SKU: HL.49018091
ISBN 9790001170338. UPC: 884088520069. 9.0x12.0x0.115 inches.
The title hidden tracks is ambiguous. First of all, the piece is almost throughout imagined as 'multi-track', with layers (in the sense of sound tracks) that partly overlay each other, partly suddenly appear from the background. The composition deals with 'hidden' lines, sounds at the perception threshold, with side effects of the accordion sound which -observed, so to speak, under a compositional 'microscope' - develop a special allure: that is the vertical component. The title has also a horizontal meaning: a 'hidden track' is a piece on a record without a track number that is not mentioned on the cover either. In most cases, a 'hidden track' follows after a longer break after the (presumably) last piece on the record; often this track contains strange sounds, noise or other surprising elements. 'Hidden tracks' are surrounded by a nimbus of the mysterious and subversive. This effect is being used rather often throughout the piece: again and again, it seems to have ended but continues after a pause. The expectation of the listener and the attentiveness also for the tiniest events rises; the performance receives an almost scenic character. hidden tracks was partly composed in August 2008 during a stay at the Kunstlerhaus Lukas in Ahrenshoop at the shores of the Baltic Sea. The work was accompanied by many walks on the beach - again and again, I caught a sight on tracks in the sand that became overlaid by other tracks, wiped out by the wind and the waves... Benjamin Schweitzer.
SKU: BT.9780713658057
ISBN 9780713658057. English.
The 28 stories in this book each contain a simple song, which helps the narrative unfold and invites instant participation. The CD contains all the songs, making a multi-cultural wealth of sounds, which is useful forstorytelling.
SKU: CN.06301
Evoking the sounds of the spirits, this piece utilizes many unconventional sounds to achieve the desired effects. (i.e. box filled with broken glass, heavy chain) A beautifully haunting piano solo emphasizes the spectral nature of the work.I. The Succubus: A demon of the night who masquerades as a seductive woman beguiling men in their sleep. II. The Poltergeist: A malevolent spirit whose hauntings are characterized by loud noises, strange lights, rapping sounds, shrieks, and moving objects.
SKU: CN.06300
SKU: HL.49044453
ISBN 9790001197007. UPC: 888680077587. 9.25x12.0x0.4 inches. Latin.
For me, as someone who considers myself far removed from Christian spirituality and closer to the concept of Immanence than to any form of Transcendence, it was obvious to me that I would not compose a Miserere comparable to Alesandro Scarlatti's Lamentazioni. It was also my wish to theatricalise the subject matter, following pagan rituals which appear to have been retained in the monastic Tenebrae services up to Renaissance times. In the series of sequences in which silence plays a prominent role, a path leads to strange rites in which the listeners are invited to stamp their feet on the ground, creating waves of thundering sound, or accompany the chanting of texts. Three sopranos take on an instrumental role, deploying a broad range of vocal sounds from aspirations to screams. Thierry Pecou.
SKU: KU.GM-1911
ISBN 9790206202384. 9 x 12 inches.
