Studies In Clefs

SKU: HL.49017932

ISBN 9790001157698. 7.5x10.75x0.056 inches. German.

All settings are contrapuntal studies from Hindemith's own composition lessons of the years 1912-14. Notated in 'old clefs', these charming three-part miniatures for two female voices and one male voice have been difficult to access in the complete edition to date. Now, they finally provide access to general practical music-making due to their transcription in modern clefs and the addition of complete verse texts. Compositionally demanding, yet relatively easy-to-play pieces for concerts or even for liturgical purposes, which are ideal especially for small church choirs and choral societies.

SKU: CY.CC3110

ISBN 9790530110874. 8.5 x 11 in inches.

Albert Robert Mueller (Muller) was a German trombonist born in 1849. He initially received violin lessons and discovered his talent for trombone playing at the age of twelve. He eventually settled in Leipzig and became a member of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra as well as a teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Music. He wrote the School for Trombone in 1902. (Wikipedia) The School for Trombone (part of our Vintage Brass Series, not to be confused with the Technical Etudes) is a very detailed and comprehensive book in three volumes totalling 208 pages, the text being divided into German, English and Russian languages. * Volume I includes detailed lessons on music theory including all scales and keys, rhythm, time signatures, rests, accents, accidentals, explanations of tempo markings, dynamics, posture, tone, a table of positions and notes. The lessons go through different keys starting very slowly and methodically with short exercises....not going too fast for the beginning student. Along the way Mueller inserts easy duets to perform with teacher and student, including many Bach chorales, etc. to get tuning and tone solidified. * Volume II for the intermediate level student, begins with the first studies of slurs and legato. He introduces simple songs and famous melodies including more duets. The exercises get progressively more difficult and include the entire collection of ornaments. * Volume III, for the more advanced student, introduces tenor and alto clefs in scales and studies including more duets. Compiled by Gordon Cherry.

SKU: FA.MFCD017B

8.27 x 11.69 inches.

Contains Le Roi Lear: Prelude,Premiere Fanfare, and La Mort de Cordelia,Toomai des elephants, Rodrigue et Chimene: Prelude a l'acte 1p. Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien: La Passion , and No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence

From Robert Orledge's notes:

My interest in the wonderful music of Claude Debussy began in the 1980s when I researched and published a book with Cambridge University Press entitled Debussy and the Theatre. During the course of my studies in Paris, I was amazed to discover that Debussy planned over 50 theatrical works but only finished two of these entirely by himself (the opera Pelleas et Melisande in 1893-1902 and the ballet Jeux for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1912-13). Of the rest, many were never started musically (like Siddartha and Orphee-roi with the Oriental scholar Victor Segalen, 1907); some had a few tantalising sketches (like the Edgar Allan Poe opera Le Diable dans le beffroi, 1902-03); some were half-finished (like his other Poe opera La Chute de la Maison Usher, 1908-17); while others were musically complete but had their orchestrations completed by other composers (like Khamma, by Charles Koechlin, 1912-13; or Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien and La Boite a joujoux by his 'angel of corrections' ['l'ange des Corrections'] Andre Caplet in 1911 and 1919 respectively).

For it has to be admitted that what some scholars call Debussy's 'compulsive achievement' could equally well be viewed as laziness, especially as far as the minute detail required for calligraphing his orchestral scores was concerned. It was as if creating the music itself was of greater importance than controlling its final sound, even if Debussy was an imaginative orchestrator when he found the time and energy to do it. It also seems true that Debussy also preferred inventing ideas to turning them into complete pieces. However, despite the lack of detail in many of his sketches (missing clefs, key signatures, dynamics, phrasing, etc.) the notes themselves are surprisingly accurate, whether or not they can be compared with a later draft. Thus, a large number of sketches exist for his Chinese ballet No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence and it is not too difficult to see which parts of Georges de Feure's 1913 scenario (see below) inspired which ideas. But Debussy hardly made any attempt to join them together after the first few bars.

It was usually up to his publisher, Jacques Durand, to find solutions when Debussy risked a breach of contract. Debussy was supposed to supervise the orchestrations completed by others, but this supervision was usually very light and restricted to quiet, sensitive moments in which problems were easier to spot. Far from jealously guarding every one of his created notes, as Ravel did, Debussy once even went as far as to ask Koechlin to 'write a ballet for him that he would sign' on 26 March 1914 when he was hard-pressed to fulfil his lucrative contract for No-ja-li with Andre Charlot at the Alhambra Theatre in London. In the end, Debussy (through Durand) sent Charlot the symphonic suite Printemps instead, whose orchestration had been completed by Henri Busser in the Spring of 1912.

So, when I was offered early retirement as Professor of Music at Liverpool University in 2004, I seized the opportunity it would give me to spend time trying to reconstruct some of Debussy's lost potential masterpieces from his existing sketches and drafts--then orchestrating them in Debussy's style when this was appropriate. I had begun this mission in 2001 with the most promising project, the missing parts of Scene 2 of La Chute de la Maison Usher and the sheer joy it gave me at every stage persuaded me to tackle other projects, especially when Debussy experts were unable to identify exactly where I took over from Debussy (and vice versa) in Usher.