SKU: HL.14028029
ISBN 9788759869215.
'Four Compositions' is a virtuoso chamber concerto written in 1980 and commissioned by the Danish ensemble Musica Danica. Each of the four movements explores a specific kind of music.
SKU: HL.14003796
Danish.
A Chorale arranged for 15 Instruments. Full Score for ensemble.Bach's Befichl du deine Wege is a chorale setting (BWV 272), which Hans Abrahamsen has arranged for fifteen instruments. In Hans Albrahamsen's adaptation Bachs chorale gradually ernerges from two melodic fragments, both borrowed from the Danish composer Poul Ruders' Four Dances in One Movernent'. In fact both fragments are taken from the last three bars of Ruders' composition. One of Ruders' small melodies is descending, the other is ascending. The metamorphosis from Ruders to Bach can be accomplished because both of Ruders' melodic fragments are in fact 'hidden' among the parts of this Bach choraleinasmuch as the composer has transposed it into B minor. In the first verse we hear only the descending Ruders melody. In the secend verse Ruders' second, ascending and chrornatically coloured melody is added. In the subsequent verses more and more melodies are added. Thus the piece begins with Poul Ruders' melodic fragment in the foreground. In the course of the next verse Ruders' material gradually recedes into the background, and permits Bachs face to ernerge with increasing clarty in the foreground. The piece is dedicated to Poul Ruders. - Thomas MichelsenArrangement
SKU: HL.14027994
ISBN 9788759864593.
New York is the city which fascinates and inspires Ruders. Time and again he goes back there to work. 'Manhattan Abstraction' (1982) subtitles - a symphonic skyline for large orchestra - was conceived there. Ruders' Brittish colleague Oliver Knussen defines the piece as: - a performance of an extraordinary Morden-Times-like construction. It is a sort of symphonic sculpture, which in the composer's own words words propels forth from one particular inspiration: the New York profile, as seen from Liberty Island, one icy cold January day with it's open, clear sky and dazzling sun light. 'Manhatten Abstraction' appears as an amalgam of some of the compositorical habits found in present pieces. For instance, are present here compositorical ideas and melodic loans from 'Capriccio Pian'e Forte', 2nd String Quartet(1979), 'Four Compositions' (1980), and 2nd Piano Sonata(1982). The question at hand is mainly concerned with the enhanced elaboration of Ruders' use of the classic English change-ringing system: a permuting method pre-determining the order of tone-appearances and /or tone groups; a serial technique in other words. In spite of the rigidly fixed material, Ruders somehow manages to chisel out a personal expression by way of emphasising contrasting elements already existing within the material itself. The spiky, repetitive sections form a counterpart to a more human violin-solo. This dialectical tension is - as hinted by the title - a symphonic abstraction of a fascinating metropolis; the most beautiful and the ugliest. The subtitle: a symphonic skyline reflects the musical erection of the Manhattan profile, which under the clear sky, materializes into the most powerful and compelling man-made sculpture on earth. Thus 'Manhattan Abstraction' is a homage to, as well as a vision of, this giant contraption of concrete, glass, and chrome.
SKU: HL.14028038
ISBN 9788759854730. 12.0x16.5x0.3 inches. English.
The word GONG is saturated with associations: the splendour of the Orient, mysticism, drama, loud metallic clangour, violent impact, etc. The present piece draws upon all those connotations, but it is primarily a symphonic drama about the life and behaviour of the sun, our closest star and prime source of life on Earth. Describing the sun in music is not a new idea, of course; during a visit to Greece, Carl Nielsen was inspired by the orbit of the sun and its very un-Danish ferocity and thus wrote the Helios Overture. GONG is a Helios Overture too, of sorts, albeit more abstract. Recent astronomical research shows, that the surface of the sun reverberates like a gong, in four different, simultaneous tempi (not directly depicted in the score, though); the sun looks like a GONG, - the O in the written work looks like the sun; there is even a solar research group called GONG (Global Oscillation Network Group). Formally the composition follows the life and fate of the sun, from the initial explotional birth through the hyper-activity as energy source as we know it today to the final, predicted flaring up and collapse into a so-called white dwarf. But - being a musical composition, not an astrophysical thesis - GONG is brought to its compositional conclusion by a real concert-ending, a chord taken from the middle of the piece and sustained over several bars, from virtual nothingness to full force.