Monu mentum, Music for String Sextet, was written in 2014 to a commission from the Moritzburg Festival, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center New York and the Kathe Kollwitz House in Moritzburg. It is dedicated to the cellist Jan Vogler. The world premiere took place on 19 August 2014 at the Moritzburg Festival, performed by Timothy Chooi & Mira Wang (violins), Roberto Diaz & Hartmut Rohde (violas), Jan Vogler & Harriet Krijgh (cellos). The American premiere took place on 7 May 2015 in the Lincoln Center with the Amphion String Quartet, the violist Yura Lee and the cellist Jan Vogler.The String Sextet Momentum< /em> commemorates the outbreak of the First World War, the death of Peter Kollwitz – who died as a volunteer, aged just 18, in the early weeks of the war – and the manner in which his mother, the artist Kathe Kollwitz, mourned the loss of her son. The artist worked through her pain by creating her most famous sculpture, The Mourning Parents. It stands today at the German soldiers’ cemetery at Vladslo in western Flanders, where her son Peter also lies buried. During the 18 years that she worked on the Parents , Kathe Kollwitz attended several concerts at the Volksbuhne in Berlin, where from January to February 1927 she heard Arthur Schnabel’s cycle of all the Beethoven piano sonatas. Schnabel performed the Sonata op. 111 in c minor on 26 February 1927, and this work touched her in particular, as we can read in her diary: “The strange flickering notes turned into flames – a moment of rapture, taking one into a different sphere, and the heavens opened almost as in the Ninth (Symphony). Then one found one’s way back – but it was a return after having been assured that there is a heaven. These notes are serene – confident – and good. Thank you, Schnabel!” This encounter with Beethoven’s last sonata inspired the artist to take up work again on her sculpture after a long interruption and to consider different possibilities for arranging the two figures. For this reason, the first minutes ofMomentum are derived from this sonata by Beethoven – though without it being quoted in an audible manner – and they leave their mark on the form of the Sextet. The number 18 and the date of Peter Kollwitz’s death (23 October 1914) also have a direct impact on the work’s dramaturgy. This music is mostly calm in nature, but is time and again interrupted unexpectedly, being disturbed by unruly sounds and vehement eruptions until time itself seems to dissolve in an aleatoric passage. The work ends with an extended lament on “seed corn should not be ground”, a line from Goethe’s W ilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years. Kathe Kollwitz often quoted this phrase to argue for peace, and also took it as the title for a lithograph that she made in 1942. - David Philip Hefti
SKU: FG.55011-359-6
ISBN 9790550113596.
Kimm o Hakola's thrilling Creazy for solo clarinet is a response to a commission by the ECHO Young Talents program. The work has all of Hakola's trademarks we have come to love: fast-paced situations, lyric passages, faster-than lightning arpeggios and search for new sounds. Clarinet is no strange instrument to Hakola; he has written several solo works for the instrument, and even a clarinet concerto and a clarinet quintet.
SKU: HL.49045911
ISBN 9781540030016. UPC: 888680753702. 9.0x12.0x0.448 inches.
Scenario:Th e cellist finds themselves in a strange environment where everything they do is mimicked by five other instrumentalists. The cellist tries out various sounds and figures in this unfamiliar sonic world, making things up as they go and listening to the result. The cellist eventually finds a soulful aria (Meme 3), and as the aria becomes more impassioned, the imitators get better and better at predicting what the cellist is going to do, eventually singing right along with the cellist as equals, subsuming the cellist into their sound and then suplanting the cellist in the leadership position. A fight/dialogue ensues, and as the cellist gradually regains their role as the primary voice, the clarinet emerges as the principal outlier/antagonist, only re-joining the task at hand with the piece's final note.- Andrew Norman.
SKU: CF.CM9703
ISBN 9781491160107. UPC: 680160918706. Key: D major. English. Traditional Scottish-Irish blessing.
Blessing of Light is an excerpt from a Scottish-Irish benediction of anonymous authorship, which may have originated from old Celtic traditions. The rich, poetic language encourages hospitality for both friends and strangers and a charge to cultivate the inner spirit as a beacon of light for others. This SAB-setting offers additional options for soprano or alto divisi and comfortable ranges for men. Drawing primarily from the soundscape of a gently sweeping Mixolydian mode, this piece is designed to remind the listener of the distant past and its connection to our present. Modes have been utilized in many cultures at least since the earliest days of recorded history. Ancient Greek musical modes were revived and explored during the Middle Ages, and are sometimes considered the fathers of the scales we use today in what is often labeled tonal music, or music rooted in Western European musical practices. Blessing of Light is an accessible introduction to modal harmony for mixed choirs. Modes are characterized by combinations of half or whole steps that form a unique scale. The Mixolydian scale in this piece, for example, is identical to the major scale with the exception of a lowered (or flatted) 7th scale degree. For ease of use in sight-reading, key signatures are indicated by the melodic tonal center with the chromatically altered lowered 7th. When introducing this piece, it may be beneficial for the conductor to begin with warm-ups or vocalizes utilizing the scales below.Blessing of Light is an excerpt from a Scottish-Irish benediction of anonymous authorship, which may have originated from old Celtic traditions. The rich, poetic language encourages hospitality for both friends and strangers and a charge to cultivate the inner spirit as a beacon of light for others. This SAB-setting offers additional options for soprano or alto divisi and comfortable ranges for men.Drawing primarily from the soundscape of a gently sweeping Mixolydian mode, this piece is designed to remind the listener of the distant past and its connection to our present. Modes have been utilized in many cultures at least since the earliest days of recorded history. Ancient Greek musical modes were revived and explored during the Middle Ages, and are sometimes considered the fathers of the scales we use today in what is often labeled “tonal music,†or music rooted in Western European musical practices.Blessing of Light is an accessible introduction to modal harmony for mixed choirs. Modes are characterized by combinations of half or whole steps that form a unique scale. The Mixolydian scale in this piece, for example, is identical to the major scale with the exception of a lowered (or flatted) 7th scale degree. For ease of use in sight-reading, key signatures are indicated by the melodic tonal center with the chromatically altered lowered 7th. When introducing this piece, it may be beneficial for the conductor to begin with warm-ups or vocalizes utilizing the scales below.
