SKU: PR.11441825S
UPC: 680160643745. 9 x 12 inches.
In 2011, Barbara Garrop, my mother, commissioned me to write a piano trio in memory of Norman Garrop, my father, who passed away about thirty years ago. When I started brainstorming about topics for the piece, I found it difficult to recall many moments of my early life involving my father. Too many years had passed, and the memories that I could summon were of achild looking up to her father, not an adult relating to an equal. However, while collecting stories of my father from various family members, along with discovering a number of objects that had once belonged to him and that I had stored away in boxes decades ago, I began to realize that this piece wasn't so much about my father as it was about my re-discovering the man that he was: a loving husband and dad who cared deeply about his family and his passions (which included bike riding, collecting coins, strumming our guitar, playing baseball, watching football games, entertaining people, helping to run local theater and puppet productions, and carving objects out of wook); an accountant who dreamed of a better future: a treasurer of our local synagogue; an early advocate for computers (we owned an Apple II+); and a pranster with a great sense of humor. Ultimately, I decided to musically tell the story of my search for these memories. In the first movement (Without), a child calls out in a sing-song voice, searching for her lost parent. This search intesifies over the course of the movement through a series of themes, including a stepping motif in which a two-note progression steadily climbs higher, a pseudo-jewish folksong, and a passionate longing theme. The child's search becomes increasingly intense throughout the movement, calling out fervently and repeatedly to the parent; the movement ends in a moment of great tnesion and uncertainty. The second movment (Within) quietly opens with the lost parent finally answering, represented by a solo cello; the child (now personified by the violin) has found the parent within the sanctuary of her own heart. This movement highlights the joy and solemnity of this beautiful discovery. -S.G.
SKU: PR.114418250
UPC: 680160640959. 9 x 12 inches.
SKU: HL.48025367
UPC: 196288194286.
Simon Laks (1901-1983), who moved from Warsaw to Paris in 1926 at the age of 25, belonged to the large group of composers from Central and Eastern European countries who went down in 20th-century music history as the “École de Parisâ€. Slavic temperament amalgamated in their music with French esprit, the folklore of their native countries combined with the stylistic elements of neoclassicism and jazz typical of the time. As a member of the “Association of Young Polish Musiciansâ€, Laks quickly made his way into French musical life. However, his career was ended with the beginning of World War 2 due to the collaboration of the Vichy government with Nazi Germany. Internment in 1941 was followed by deportation to Auschwitz in 1942. Laks survived the Shoah as a member and later leader of a camp band in Birkenau, which he testified to in his moving book Music in Auschwitz. After the traumatic experiences, Laks did not return to regular compositional activity until the 1960s, producing an opera, songs, and chamber music works, some of which were awarded important composition prizes. At the peak of this optimistic creative phase, he composed incidental music for Peretz Hirschbein's famous Yiddish comedy Dem Schmids Techter (The Blacksmith's Daughters), which premiered in New York in 1918, for a new production of the play at the Théâtre de'lÂ’Entrepôt in Paris. Along with Prokofiev's Overture on Hebrew Themes and Shostakovich's cycle From Yiddish (Jewish) Folk Poetry, it is one of the most significant 20th-century explorations of art music with Jewish folklore – homage to a culture irreparably destroyed. From the original score, Holger Groschopp compiled two suites, for violoncello and piano and piano solo, that capture the essence of Lak's enchanting drama music. The premiere recording of the suites with Holger Groschopp and Adele Bitter was awarded the Opus Klassik 2023 in the category Editorial Achievement of the Year.
SKU: BR.SON-634
ISBN 9790004803691. 9 x 12 inches.
Sibelius's oeuvre contains four string quartets. They appeared over a long time span and in different phases of his professional career. Most of his early compositions were chamber music, and he composed his three earliest quartets (in E flat major (JS 184, 1885), A minor (JS 183, 1889), B flat major (Op. 4, 1890)) around his study years. They remained unprinted during his lifetime, and the string quartet in E flat major was also not performed in public. The quartet in D minor Voces intimae op. 56, on the other hand, was completed in London in the spring of 1909, and Sibelius wrote to his wife Aino: It became wonderful. Just the kind that raises a smile on one's face even at the moment of death. Voces intimae was published in the same year. Even later, Sibelius seemed to be very satisfied with his composition, for he wrote in his diary: It is generally claimed to be my best work. I do not think quite that, but it does belong among my best ones..
SKU: BO.B.3726
Written in 2001, this work was conceived by the need to enlarge the repertoire of works for solo cello, an important goal since the repertoire of such works is limited. Most cellists are limited to performances of such well-known solo works as the Suites of Bach, written almost 300 years ago, as well as other classics of the genre by Max Reger, Zoltan Kodaly, Benjamin Britten, Gaspar Cassado, Enric Casals, etc.The intention of the Suite Exotique is to revolutionize the concept of the Baroque suite by transforming the suite into a collection of modern dances, which are both contemporary and widely recognized today. Thus, the dances of the Baroque suite, such as Allemande, Courante, Sarabande are substituted for the Tango, Milonga, Blues in such a way that the traditional formal structure of six movements of Baroque dances is modernized by rhythms and contemporary styles which coexist in the Modern world, but are separate from and do not pertain to those works which are normally considered to belong to the realm of cultured music.Apart from the fusion represented by the mixture of a Baroque genre with modern, urban musical language found in this work, the subtitle exotica is appropriate due to the originality of writing such a work for cello solo. This work allows the interpreter to explore and take full advantage of their technical, artistic and expressive abilities.This work establishes a total symbiosis between the instrument and the evolutionary transformation of its musical language which in turn creates a style adapted to the expressive requirements of the work itself. The specific techniques and qualities of the cello are placed in service of the required style and concept of each movement of the Suite. At the same time those stylistic characteristics are transformed and adapted to the particular characteristics of the cello and taking full advantage of the instruments polyphonic, sonic, aesthetic qualities as well as its timbre.The Suite Exotique was premiered in August, 2003 during the International Music Festival of Ibiza by the Russian cellist Svetlana Tovstukha.
