Everything That Rises

SKU: HL.284555

UPC: 888680912901. 9x12 inches.

Composers note:

I never imagined I would write a string quartet. Then I heard the JACK Quartet, and I understood how I might be able to make the medium my own. The result was The Wind in High Places - a twenty-minute work composed entirely on natural harmonics and open strings.

Over the next few years, two more quartets followed. The second quartet, untouched, is a further exploration of the aeolian sound world of the first. Then, in Canticles of the Sky, the musicians finally touch the fingerboards of their instruments.

And now comes Everything That Rises.

This fourth quartet is more expansive, both in time and in space. It grows out of Sila: The Breath of the World - a performance-length choral/orchestral work composed on a rising series of sixteen harmonic clouds.

Everything That Rises traverses this same territory, but in a much more melodic way.

Each musician is a soloist, playing throughout. They surround the audience. Time floats.

Over the course of an hour, the lines spin out - always rising - in acoustically perfect intervals that grow progressively smaller as they spiral upward... until the music dissolves into the soft noise of the bows, sighing.

SKU: HL.288721

UPC: 888680913281. 9.0x12.0 inches.

Composed in 2017.

SKU: BT.DHP-1064018-013

9x12 inches. English-German-French-Dut ch.

This rhapsody reflects the four seasons combined with the natural scenery that characterises the city of Québec and its surrounding region. Autumn is depicted with hunting horns playing in the forest, followed by a pastoral melody, principally in the woodwinds. Winter in the mountains is poetic and romantic. Spring arrives with a frolicsome and playful theme mirroring the start of new life. Soon everything flowers lushly, and the music swells into the full sounding energy of summer, bringing the work to a brilliant and dynamic close. A great work for any time of year.

De titel verwijst naar de oudste (indianen) naam van de canadese stad Québec. in deze rapsodie worden de vier seizoenen verklankt, in combinatie met de natuur die Québec en de omgeving kenmerkt. In de herfst spelen jachthoorns inhet woud signalen, waarna zich een pastorale melodie ontwikkelt. Dan volgt een lyrisch deel: winter in de bergen. Terwijl het buiten vriest, is het warm en gezellig. Een dartel thema verklankt de lente. De energie die de lente heeftopgewekt, komt in de zomer tot wasdom: het orkest gaat voluit, zodat het werk stralend besluit.

Dieses Werk entstand im Auftrag des Harmonieorchesters von Charlesbourg (Kanada) und ist François Dorion gewidmet. Die Uraufführung fand am 11. Dezember 2005 in Charlesbourg unter der Leitung des Komponisten statt. Der Titel bezieht sich auf den ältesten (indianischen) Namen der kanadischen Stadt Québec.In dieser Rhapsodie werden die vier Jahreszeiten widergespiegelt, eingebettet in die charakteristische Natur, die Québec und die ganze Region prägt.Im Herbst (Autumn) sind typische Hornsignale im Wald zu hören, gefolgt von einer etwas pastoralen Melodie, speziell in den Holzbläsern.Der nächste Satz ist ausgesprochen lyrisch und romantisch; es herrscht Winter in denBergen. Während draußen die beißende Kälte regiert, ist es drinnen am Kamin warm und gemütlich: ein angenehmes Bild.Wie in jedem Jahr beginnt der Frühling zögerlich; so setzt der dritte Satz, Spring, vorsichtig ein. Ein fröhliches, verspieltes Thema reflektiert den Neubeginn allen Lebens: Frühling am St. Lawrence River. Bald blüht alles üppig und auch die Musik schwillt zu vollen Klängen an.Die Energie, die der Frühling freisetzte, kommt im Sommer (Summer) vollends zur Entfaltung; die Atmosphäre ist nun sehr dynamisch und das Blasorchester spielt mit voller Kraft, so dass das Werk brillant und dynamisch endet.

Kebek dépeint la richesse des paysages naturels de Québec et ses environs, au coeur du cycle annuel des saisons. L’Automne bucolique s’illumine aux couleurs d’une mélodie pastorale. L’Hiver montagnard est poétique et romantique. Le Printemps coule des jours heureux sur les rives du fleuve Saint-Laurent. La nature est éclatante de couleurs florales. L’énergie devient rayonnante l’Été. L’atmosphère est pétillante, les sonorités sont opulentes et puissantes, et l’œuvre se conclut avec brillance et dynamisme.

SKU: PR.114422520

ISBN 9781491134788. UPC: 680160683833.

After decades as a renowned oboe virtuoso, Katherine Needleman was improvising at the piano during the quarantine summer of 2020 when her ideas congealed in a powerful way. Within a week she completed a 16-minute oboe sonata inspired by the world’s overlapping crises. This riveting three-movement sonata bears the title qua resurget ex favilla, drawn from the Dies Irae text referring to rising back from ashes. Needleman won the International Double Reed Society’s Inaugural Commissioning Competition by entering her own recording of this work, performing as both oboist and pianist from her living room. As a result, IDRS commissioned her to compose a new work for English horn and piano which was premiered at their 2021 Virtual Symposium and programmed for the live 2022 convention.
I’m not exactly sure how, in a life consumed by music, I never put anything on paper between the time I stopped at age 10 and the age of 42. I mean, I have some ideas why, but that could easily dissolve into a feminist manifesto or a condemnation of my musical education and the overwhelming culture of American oboe playing, the vehicle through which I’ve made a living my entire adult life. Rather than go there, I will just say this is the first piece I put on paper in my adult life.Six months into COVID-19 lockdown in the US, the world was feeling pretty weird. I had familiarized myself with the music notation program, Sibelius, for recent arranging projects. I had written some mockeries of A.M.R. Barret oboe etudes in response to an assignment I was given (and did appropriately first). When I descended into a dark chorale in the middle of the fourth mockery, I realized I needed a new vehicle. I wrote a short, ridiculous piece for my husband’s birthday, and then, the next night, when improvising at the piano, like I’ve done since I was seven years old, this piece came to me. However, this time, I sketched it out into Sibelius. Over the course of the next week, I found notating and picking permanent, official notes to enter into the computer challenging. But it was all done on paper in seven days, and I took another few for dynamics and articulations thinking they might be useful for someone else, if I would ever be lucky enough for someone else to play it.I don’t have much to say about the music of qua resurget ex favilla itself. It’s a personal statement couched in the feelings of that time. The US presidential election was looming large and ugly in my mind, well, that and the end of life as we knew it, but I also had some bizarre feeling that everything would be okay.