SKU: PR.165001000
ISBN 9781491129241. UPC: 680160669776. 9 x 12 inches.
Commissione d for a consortium of high school and college bands in the north Dallas region, FOR THEMYSTIC HARMONY is a 10-minute inspirational work in homage to Norwood and Elizabeth Dixon,patrons of the Fort Worth Symphony and the Van Cliburn Competition. Welcher draws melodic flavorfrom five American hymns, spirituals, and folk tunes of the 19th century. The last of these sources toappear is the hymn tune For the Beauty of the Earth, whose third stanza is the quatrain: “For the joy of earand eye, For the heart and mind’s delight, For the mystic harmony, Linking sense to sound and sight,â€giving rise to the work’s title.This work, commissioned for a consortium of high school bands in the north Dallas area, is my fifteenth maturework for wind ensemble (not counting transcriptions). When I asked Todd Dixon, the band director whospearheaded this project, what kind of a work he most wanted, he first said “something that’s basically slow,†butwanted to leave the details to me. During a long subsequent conversation, he mentioned that his grandparents,Norwood and Elizabeth Dixon, were prime supporters of the Fort Worth Symphony, going so far as to purchase anumber of high quality instruments for that orchestra. This intrigued me, so I asked more about his grandparentsand was provided an 80-page biographical sketch. Reading that article, including a long section about theirdevotion to supporting a young man through the rigors of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition fora number of years, moved me very much. Norwood and Elizabeth Dixon weren’t just supporters of the arts; theywere passionate lovers of music and musicians. I determined to make this work a testament to that love, and tothe religious faith that sustained them both. The idea of using extant hymns was also suggested by Todd Dixon,and this 10-minute work is the result.I have employed existing melodies in several works, delving into certain kinds of religious music more than a fewtimes. In seeking new sounds, new ways of harmonizing old tunes, and the contrapuntal overlaying of one tunewith another, I was able to make works like ZION (using 19th-century Revivalist hymns) and LABORING SONGS(using Shaker melodies) reflect the spirit of the composers who created these melodies, without sounding likepastiches or medleys. I determined to do the same with this new work, with the added problem of employingmelodies that were more familiar. I chose five tunes from the 19th century: hymns, spirituals, and folk-tunes.Some of these are known by differing titles, but they all appear in hymnals of various Christian denominations(with various titles and texts). My idea was to employ the tunes without altering their notes, instead using aconstantly modulating sense of harmony — sometimes leading to polytonal harmonizations of what are normallysimple four-chord hymns.The work begins and ends with a repeated chime on the note C: a reminder of steeples, white clapboard churchesin the country, and small church organs. Beginning with a Mixolydian folk tune of Caribbean origin presentedtwice with layered entrances, the work starts with a feeling of mystery and gentle sorrow. It proceeds, after along transition, into a second hymn that is sometimes connected to the sea (hence the sensation of water andwaves throughout it). This tune, by John B. Dykes (1823-1876), is a bit more chromatic and “shifty†than mosthymn-tunes, so I chose to play with the constant sensation of modulation even more than the original does. Atthe climax, the familiar spiritual “Were you there?†takes over, with a double-time polytonal feeling propelling itforward at “Sometimes it causes me to tremble.â€Trumpets in counterpoint raise the temperature, and the tempo as well, leading the music into a third tune (ofunknown provenance, though it appears with different texts in various hymnals) that is presented in a sprightlymanner. Bassoons introduce the melody, but it is quickly taken up by other instruments over three “verses,â€cons tantly growing in orchestration and volume. A mysterious second tune, unrelated to this one, interrupts it inall three verses, sending the melody into unknown regions.The final melody is “For the Beauty of the Earth.