Symphony No. 3 Symphony-Poem

SKU: BA.BA10303-01

ISBN 9790006559503. 33 x 26 cm inches. Key: C minor. Preface: Michael Stegemann.

The third symphony by Camille Saint-Saens, known as the Organ Symphony, is the first publication in a complete historical-critical edition of the French composer's instrumental works.

I gave everything I was able to give in this work. [...] What I have done here I will never be able to do again.Camille Saint-Saens was rightly proud of his third Symphony in C minor Op.78, dedicated to the memory of Franz Liszt. Called theOrgan Symphonybecause of its novel scoring, the work was a commission from the Philharmonic Society in London, as was Beethoven's Ninth, and was premiered there on 19 May 1886. The first performance in Paris followed on 9 January 1887 and confirmed the composer's reputation asprobably the most significant, and certainly the most independent French symphonistof his time, as Ludwig Finscher wrote in MGG. In fact the work remains the only one in the history of that genre in France to the present day, composed a good half century after the Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz and a good half century before Olivier Messiaen's Turangalila Symphonie.

You would think that such a famous, much-performed and much recorded opus could not hold any more secrets, but far from it: in the first historical-critical edition of the Symphony, numerous inconsistencies and mistakes in the Durand edition in general use until now, have been uncovered and corrected. An examination and evaluation of the sources ranged from two early sketches, now preserved in Paris and Washington (in which the Symphony was still in B minor!) via the autograph manuscript and a set of proofs corrected by Saint-Saens himself, to the first and subsequent editions of the full score and parts. The versions for piano duet (by Leon Roques) and for two pianos (by the composer himself) were also consulted. Further crucial information was finally found in his extensive correspondence, encompassing thousands of previously unpublished letters. The discoveries made in producing this edition include the fact that at its London premiere, the Symphony probably looked quite different from its present appearance ...

No less exciting than the work itself is the history of its composition and reception, which are described in an extensive foreword. With his Symphony, Saint-Saens entered right into the dispute which divided French musical life into pro and contra Wagner in the 1880s and 1890s. At the same time, the work succeeded in preserving the balance between tradition and modernism in masterly fashion, as a contemporary critic stated:The C minor Symphony by Saint-Saens creates a bridge from the past into the future, from immortal richness to progress, from ideas to their implementation.

On 19 March 1886 Saint-Saens wrote to the London Philharmonic Society, which commissioned the work:

Work on the symphony is in full swing. But I warn you, it will be terrible. Here is the precise instrumentation: 3 flutes / 2 oboes / 1 cor anglais / 2 clarinets / 1 bass clarinet / 2 bassoons / 1 contrabassoon / 2 natural horns / [3 trumpets / Saint-Saens had forgotten these in his listing.] 2 chromatic horns / 3 trombones / 1 tuba / 3 timpani / organ / 1 piano duet and the strings, of course. Fortunately, there are no harps. Unfortunately it will be difficult. I am doing what I can to mitigate the difficulties.

As in my 4th Concerto [for piano] and my [1st] Violin Sonata [in D minor Op.75] at first glance there appear to be just two parts: the first Allegro and the Adagio, the Scherzo and the Finale, each attacca. This fiendish symphony has crept up by a semitone; it did not want to stay in B minor, and is now in C minor.

It would be a pleasure for me to conduct this symphony. Whether it would be a pleasure for others to hear it? That is the question. It is you who wanted it, I wash my hands of it. I will bring the orchestral parts carefully corrected with me, and if anyone wants to give me a nice rehearsal for the symphony after the full rehearsal, everything will be fine.

When Saint-Saens hit upon the idea of adding an organ and a piano to the usual orchestral scoring is not known. The idea of adding an organ part to a secular orchestral work intended for the concert hall was thoroughly novel - and not without controversy. On the other hand, Franz Liszt, whose music Saint-Saens' Symphony is so close to, had already demonstrated that the organ could easily be an orchestral instrument in his symphonic poem Hunnenschlacht (1856/57). There was also a model for the piano duet part which Saint-Saens knew and may possibly have used quite consciously as an exemplar: theFantaisie sur la Tempetefrom the lyrical monodrama Lelio, ou le retour a la Vie op. 14bis (1831) by Berlioz. The name of the organist at the premiere ist unknown, as, incidentally, was also the case with many of the later performances; the organ part is indeed not soloistic, but should be understood as part of the orchestral texture.

