchestra are an expressive work bringing the southern Spanish gardens, which are laid out in the European and Arabic-Moorish tradition, to life. The influence of contemporary French music is noticeable in this composition. Despite many modifications, involving among other things, the scoring, number of movements, as well as layout and content, the basic idea of a nocturnal impression is retained from the outset. The work was finished - and likewise the orchestral material - only shortly before its premiere on 9 April 1916, which was a great success. World War I prevented its publication, though further performances followed, played then from manuscript material. The Urtext edition presented by Ullrich Scheideler takes as the main source the first edition of the score. The Critical Report gives detailed information about the source situation.

SKU: BR.PB-15152

In Cooperation with G. Henle Verlag

ISBN 9790004215579. 10 x 12.5 inches.

The piano concerto in a minor stands out in Edvard Grieg's oeuvre. Besides this famous concerto, he composed only a few other large orchestral works. Because of its popularity even in Grieg's lifetime, it was often performed, not least by the composer himself. So it is not surprising that Grieg made many changes to the score up to 1907. But at the same time, the concerto's size, form and substance remained completely unaltered. Interventions in the piano part basically involved subtleties of nuance, and only a very few places in the music text were altered. The situation was different with the orchestration. Here Grieg was keen to experiment and kept filing away at the orchestra sound right up to the last. Melodies were moved to other instruments, accompanying string chords were reconstructed, and above all the list of scored instruments was changed. The main source of the Urtext edition by Ernst-Gunter Heinemann is the new edition of the score originally published in 1907 by C. F. Peters, thus several years after the first edition of 1872. Taken into account in the present edition are the changes that Grieg made up to the time of his death. Piano reduction and fingering by Einar Steen-Nokleberg.

SKU: BT.EMBZ6338

Béla Bartók composed his Piano Quintet while at grammar school in Pozsony (Pressburg, now Bratislava), and it still shows the influence of Brahms in its melody and harmony. The work was always resoundingly successful at his youthful concerts. When on 7 January 1921 the Waldbauer Quartet wanted to repeat the programme of a concert given ten years previously, Bartók was displeased that this early work of his should be performed once again. Finally he consented to the performance, and played the piano part himself. The quintet was greeted with tumults of applause, unlike the other pieces on the programme, which were written later. According to a communication by Márta Ziegler,Bartók threw away the score in anger, and for many years it was believed to have been destroyed. In 1963, the editor Denijs Dille received a package inside which were the score and parts, which had been thought lost. Denijs Dille wrote: 'In preparing the text of this edition for practical purposes, I used the autograph score, and Bartók's own handwritten parts for the first and second violins, viola, and cello. [...] Bartók made so many deletions and significant changes in the score that the resulting version was somewhat different from the original. In this edition we give the last version, supplemented with the minor changes and signs that can be found in the string parts.'.