†This tune by Conrad Kocher (1786-1872) is commonly sung atThanksgiving — the perfect choice to end this work celebrating two people known for their generosity.Keeping the sense of constant modulation that has been present throughout, I chose to present this hymn in threegrowing verses, but with a twist: every four bars, the “key†of the hymn seems to shift — until the “Lord of all, toThee we praise†melody bursts out in a surprising compound meter. This, as it turns out, was the “mystery tuneâ€heard earlier in the piece. After an Ivesian, almost polytonal climax, the Coda begins over a long B( pedal. At first,it seems to be a restatement of the first two phrases of “For the Beauty†with long spaces between them, but it soonchanges to a series of “Amen†cadences, widely separated by range and color. These, too, do not conform to anykey, but instead overlay each other in ways that are unpredictable but strangely comforting.The third verse of “For the Beauty of the Earth†contains this quatrain:“For the joy of ear and eye, –For the heart and mind’s delightFor the mystic harmonyLinking sense to sound and sightâ€and it was from this poetry that I drew the title for the present work. It is my hope that audiences and performerswill find within it a sense of grace: more than a little familiar, but also quite new and unexpected.
SKU: HL.49046544
ISBN 9781705122655. UPC: 842819108726. 9.0x12.0x0.224 inches.
I composed the Piano Concerto in two stages: the first three movements during the years 1985-86, the next two in 1987, the final autograph of the last movement was ready by January, 1988. The concerto is dedicated to the American conductor Mario di Bonaventura. The markings of the movements are the following: 1. Vivace molto ritmico e preciso 2. Lento e deserto 3. Vivace cantabile 4. Allegro risoluto 5. Presto luminoso.The first performance of the three-movement Concerto was on October 23rd, 1986 in Graz. Mario di Bonaventura conducted while his brother, Anthony di Bonaventura, was the soloist. Two days later the performance was repeated in the Vienna Konzerthaus. After hearing the work twice, I came to the conclusion that the third movement is not an adequate finale; my feeling of form demanded continuation, a supplement. That led to the composing of the next two movements. The premiere of the whole cycle took place on February 29th, 1988, in the Vienna Konzerthaus with the same conductor and the same pianist. The orchestra consisted of the following: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, tenor trombone, percussion and strings. The flautist also plays the piccoIo, the clarinetist, the alto ocarina. The percussion is made up of diverse instruments, which one musician-virtuoso can play. It is more practical, however, if two or three musicians share the instruments. Besides traditional instruments the percussion part calls also for two simple wind instruments: the swanee whistle and the harmonica. The string instrument parts (two violins, viola, cello and doubles bass) can be performed soloistic since they do not contain divisi. For balance, however, the ensemble playing is recommended, for example 6-8 first violins, 6-8 second, 4-6 violas, 4-6 cellos, 3-4 double basses. In the Piano Concerto I realized new concepts of harmony and rhythm. The first movement is entirely written in bimetry: simultaneously 12/8 and 4/4 (8/8). This relates to the known triplet on a doule relation and in itself is nothing new. Because, however, I articulate 12 triola and 8 duola pulses, an entangled, up till now unheard kind of polymetry is created. The rhythm is additionally complicated because of asymmetric groupings inside two speed layers, which means accents are asymmetrically distributed. These groups, as in the talea technique, have a fixed, continuously repeating rhythmic structures of varying lengths in speed layers of 12/8 and 4/4. This means that the repeating pattern in the 12/8 level and the pattern in the 4/4 level do not coincide and continuously give a kaleidoscope of renewing combinations. In our perception we quickly resign from following particular rhythmical successions and that what is going on in time appears for us as something static, resting. This music, if it is played properly, in the right tempo and with the right accents inside particular layers, after a certain time 'rises, as it were, as a plane after taking off: the rhythmic action, too complex to be able to follow in detail, begins flying. This diffusion of individual structures into a different global structure is one of my basic compositional concepts: from the end of the fifties, from the orchestral works Apparitions and Atmospheres I continuously have been looking for new ways of resolving this basic question. The harmony of the first movement is based on mixtures, hence on the parallel leading of voices. This technique is used here in a rather simple form; later in the fourth movement it will be considerably developed. The second movement (the only slow one amongst five movements) also has a talea type of structure, it is however much simpler rhythmically, because it contains only one speed layer. The melody is consisted in the development of a rigorous interval mode in which two minor seconds and one