SKU: HL.49045889
9.0x12.0x0.33 inches.
As far back as I can remember, I have always been fascinated with fairy tales: with their archetypal characters and set phrases like'Once upon a time...'and'...they all lived happily ever after'. Fairy tales were however also a source of unrest for me as a seismograph of mankinds underlying primal fears and desires. So as a performer and composer I have always felt that Robert Schumann's Marchenerzahlungen [Fairy Tales] (scored for the same instrumentation as my own composition) was a disjointed, complex contemporary work - despite the innocence and naivety of its initial appearance. I therefore do not intend my own Es war einmal (Once upon a time...)to be a mere sentimental, nostalgic flight into the distant past, but as a naive and fantastical alternative concept to our genuine world with all its upheavals. Jorg Widmann.
SKU: HL.48009896
UPC: 073999685411. 8.5x11.75x0.345 inches.
Voice and Keyboard. Contents: Lovely Mollie * I'm a Decent Good Irish Body * The Star of the County Down * Oh Father, Father, Build me a Boat * I Have a Bonnet Trimmed with Blue * She Lived Beside the Anner * Where the Grass Grows Green * The Fenians of Cahirciveen * Oh, Limerick is Beautiful * The Bold Tenant Farmer * The Dear Irish Boy * The Old Turf Fire * The Hounds of Filemore * My Blue Eyed Mountain Queen * The Black Ribbon-Band * My brown-haired Boy * My Bonny Labouring Boy * A Young Maid Stood in her Father's Garden * Tigaree Torum Orum * Johnny Doyle * I'm in arrears * The Philippine Soldier * Innisfree * Green Grows the Laurel * The Top of Inny's Side * The Little Black Rose * The Dingle Puck-Goat.
SKU: PR.16400272S
UPC: 680160588442. 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.140401310
ISBN 9781491134153. UPC: 680160684250. 9 x 12 inches. Key: G major.
NORA’S DANCE is a jazz-influenced rag from 1921, and among the only surviving compositions by Nora Douglas Holt. A charming and exciting work rejuvenated by Lara Downes’ 2021 recording for the Rising Sun label, the rag is both a fun 2 minutes for pianists and audiences, and also a fascinating time capsule. Composed several years after Scott Joplin’s death, and several years before the Charleston pervaded popular music, NORA’S DANCE blossoms with the energy and jazz harmony starting to emerge as The Roaring 20’s, using ragtime and stride as the seed for pianistic style.My own life in music has been driven by a quest to find strong female role models, trails to follow, shoulders to stand on. In Nora Douglas Holt, I find an inspiring example of creativity, independence, and resilience – with a dash of troublemaking. She was a free spirit, a force of nature, and she lived a fascinating and eventful life on her own terms. She reinvented herself through five marriages and at least as many careers. From her beginnings at the piano at age four, she explored many avenues of musical expression – performing, composing, music journalism, broadcasting, teaching – all with inventiveness, style, and zeal.She made the most of the Roaring ’20s, as an artist, socialite, jetsetter, muse, and patroness of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1921 she started an independent arts journal called “Music and Poetry,†where the charming piano solo Nora’s Dance was first published. I think the piece captures beautifully, in a little under 2 minutes, the energy and excitement of those heady years.In 1926, Nora left New York to travel the world, performing in nightclubs throughout Europe and Asia. She put her belongings in storage before she left, and when she came back she discovered that many of her things had been stolen, including more than 200 of her musical compositions. She never composed again.When the Depression hit, she moved out to Los Angeles, where she studied music education at USC, taught music in the LA public schools, and opened her own beauty salon. She returned to New York in the ’40s and worked as a music critic for several major newspapers, then launched yet another career, this time in broadcasting. Her popular radio concert series “Nora Holt’s Concert Showcase†broadcast to New York’s classical music audience, with a focus on Black composers and performers.Ahead of her time, larger than life, full of ideas…. I am so pleased to introduce you to the feisty and free spirited Nora Douglas Holt!
SKU: PR.114419980
UPC: 680160681723. 9 x 12 inches.
