First Essay

SKU: HL.49015074

ISBN 9780793595259. UPC: 884088585716. 9.0x12.0x0.115 inches.

Previously only available on rental, this new publication of Barber's First Essay (ca. 1930) is a welcome addition to the literature. Set in the original orchestral key, Joseph Levey's arrangement has been performed byseveral of the most prestigious concert bands. This deserves a serious look for mature groups.

Samuel Barber's First Essay, arranged by Joseph Levey for Concert Band. Score/parts.

Previously only available on rental, this new publication of Barber's FirstEssay (ca. 1930) is a welcome addition to the literature. This edition includes newly discovered historical information on Barber's personal edits and revisions - including adding original music - to thearrangement prior to his approval for publication.

SKU: HL.1220484

ISBN 9781705195840. UPC: 196288142362.

Essay for Horn and String Orchestra is a short lyrical piece which endeavors to utilize the expressive qualities of the French Horn. The thematic material stated in the first four measures constantly recurs in varied form throughout.

SKU: HL.1220483

ISBN 9781705195833. UPC: 196288142355.

Essay for Horn and String Orchestra is a short lyrical piece which endeavors to utilize the expressive qualities of the French Horn. The thematic material stated in the first four measures constantly recurs in varied form throughout. Horn solo with organ reduction.

SKU: MN.90-51

UPC: 688670090516. 8 1/2 x 11 inches.

A delightful second volume of brief essays by revered professor of church music, Carl Schalk. Carl’s wit, charm, and wisdom shine through each of these essays. Some may make you uncomfortable while others will make you laugh. As with the original book, First Person Singular, these essays are refreshing and remarkable insights into our work as church musicians. Ultimately, all will make you think. Paperback. 60 pages.

SKU: AP.1-ADV7666

ISBN 9783892217275. UPC: 805095076660. English.

Three-move ment suite for SATB saxophone quartet. The first movement simply spins out a five-note shape in an improvisatory fashion. The second movement attempts to offer a poignant introspection to the outside movements. The third movement is a microtonally compressed treatment of the original five-note shape of the first movement. Though completely notated, the ideas and development are conceived in an improvisatory fashion.

SKU: OU.9780193683198

ISBN 9780193683198. 13 x 10 inches.

This volume brings together all the music Walton wrote for brass throughout his life, from the various fanfares, often written for ceremonial occasions, to the more extended work, The First Shoot, a piece which the editor of this volume, Elgar Howarth, was instrumental in bringing to life. The volume includes full critical apparatus and selected facsimiles of manuscript pages.

About William Walton Edition

In March 2014 Oxford University Press published the last volume in its magnificent William Walton Edition, the only complete critical edition of a 20th-century British composer's oeuvre. All 24 volumes are handsomely printed and bound. Walton's entire output is now available to scholars and performers in a definitive and fully practical edition, based on the form in which the composer ultimately wished his music to be performed. The general editor, David Lloyd-Jones - the eminent conductor, English music specialist, and founder of Opera North - invited a world-class expert to edit each volume. Carefully researched introductory essays place the works in their historical context and in the composer's oeuvre, and there are full critical notes.

SKU: HL.49007038

ISBN 9783795723026. 4.75x7.25x0.889 inches. German.

St. Petersburg - Paris - Swiss exile - France - USA, these places refer to stages during the long life of a composer who greatly enriched music history by a plethora of works of different styles. Igor Stravinsky's sophisticated oeuvre has enriched almost all genres: from sonata to solo concerto, from song to opera, from ballet music to symphony The list of different composition styles mastered by Stravinsky during his creative life is just as multi-faceted: from the style of the first years influenced by his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov to the 'cubist' composition of the scandal-ridden 'Sacre du printemps' for example, from the neoclassicism of 'Pulcinella' to the twelve-note 'Movements' - right up to excursions into jazz music. As a consequence, disorientation and lack of stylistic uniformity respectively were just two of the prejudices Stravinsky was faced with. Such prejudices are countered in this book by Wolfgang Burde who illustrates that the composer never wrote 'a la mode' or 'a la maniere de', but always incorporated newly discovered compositional techniques or even specific form models in his personal way of thinking. Here, it becomes apparent why Stravinsky, according to Wolfgang Burde, ranked 'among the most important composers of the European avant-garde next to Claude Debussy and Schoenberg'.