In fact the subsequent success of the symphony seems to have represented a kind of breakthrough for the composer, who was then over 50 years of age.My dear composer of a famous symphony, wrote Saint-Saens' friend and pupil Gabriel Faure:You will never be able to imagine what a pleasure I had last Sunday [at the second performance on 16 January 1887]! And I had the score and did not miss a single note of this Symphony, which will endure much longer than we two, even if we were to join together our two lifespans!

About Barenreiter Urtext

What can I expect from a Barenreiter Urtext edition?< /p>

MUSICOLOGICA LLY SOUND
- A reliable musical text based on all available sources
- A description of the sources
- Information on the genesis and history of the work
- Valuable notes on performance practice
- Includes an introduction with critical commentary explaining source discrepancies and editorial decisions

... AND PRACTICAL
- Page-turns, fold-out pages, and cues where you need them
- A well-presented layout and a user-friendly format
- Excellent print quality
- Superior paper and binding

SKU: HL.14043756

ISBN 9788759836620. English.

Commission ed by John Storgards, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and Nordic House in the Faroe Islands. Dedicated to the composers daughter Malan. Preface / Programme note: From the Edda verse 31 Three roots there are that three ways run Neath the ash-tree Yggdrasil, Neath the first lives Hel, neath the second the frost-giants, Neath the last are the lands of men. The idea behind the Symphony is the story of Yggdrasil, The Tree of Life, from the Old Norse mythology. The Ash-tree reaches all the way into the sky and has three roots, each growing into three different places. One root grows into the Land of Hel (Hel is the goddess of Hell), called Helheim, another into theLand of Frost-Giants, called Jotunheim, and one root grows into the Land of men, called Asgard. And the Ash-tree reaches into the sky. In the crown of the tree lives a squirrel, which moves fast around the tree and spreads gossip, both between the three roots and between three roots and the crown of the tree.The Edda is a large collection of Old Norse poems, collected in the 12th Century by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson. Sunleif Rasmussen, March 2015.

SKU: BR.PB-5710

ISBN 9790004216477. 10.5 x 14 inches.

Richard Strauss's last completed tone poem is regarded as the pinnacle of his art of orchestration: Now I've finally learned to orchestrate, he himself is once supposed to have said about it after the dress rehearsal. The single-movement Alpine symphony that we know today ultimately evolved - over almost 15 years - from the original drafts of an artist's tragedy, titled Der Antichrist. Eine Alpensinfonie [The Antichrist. An Alpine Symphony] up to the stage of the last sketches. With unprecedented plasticity, the work showcases a (metaphysical?) mountain hike with stops in the forest, at the waterfall, on the alpine pasture and, of course, at the summit. Apropos alpine pastures: up to the score's fair copy stage, Strauss envisaged a high and a low alphorn for the section Auf der Alm [On the Alpine Pasture] and the well-known Dulioh theme, though for various reasons first detailed in our new Urtext edition, these exotic instruments did not find their way into the printed version. In the new edition, the editor, Nick Pfefferkorn, reproduces the alphorn passages in small print, also adding two alphorn parts to the performance material, besides evaluating the corrections made by Walter Seifert at Strauss's request.

First Urtext edition since the first editionEvaluation of all available sources, including sketches and the score corrected by Walter Seifert Extensive preface on the work's compositional history and receptionDetailed Critical ReportFacsimile pages.

SKU: GI.G-OC01

UPC: 705105612065.

Watch and listen to the Chicago Symphony Brass in a world premiere recording of An Alpine Symphony arranged and conducted by music director Jay Friedman. The recording was made at a live concert benefit for the Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest. It also celebrated the career and retirement of Adolph “Bud” Herseth, who was principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony for 53 years. Eine Alpensinfonie is a long symphonic poem in one movement describing a day of Alpine climbing. Mr. Friedman’s masterful scoring captures all of the virtuosity and beauty of the original orchestral version.  This masterwork was scored for Michael Mulcahy and the brass of the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra and premiered in 1996 at the Grand Teton Music Festival, Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

SKU: BR.SON-633

ISBN 9790004803684. 10 x 12.5 inches.

