Christmas Sketches

SKU: LP.OR-9300

UPC: 765762094208.

Total ly Christmas - an ideal resource for youth singers and actors who want to present the Christmas message in an exciting and relevant way. Includes twelve Dennis Allen arrangements of frequently requested seasonal contemporary songs from such names as Avalon and Stephen Curtis Chapman. Combined with six innovative dramatic sketches the stage is set for your youth to proclaim and celebrate the birth of Christ in a way that speaks to us all.

SKU: CF.SPS11

ISBN 9780825843747. UPC: 798408043742. 9 X 12 inches. Key: D minor.

A brilliant and contrapuntally elaborate fantasy on the haunting and beautiful Christmas carol, Greensleeves, (a.k.a. What Child Is This), this is one of Del Borgo's most powerful symphonic sketches. The fragments of the tune are assembled and re-assembled in ever more inventive ways and the scoring is expert and full of the signature colorful Del Borgo percussion writing. Duration: 5' 30.

SKU: CF.CFD10

ISBN 9780825853555. UPC: 798408053550.

A thrilling recording of the music of Sean O'Loughlin whose music is categorized by harmonic drive and rhythmic vitality. Includes: Landmarks, Imani, Vigor, Holiday Ornaments, Tribal Quest, Sonic Fusion, Monuments, Cascades, Insignia, Eclipsys, Irish Vision, Resolution, Days of Glory and Christmas Sketches.

SKU: FJ.ST6222S

English.

Using only six notes and no eighth notes, this classically inspired work was written for the very beginning string student. The first movement, The Holly and the Ivy, presents a lyrical treatment that also makes use of piano. The second movement is set in a Baroque style and highlights various motifs from Jingle Bells. Ideal for the first holiday concert and quite unique!

About FJH Beginning Strings

Ap propriate for first year string students. All instruments stay in first position, and optional third violin (viola) parts and piano are included to aid in rehearsal and performance situations. Grade 1 - 1.5

SKU: CF.CPS9F

ISBN 9780825839993. UPC: 798408039998. 9 X 12 inches. Key: Eb major.

SKU: BT.YE0075

Four Double Basses. Eight well-known Christmas carols in a new guise. Score and parts.

The Programme of Christmas Carols was first performed in New Orleans in 1976. In its original version, the players were required to wear Dickensian costume and a seasonal narrative preceded each of the carol arrangements. The texts appear below.

Duration without text: c.20 minutes
Duration with text: c.45 minutes

Introduc tion by Robert Rohe

The introductory text, assembled with the kind assistance of Father Peacock of Loyola University of New Orleans, was designed for use where the receptivity of the audience warrants. So little is known about thebeloved Christmas carols, it is fitting that a brief sketch of the carols' past be used to enhance the familiar music.

If desired, the introductory text may be omitted at the discretion of the performers.

The brief text preceding each carol should be used to acquaint the audience with what to expect, from a quartet that will be playing the unexpected. The text also will pace the program and will extend performance time to around 45 minutes.

In performance, the bass viol quartet of New Orleans wore peaked caps, and turtle necked sweaters to simulate the street performers of Dickens' time. The choice of four string basses for this program was to bring the closest relatives of the true viol into play.

History and development of the Christmas Carol

The celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ has been observed for nearly 2,000 years, through the ritual of the Christian Church, with part of that ritual being devoted to celebration in song. In those early days, church music was sung only, no musical instruments taking part in the service.

The type of song used by the church had the name 'plain-song'. It was a single line of melody, plain and unadorned, sung by one or more voices. By the year 1660 A.D., it had developed a second name, 'The Gregorian Chant', after Pope Gregory, who encouraged the use.

SKU: FA.MFCD017B

8.27 x 11.69 inches.

Contains Le Roi Lear: Prelude,Premiere Fanfare, and La Mort de Cordelia,Toomai des elephants, Rodrigue et Chimene: Prelude a l'acte 1p. Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien: La Passion , and No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence

From Robert Orledge's notes:

My interest in the wonderful music of Claude Debussy began in the 1980s when I researched and published a book with Cambridge University Press entitled Debussy and the Theatre. During the course of my studies in Paris, I was amazed to discover that Debussy planned over 50 theatrical works but only finished two of these entirely by himself (the opera Pelleas et Melisande in 1893-1902 and the ballet Jeux for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1912-13). Of the rest, many were never started musically (like Siddartha and Orphee-roi with the Oriental scholar Victor Segalen, 1907); some had a few tantalising sketches (like the Edgar Allan Poe opera Le Diable dans le beffroi, 1902-03); some were half-finished (like his other Poe opera La Chute de la Maison Usher, 1908-17); while others were musically complete but had their orchestrations completed by other composers (like Khamma, by Charles Koechlin, 1912-13; or Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien and La Boite a joujoux by his 'angel of corrections' ['l'ange des Corrections'] Andre Caplet in 1911 and 1919 respectively).

For it has to be admitted that what some scholars call Debussy's 'compulsive achievement' could equally well be viewed as laziness, especially as far as the minute detail required for calligraphing his orchestral scores was concerned. It was as if creating the music itself was of greater importance than controlling its final sound, even if Debussy was an imaginative orchestrator when he found the time and energy to do it. It also seems true that Debussy also preferred inventing ideas to turning them into complete pieces. However, despite the lack of detail in many of his sketches (missing clefs, key signatures, dynamics, phrasing, etc.) the notes themselves are surprisingly accurate, whether or not they can be compared with a later draft. Thus, a large number of sketches exist for his Chinese ballet No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence and it is not too difficult to see which parts of Georges de Feure's 1913 scenario (see below) inspired which ideas. But Debussy hardly made any attempt to join them together after the first few bars.

It was usually up to his publisher, Jacques Durand, to find solutions when Debussy risked a breach of contract. Debussy was supposed to supervise the orchestrations completed by others, but this supervision was usually very light and restricted to quiet, sensitive moments in which problems were easier to spot. Far from jealously guarding every one of his created notes, as Ravel did, Debussy once even went as far as to ask Koechlin to 'write a ballet for him that he would sign' on 26 March 1914 when he was hard-pressed to fulfil his lucrative contract for No-ja-li with Andre Charlot at the Alhambra Theatre in London. In the end, Debussy (through Durand) sent Charlot the symphonic suite Printemps instead, whose orchestration had been completed by Henri Busser in the Spring of 1912.

So, when I was offered early retirement as Professor of Music at Liverpool University in 2004, I seized the opportunity it would give me to spend time trying to reconstruct some of Debussy's lost potential masterpieces from his existing sketches and drafts--then orchestrating them in Debussy's style when this was appropriate. I had begun this mission in 2001 with the most promising project, the missing parts of Scene 2 of La Chute de la Maison Usher and the sheer joy it gave me at every stage persuaded me to tackle other projects, especially when Debussy experts were unable to identify exactly where I took over from Debussy (and vice versa) in Usher.