SKU: MB.31008M

ISBN 9781513467016. 8.75x11.75 inches.

Blind Lemon Jefferson was a trail blazer, both as a singer and guitarist, but also as a commercial phenomenon, for he was the first blues musician to establish the tremendous appeal that blues, as played and sung by rural African American folk, had for the record-buying public. It is no exaggeration to say that the sales of Lemon’s records paved the way for a host of other solo rural blues musicians to record in his wake and made the record companies more willing to give other musicians a chance, in the hopes of achieving similar success. 

Lemon ’s record sales weren’t what made him a great musician, though - that could only be attributed to his startlingly virtuosic guitar - playing and soulful singing, developed over years of busking, building on his natural gifts with a great deal of practice and work. In the Guitar of Blind Lemon Jefferson author John Miller presents transcriptions, in standard notation and tablature, of 22 of Lemon’s greatest performances, with an additional essay examining Lemon’s senses of time and phrasing and his picking techniques. Also included is a download link to all the original recordings. 

To present a picture of Lemon the man, noted blues researchers Alan Governar and Kip Lornell have contributed an essay focusing on Lemon’s early life, the origins of his music, and his time spent in a musical partnership with Lead Belly. Links are provided to downloadable performances of the songs in the book from which the transcriptions were made, so that you can have Lemon’s sound in your head as you learn to play his songs.

Blind Lemon Jefferson was remarkable, even in a style that abounded in great musicians, and some measure of his influence can be seen in the fact that musicians recorded in the 1960s, more than thirty years after his death, were still covering his songs and stealing guitar licks from him. The Guitar of Blind Lemon Jefferson gives you the resources needed to learn what was so special about Lemon’s music, and to experience his musical excellence from inside the music itself.

Titles include: One Dime Blues, Got The Blues, Dry Southern Blues, Big Night Blues, Rabbit Foot Blues, Shuckin' Sugar Blues, Where Shall I Be, Wartime Blues, Black Horse Blues, Prison Cell Blues, Piney Woods Money Mama, See That My Grave Is Kept Clean, He Arose From The Dead, Beggin' Back, Broke And Hungry, Bad Luck Blues, Matchbox Blues, Lemon's Worried Blues, That Crawlin' Baby Blues, Easy Rider Blues, Stocking Feet Blues and Right of Way Blues

Level 2/3 • 160 pages • Direct download link to audio files. 

SKU: BR.OB-3210-15

ISBN 9790004300695. 10 x 12.5 inches.

Johannes Brahms' first Piano Concerto was the fruit of a complex, protracted, and extremely trying creative process. Its origin goes back to a sonata in D minor for two pianos conceived in spring 1854. The impulse for the creation of the main subject was however a shocking event: According to Joseqph Joachim, the theme originated after hearing about Schumanns suicide attempt. A few months earlier, Schumann had revealed Brahms to the musical world in his essay New Paths. In this article, Brahms is extolled as the musician who is called to give expression to the feeling of his times in an ideal fashion. The unusually rapid genesis of the D-minor sonata and its prevailingly dark, monumental mood can be interpreted as an impassioned compositional response to Schumann's suicide attempt. However, the year-long struggle to arrive at the final form of the work should perhaps also be seen in the context of the resounding praise of Schumann's prophetic article. Brahms undoubtly felt a growing inner pressure to live up to the expectations aroused therein.Together with Clara Schumann, Brahms played the three so far existing movements of the sonata, but he was very self-critical. He felt that he had not been able to realize the monumentality he had envisioned, and which Clara Schumann felt, by merely doubling the piano sound. He soon decided to transform the sonata into a symphony (his first orchestral project). However, this idea did not seem to fit his vision either. Only in spring 1855 did he strike upon the definitive solution: a piano concerto. With Brahms as soloist, this concerto premiered in 1859, though he initially had little success. He wrote to Joachim about one of the first performances that the concerto was a brilliant and unmistakable - failure. This hardly surprised Brahms, for he was undoubtedly aware of the newness of the work, which surpassed the expectations of the audience. The work's complex structure and symphonic dimensions, the solo part's rejection of showy, elegant brilliance, and the uniquely Brahmsian orchestral density it maintains throughout; all of these qualities inevitably exasperated audiences at first - until they raised this work to the ranks of the most celebrated concertos of all time.