major second alternate therefore nine notes inside an octave. This mode is transposed into different degrees and it also determines the harmony of the movement; however, in closing episode in the piano part there is a combination of diatonics (white keys) and pentatonics (black keys) led in brilliant, sparkling quasimixtures, while the orchestra continues to play in the nine tone mode. In this movement I used isolated sounds and extreme registers (piccolo in a very low register, bassoon in a very high register, canons played by the swanee whistle, the alto ocarina and brass with a harmon-mute' damper, cutting sound combinations of the piccolo, clarinet and oboe in an extremely high register, also alternating of a whistle-siren and xylophone). The third movement also has one speed layer and because of this it appears as simpler than the first, but actually the rhythm is very complicated in a different way here. Above the uninterrupted, fast and regular basic pulse, thanks to the asymmetric distribution of accents, different types of hemiolas and inherent melodical patterns appear (the term was coined by Gerhard Kubik in relation to central African music). If this movement is played with the adequate speed and with very clear accentuation, illusory rhythmic-melodical figures appear. These figures are not played directly; they do not appear in the score, but exist only in our perception as a result of co-operation of different voices. Already earlier I had experimented with illusory rhythmics, namely in Poeme symphonique for 100 metronomes (1962), in Continuum for harpsichord (1968), in Monument for two pianos (1976), and especially in the first and sixth piano etude Desordre and Automne a Varsovie (1985). The third movement of the Piano Concerto is up to now the clearest example of illusory rhythmics and illusory melody. In intervallic and chordal structure this movement is based on alternation, and also inter-relation of various modal and quasi-equidistant harmony spaces. The tempered twelve-part division of the octave allows for diatonical and other modal interval successions, which are not equidistant, but are based on the alternation of major and minor seconds in different groups. The tempered system also allows for the use of the anhemitonic pentatonic scale (the black keys of the piano). From equidistant scales, therefore interval formations which are based on the division of an octave in equal distances, the twelve-tone tempered system allows only chromatics (only minor seconds) and the six-tone scale (the whole-tone: only major seconds). Moreover, the division of the octave into four parts only minor thirds) and three parts (three major thirds) is possible. In several music cultures different equidistant divisions of an octave are accepted, for example, in the Javanese slendro into five parts, in Melanesia into seven parts, popular also in southeastern Asia, and apart from this, in southern Africa. This does not mean an exact equidistance: there is a certain tolerance for the inaccurateness of the interval tuning. These exotic for us, Europeans, harmony and melody have attracted me for several years. However I did not want to re-tune the piano (microtone deviations appear in the concerto only in a few places in the horn and trombone parts led in natural tones). After the period of experimenting, I got to pseudo- or quasiequidistant intervals, which is neither whole-tone nor chromatic: in the twelve-tone system, two whole-tone scales are possible, shifted a minor second apart from each other. Therefore, I connect these two scales (or sound resources), and for example, places occur where the melodies and figurations in the piano part are created from both whole tone scales; in one band one six-tone sound resource is utilized, and in the other hand, the complementary. In this way whole-tonality and chromaticism mutually reduce themselves: a type of deformed equidistancism is formed, strangely brilliant and at the same time slanting; illusory harmony, indeed being created inside the tempered twelve-tone system, but in sound quality not belonging to it anymore. The appearance of such slantedequidistant harmony fields alternating with modal fields and based on chords built on fifths (mainly in the piano part), complemented with mixtures built on fifths in the orchestra, gives this movement an individual, soft-metallic colour (a metallic sound resulting from harmonics). The fourth movement was meant to be the central movement of the Concerto. Its melodc-rhythmic elements (embryos or fragments of motives) in themselves are simple. The movement also begins simply, with a succession of overlapping of these elements in the mixture type structures. Also here a kaleidoscope is created, due to a limited number of