Symphony, symphonic poem, fantasy, or something else entirely different? For a long time while working on the Sixth Symphony, Sibelius was not certain what his new orchestral work was now about to become or what to call it. He had to interrupt work on the symphony time and again during the Finnish civil war and because of financial difficulties that forced him to earn a living with little things. So, it is not surprising that many small ideas for other works repeatedly culminated in the Sixth. In a letter to a friend, he describes his early ideas for the work: The 6th symphony is wild and turbulent in character. Gloomy with pastoral contrasts. Probably in 4 movements with a conclusion growing into a dark orchestral shower in which the main theme drowns. The editor Kai Lindberg now presents the definitive version within the context of the Sibelius Complete Edition.

SKU: HL.49006356

ISBN 9790001068871. 8.25x12.0x0.088 inches.

The European Hymn is the hymn not only of the European Union but of Europe in a broader sense. The melody has been taken from the Ninth Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven from 1823.In the last movement of this symphony Beethoven set music to the 'Ode to Joy' by Friedrich von Schiller from 1785. This poem sprang from Schiller's idealistic vision of men who become brothers - a vision Beethoven shared with him.In 1972 the Council of Europe adopted Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' as its anthem. The well-known conductor Herbert von Karajan was commissioned to arrange three instrumental versions - for solo piano, wind orchestra and symphony orchestra. Without words, in the universal language of music, the anthem is an expression of the idealistic values of freedom, peace and solidarity which Europe stands for.In 1985 the heads of state and government adopted the hymn as the EU's official anthem. It does not replace the national anthems of the member states, but rather celebrates common values as well as unity in diversity.The score of this offical anthem is exclusively available from the Schott publishing house.

SKU: BT.EMBZ20004A

English-German-Hungari an.

Supplementary Volume 16 of the New Liszt Edition contains free arrangements and technical exercises. In the first section can be found early versions of three arrangements. The first consists of the first and intermediary versions of a transcription of Die Rose, a song Schubert composed to a poem by Schlegel. The arrangement of the second movement of Berlioz's Harold Symphony also draws on literary inspiration: Lord Byron's (1788-1824) narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-18) was a literary experience Liszt shared with Berlioz. The fantasy on themes from Bellini's opera La sonnambula [The Sleepwalker] (here the first version of 1842, and the second version dating from the following decade are given) is important in music history because it was while he worked on this (and other operatic fantasies) that Liszt developed a new concept of the form, which took shape in more complex and more concentrated fantasies than before. Particularly interesting material can be found in the appendix. In addition to sketches and drafts for arrangements of Spanish themes, there are three sources published here for the first time, which shed light on technical aspects of Liszt's piano teaching. These are three sets of exercises: the first written by Liszt himself for Valérie Boissier in 1832; the second a copy in an unidentified hand from the same period or slightly later; and finally the third which was noted down in 1871 by Henri Maréchal in Rome based on the composer's dictation. This latest volume of the New Liszt Edition includes a detailed preface in German, English, and Hungarian containing new research findings, together with five manuscript facsimiles and critical notes. Simultaneously with the cloth-bound Complete Edition, a practical paperback version has been published, the contents of which are identical to those of the hardcover edition, minus the inclusion of critical notes.

SKU: KN.10089S

UPC: 822795100891.

Beeth oven composed his Symphony No. 9 between 1822-24. The fourth movement is a theme and variations on Schiller's poem Ode To Joy and included solo voices and choir. This arrangement includes the opening presentation of the theme and several variations, capturing the spirit of the original work in an accessible grade 3 level for string orchestra. The parts are largely playable in first position, with some shifting to intermediate positions for 1st Violin, Cello and Bass. Duration 5:45.

SKU: KN.10089

UPC: 822795100891.

Beeth oven composed his Symphony No. 9 between 1822-24. The fourth movement is a theme and variations on Schiller's poem Ode To Joy and included solo voices and choir. This arrangement includes the opening presentation of the theme and several variations, capturing the spirit of the original work in an accessible grade 3 level for string orchestra. The parts are largely playable in first position, with some shifting to intermediate positions for 1st Violin, Cello and Bass. Duration 5:45.