SKU: HL.14018850
ISBN 9780711986008. 9.0x12.0x0.295 inches.
The Prelude, Hymn And Toccata 1987 is dedicated to, and was commissioned by the Nettle-Markham Piano Duo. It was the second work to have been written for them by the composer, the first being the Sonata For Piano Duet Op.92. This twenty minute work begins with Leighton's typical preludial double-dotted rhythms and contrapuntal textures; it develops into dark, passionate music and erupts into single and double cadenzas. The gentle Hymn is ushered in quietly and unfolds in long, rhapsodic sections, building up to more climactic cadenzas before dissolving gradually to an ethereal conclusion. The Toccata finale shows Leighton's masterly piano writing and contrasts biting, rhythmic motifs with sweeping, yearning elegiac phrases.
SKU: FA.MFCD007PN
8.27 x 11.69 inches.
Debussy's friendship with the versatile poet and playwright Gabriel Mourey began in 1899, and in July 1907 Mourey offered Debussy a libretto based on Le roman de Tristan - Joseph Bedier's adaptation of a twelfth-century Breton romance by the Anglo-Norman poet known as Thomas - which had recently been published in Paris. Debussy enthusiastically outlined the four-act plot to Victor Segalen that October, and the main differences from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde are that none of the action takes place in Cornwall and that Isolde of the White Hands is found guilty of cuckolding King Marc with Tristan, who has to rescue her from the leper colony in which she is abandoned in Act 1. She also betrays him when he goes mad at the end.The idea of a Tristan that restored its 'legendary character' and had no connections with Wagner, appealed to Debussy, who was extremely moved by the circumstances of Tristan's death. Even if he thought that Mourey's poetry was 'not very lyrical and many passages do not exactly invite music', he did work on the libretto and the music that summer and sent his publisher, Jacques Durand, 'one of the 363 themes for the Roman de Tristan' in a letter sent from Pourville on 23 August, 1907. The present prelude grows from this theme, together with the poignant Breton folksong Le Faucon. After a short atmospheric introduction, Debussy's dance-like theme (which is definitely not a leitmotif) gradually gains momentum and after it reaches its ecstatic climax, representing the transient happiness of the lovers, it dissolves into an expressive coda and an elegiac close (all growing from Debussy's opening, off-stage trumpet calls), leaving us with the ultimate tragedy of their ill-fated affair.Unfortunately, Mourey's actual libretto has been lost and the project eventually foundered because Bedier's cousin, Louis Artus, wanted Debussy to use the scenario he had prepared and copyrighted for the stage, and would not allow him to proceed with Mourey's version. Debussy, it need hardly be said, would never have dreamed of collaborating with the author of the vaudeville hit La culotte (The pants)!
SKU: PR.11440785S
UPC: 680160012091.
The composition of the work began as a few improvisational thoughts on a short phrase from a Beethoven piano sonata, which eventually developed into a six-minute fantasia that ultimately bears little audible relation to the original Beethoven phrase. The work is in four sections, of which the first and last are nocturnal, prelude, and postlude respectively. The main second section grows from a simple imitative idea to a chordal climax that subsides into a chorale and soliloquy which is elegiac in nature.