these elements - of these pebbles in the kaleidoscope - which continuously return in augmentations and diminutions. Step by step, however, so that in the beginning we cannot hear it, a compiled rhythmic organization of the talea type gradually comes into daylight, based on the simultaneity of two mutually shifted to each other speed layers (also triplet and duoles, however, with different asymmetric structures than in the first movement). While longer rests are gradually filled in with motive fragments, we slowly come to the conclusion that we have found ourselves inside a rhythmic-melodical whirl: without change in tempo, only through increasing the density of the musical events, a rotation is created in the stream of successive and compiled, augmented and diminished motive fragments, and increasing the density suggests acceleration. Thanks to the periodical structure of the composition, always new but however of the same (all the motivic cells are similar to earlier ones but none of them are exactly repeated; the general structure is therefore self-similar), an impression is created of a gigantic, indissoluble network. Also, rhythmic structures at first hidden gradually begin to emerge, two independent speed layers with their various internal accentuations. This great, self-similar whirl in a very indirect way relates to musical associations, which came to my mind while watching the graphic projection of the mathematical sets of Julia and of Mandelbrot made with the help of a computer. I saw these wonderful pictures of fractal creations, made by scientists from Brema, Peitgen and Richter, for the first time in 1984. From that time they have played a great role in my musical concepts. This does not mean, however, that composing the fourth movement I used mathematical methods or iterative calculus; indeed, I did use constructions which, however, are not based on mathematical thinking, but are rather craftman's constructions (in this respect, my attitude towards mathematics is similar to that of the graphic artist Maurits Escher). I am concerned rather with intuitional, poetic, synesthetic correspondence, not on the scientific, but on the poetic level of thinking. The fifth, very short Presto movement is harmonically very simple, but all the more complicated in its rhythmic structure: it is based on the further development of ''inherent patterns of the third movement. The quasi-equidistance system dominates harmonically and melodically in this movement, as in the third, alternating with harmonic fields, which are based on the division of the chromatic whole into diatonics and anhemitonic pentatonics. Polyrhythms and harmonic mixtures reach their greatest density, and at the same time this movement is strikingly light, enlightened with very bright colours: at first it seems chaotic, but after listening to it for a few times it is easy to grasp its content: many autonomous but self-similar figures which crossing themselves. I present my artistic credo in the Piano Concerto: I demonstrate my independence from criteria of the traditional avantgarde, as well as the fashionable postmodernism. Musical illusions which I consider to be also so important are not a goal in itself for me, but a foundation for my aesthetical attitude. I prefer musical forms which have a more object-like than processual character. Music as frozen time, as an object in imaginary space evoked by music in our imagination, as a creation which really develops in time, but in imagination it exists simultaneously in all its moments. The spell of time, the enduring its passing by, closing it in a moment of the present is my main intention as a composer. (Gyorgy Ligeti).
SKU: PR.16500100F
ISBN 9781491114421. UPC: 680160669783. 9 x 12 inches.
SKU: GI.G-CD-432
This brilliant first solo effort by gifted singer Theresa Donohoo is a splendid mix of traditional Christmas songs and newer material, all beautifully arranged and guaranteed to please a variety of musical tastes. Listeners will be captivated by haunting folk music generously laced with popular Celtic sounds, including the bodhran, whistle, and uillean pipes for a decidedly Irish flavor. New interpretations of several well-known carols-including a Gaelic version of The First No¥l with its soft, lilting strains-are sure to charm the musical ear. A medieval flavor permeates the collection, and the beguiling Carol of the Strangers is destined to become a Christmas classic for church groups. Fresh arrangements of I Saw Three Ships, Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day, and Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow bring dramatic new dimensions to these enchanting strains. Ms. Donohoo lends a captivating new melody and treatment to Brian Wren's Advent Herald.B.