SKU: HL.14027993
ISBN 9788759811832. English.
Premiered at the festival 'Magma Berlin 2002' by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson, 29th November 2002.3 Flutes, 1st and 2nd also Alto Flutes in G, 3rd also Piccolo3 Oboes, 3rd also Cor Anglais in F3 Clarinets in Bb, 3rd also Bass Clarinet in Bb3 Bassoons, 3rd also Contra Bassoon4 Horn in F3 Trumpets in Bb3 Trombones1 TubaTimpani4 Percussion, four playersPlayer 1 - Vibraphone, Glockenspiel, Water Chime, Bell Tree, Japanese Wood Blocks, Cymbal (Suspended), TamTam (Medium)Player 2 - Triangle, Tubular Bells, Crotales, Marimba, Chinese CymbalPlayer 3 - TamTam (Large), Java Gong(Large, very low), Bell Lyra (Handheld), Sizzle CymbalPlayer 4 - Bass Drum, Glockenspiel, Xylophone1 Harp1 Piano, also CelestaStrings - 16/14/12/10/8All transposing instruments are notated in their relevant transpositions.Any accidental apply only to the note that it immediately precedes, except tied notes.Naturals appear occasionally 'for safety'.'LISTENING EARTH' is a symphonic drama, a one- movement composition in four parts based on the work by two writers, Joseph Addison (1672-1719) and W.H.Auden (1907-1973). Joseph Addison is not particularly well known; he was English, a classical scholar, essayist, poet and politician, but one of his hymns was used by Benjamin Britten. in his setting of a Thomas Tallis canon.The hymn is singularly beautiful and being a composer always inspired by extramusical stimuli such as poems, nature, paintings, I was immediately convinced when I carne across the Addison hymn, that here was exactly what I wanted to use as my major source of inspiration for this piece, commissioned by and written for The Berlin Philharmonic. I don't refer to the hymn in its entirety, but have chosen the following 3 excerpts, all acting as mottos for the first three sections of the piece, thus turning the piece into a straightforward tonepoem in the classical.
SKU: HL.14008995
ISBN 9788759878217. Danish.
Poul Ruders DIFERENCIASDIFERENCIAS was an old Spanish naming of musical compositions dealing with various techniques involving theme and variation. In modern Spanish it simply means differences. It's a nice title, however, and as to the present piece, a very fitting one indeed, because I wrote it especially to The Elsinore Players for their South America-tour in 1981.Actually nothing happens to the clipping of wellknown Bach (the first four bars of the chorale: jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, cantata No. 147), apart from the continuous changing of the succession-pattern of the 11 triplets and one duplet, the latter of which creates the recognizable 8/8 pattern amidst the flow of 9/8 spinnrad-rolling. To put it popularly, I haven't included anything that Bach does not have in the book himself.In addition to that, the unpredictable accents and various instrumental colours are the only means of differences. There are no modulations, no tricky polyphony, nothing but a long, thoughtful tasting the beautiful piece of tune. Well, of course, the chorale itself enters the picture in the very last section, but that is merely for me to have the pleasure of tossing it away again before it comes to a proper end.Finally, I really do think, that the Cage/Morgan poem quoted below, is the most suitable prologue to DIFERENCIAS:14 variations on 14 wordsI have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry. John CageI have to say poetry and is that nothing and I am saying itI am and I have poetry to say and is that nothing saying itI am nothing and I have poetry to say and that is saying itI that am saying poetry have nothing and it is I and to sayAnd I say that I am to have poetry and saying it is nothingI am poetry and nothing and saying it is to say that I haveTo have nothing is poetry and I am saying that and I say itPoetry is saying I have nothing and I am to say that and itSaying nothing I am poetry and I have to say that and it isIt is and I am and I have poetry saying say that to nothingIt is saying poetry to nothing and I say I have and am that Poetry is saying I have it and I am nothing and to say that And that nothing is poetry I am saying and I have to say itSaying poetry is nothing and to that I say I am and have itEdwin MorganPoul Ruders.