The ancient Egyptian empire began around 3100 B.C. and continued for over 3000 years until Alexander the Great conquered the country in 332 B.C. Over the centuries, the Egyptian empire grew and flourished into a highly developed society. They invented hieroglyphics, built towering pyramids (including the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the World), and the created many household items we still use today, including toothbrushes, toothpaste, eyeliner, black ink, and the forerunner of modern-day paper. Included among their achievements were a series of highly developed funerary practices and beliefs in the Afterlife. As the average lifespan of an Egyptian hovered around 30 years, living past the death of oneAs physical body was a legitimate concern. Egyptians believed that upon death, their souls would undertake a harrowing journey through the Netherworld. If they survived the horrific creatures and arduous trials that awaited them, then their souls would be reunified with their bodies (hence the need to preserve the body through mummification) and live forever in a perfect version of the life they had lived in Egypt. To achieve this, Egyptians devised around 200 magical spells and incantations to aid souls on the path to the Afterlife. These spells are collectively called The Book of the Dead. Particular spells would be chosen by the family of the deceased and inscribed on the tombAs walls and scrolls of papyrus, as well as on a stone scarab placed over the deceasedAs heart. Subsequent collections of spells and mortuary texts, such as The Book of Gates, assisted a soul in navigating the twelve stages of the Netherworld. Not only did these spells protect and guide the soul on this dangerous path, but they also served as a safeguard against any unbecoming behavior an Egyptian did while alive. For instance, if a person had robbed another while alive, there was a spell that would prevent the soulAs heart from revealing the truth when in the Hall of Judgment. Rites for the Afterlife follows the path of a soul to the Afterlife. In Inscriptions from the Book of the Dead (movement 1), the soul leaves the body and begins the journey, protected by spells and incantations written on the tombAs walls. In Passage though the Netherworld (movement 2), the soul is now on a funerary barque, being towed through the Netherworld by four of the regionAs inhabitants. We hear the soul slowly chanting incantations as the barque encounters demons, serpents, crocodiles, lakes of fire, and other terrors. The soul arrives at The Hall of Judgment in movement 3. Standing before forty-two divine judges, the soul addresses each by name and gives a A!negative confessionA(r) connected to each judge (i.e. A!I did not rob,A(r) A!I did not do violence,A(r) and so on). Afterwards, the soulAs heart is put on a scale to be weighed against a feather of MaAat, the goddess of truth. If the heart weighs more than the feather, it will be eaten by Ammut, a hideous creature that lies in wait below the scale, and the soul will die a second and permanent death (this was the worst fear of the Egyptians). But if the heart is in balance with the feather, the soul proceeds onward. The final stage of the journey is the arrival at The Field of Reeds (movement 4), which is a perfect mirror image of the soulAs life in ancient Egypt. The soul reunites with deceased family members, makes sacrifices to the Egyptian gods and goddess, harvests crops from plentiful fields of wheat under a brilliant blue sky, and lives forever next to the abundant and nourishing waters of the Nile. Rites for the Afterlife was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment on behalf of the Akropolis Reed Quintet, Calefax Reed Quintet, and the Brigham Young University Reed Quintet. -S.G.
SKU: CY.CC3020
ISBN 9781774310601. 8.5 x 11 in inches.
About the Taiwan Fantasia, van Deursen states: After having lived in Taipei for a number of years, I learned many of the local folk and popular songs. Some of the melodies are exceptionally beautiful, and my idea was to somehow combine all the elements that have made up my musical experiences over these years - Chinese melodies, western orchestral music and jazz; I wanted to see if these songs could survive with a totally different harmonic structure and concept. My original goal was to write a simple arrangement of the two songs, but quickly I discovered more melodies building upon the original ones and thus the Variations were born. Composed in 1995, this work of about 10 minutes in length is in one continuous movement, but is divided into seven short sections of contrasting moods including two cadenzas, for Trumpet and Trombone. The music is appropriate for advanced performers. Parts in C and B-flat are supplied for the Trumpets. A recording of Taiwan Fantasia can be purchased on iTunes from the album by the Yeh Shu Han Brass Quintet.
SKU: PR.164002720
UPC: 680160573042. 8.5 x 11 inches.
SKU: HL.49006325
ISBN 9790001068543. UPC: 888680790974. 17.75x21.75x0.689 inches. German - English.
The making of El Cimarron began in about 1986, with a conversation I had with Hans Magnus Enzensberger about the difficulties of writing political songs today that would go beyond the achievements of Eisler, Weill and Dessau in this field. It seemed to me that I might try to tackle the problem by writing a cycle with a variety of musical materials out of which perhaps something novel might emerge in a new and different context, almost by chance. Enzensberger told me of the recent publication of a biography by Esteban Montejo, an old Afrocuban who lived in Havana and who recalled his adolescence as a slave, and suggested that I should set episodes from this book that he, Enzensberger, would select for my experimentation.El Cimarron, however, did not turn into a cycle of songs and was, indeed, not even intended as such - what came out of the work is a new form of theatrical music making.Singer, flautist and guitarist are occasionally required to play percussion instruments.- Hans Werner HenzeMitwirkende: Bariton - Flotist (Picc. * Fl. * Altfl. * Bassfl. * Ryuteki [oder Picc.] * Mundharm. [Harmonetta] * Trillerpf. * Maultrommel) - Gitarrist - Schlagzeuger (3 Fingerzimb. * Vibr. * Marimba * 3 Herdengl. * 3 hg. Beck. * 2 Tamt. * 13 Tomt. [chrom.] * 3 Bong. * kl. Tr. * 8 Boo-bams * 4 Log Drums * Cong. [Tumba] * Trinidad Steel Drum * gr. Tr. [mit Ped.] * Mar. * Guiro * Kette auf Holz * Kette auf Metallplatte * 3 Dobaci * Clav. * Matraca * hg. Bambusstabe * hg. Glasstabe [Glasspiel] * Shell Chimes * Vogellockrufe * Marimbula * 2 Donnerbleche).
SKU: HL.49002762
ISBN 9790220109591. UPC: 073999327748. 5.75x8.5x0.176 inches.
SKU: HL.14042515
ISBN 9788759826805. English.
This collection presents five Christina Rosetti poems set by Per Drud Nielsen for unaccompanied SATB choir. Had Christina Rossetti lived 40 years earlier and not written in English but in German, I am convinced that the many Lied-composers in the first half of the 19th century would have gathered around her. And in many ways I have set her poems to music in the spirit of the Lied tradition: I have made use of simple, modified strophic forms. And if you hear a loan from a well-known Schumann-Lied in one of my Rossetti-songs, you are not mistaken. - Per Drud Nielsen.
SKU: PR.11441998S
UPC: 680160681730. 9 x 12 inches.
SKU: HL.276515
UPC: 888680990671. 9x12 inches.
“Sentences is a thirty-minute meditation, in collaboration with Adam Gopnik, on several episodes drawn from the life and work of Alan Turing. Turing lived, in a sense, many different lives, but at the heart of his work was, I think, a very musical set of anxieties. Even the idea of code-breaking is inherently musical; the French for score-reading is déchiffrage: deciphering. His wartime work on the Enigma code translated, later in life, to a more nuanced relationship to code in the form of a primitive but emotionally (and philosophically) complicated artificial intelligence. The piece uses a single voice not to speak necessarily as Turing, but as a guide through these various episodes.I've always felt that the question of sentient computers is wildly emotional: we anthropomorphise the Mars Rover, imagining its solitude on that dusty planet. Any act of communication in which the second person is unseen can be a one-way conversation. An email, sent, can never be returned - did it arrive or did it not?, or a text message can be delivered but never read. The thrill of a fast response is immediately tempered with the harsh but empty rudeness of an out-of-office reply. Anybody who has made a condolence phone call only to hear the voice of the deceased on the outgoing answering machine message knows the complexities of what could be a simple binary communication.” –Nico Muhly.
SKU: GI.G-1095
The Universe works in strange ways. Recorded almost three years ago, none of us could have known that when this recording was released the world would have lived through a life-altering pandemic or a tumultuous upheaval in the cultural awareness that now surrounds us. The work that opens this recording—with the words of Quaker George Fox that end with, “So be faithful, and live in that which doth not think the time longâ€â€”provides a haunting premonition regarding the time in which we live, Quaker George Fox is strangely prophetic about these days and perhaps provides a future caution for us all. The music chosen for this recording is strangely and poignantly relevant, I believe, for each of us. “The Fruit of Silence†by PÄ“teris Vasks reminds us to visit those beliefs that are most sacred in the work by Cortlandt Matthews. A deeply personal Requiem by Peter Relph, in reflection, remembers the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the pandemic. And then there is Thomas LaVoy’s “O Great Beyond.†All great texts are timeless and speak to the universality of the human condition. Particularly, the George Fox text set by Jackson Hill and the Tagore text set by LaVoy give us messages to reinforce the humanness of each of us for hope. Two other works on this recording poignantly remind us of the passing of life, with the Relph Requiem and especially the final movement of “O Great Beyond.†May these words give comfort to all those who endured the deepest of Life’s losses during our shared pandemic journey. For so many loved ones, goodbyes were said in silence, and alone. It is our hope that all the music on this CD will show us a way for living as we move forward and also give loving comfort to those who have lost loved ones. Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet. Let it not be a death but completeness. Let love melt into memory and pain into songs. Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest. Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night. Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence. I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way. —Rabindranath Tagore in The Gardener (1913).
