Two Tone Poems

SKU: PR.144407050

UPC: 680160655519. 9 x 12 inches.

Celebrating 30 years, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society commissioned a work of 20-25 minutes for violin and piano from James Primosch, University of Pennsylvania professor of music. Primosch had originally thought to create a new sonata, but what developed is more appropriately a set of five character pieces, two of which were directly inspired by poems. Five Poems was premiered in May, 2016, and Primosch's thoughts are recorded at his website: https://jamesprimosch.com/2016/05/10/five-poems-premiere/.
Upon receiving a commission from the Philadelphia Chamber MusicSociety for a violin and piano piece in honor of its 30th anniversary, myplan was to write a sonata, a term suggesting a relatively abstractdiscourse. But as the piece developed, the movements struck me ascharacter pieces rather than music employing a more “symphonic”approach. When specific poems started to attach themselves in my mindwith two of the movements, the overall title Five Poems became clear.The title of the second movement is a line from Susan Stewart’s“Descent”, which deals with Aeneas’s visit to the underworld. The musicis alternately fiercely driving and quite still, though tense. RobertFrost’s Nothing Gold Can Stay summons fleet scale passages framinglyrical counterpoint. The remaining movements do not refer to specificpoems, but have titles reflecting their expressive tone. Dreamscape ismusing with an improvisatory violin line over shifting pairs of pianochords. Nightsong is a bluesy lullaby that turns highly dramatic.Vision begins with a closely argued struggle but breaks through tosomething spacious and clear.

SKU: PR.41641439L

UPC: 680160606924. 11 x 14 inches.

2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets in Bb, 2 Bassoons, 2 Horns in F, Percussion, Strings.
The work Tone Poem is composed for chamber orchestra, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 B-flat clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 French horns, 1 percussion and strings. The length is about 8 minutes. It is inspired by two poems by Su Dong-po (1036-1101) about southern Chinese landscape paintings. The imagination of the two beautiful ancient Chinese poems became the sonic landscape pictures, to share with my musicians and audience. The brimming waves, the sunny day, The dimming hills, the rainy haze. The West Lake as the Beauty Xizi, Whether she is adorned richly or plainly. Like spilt ink dark clouds spread o'er the hills as a pall; Like bouncing pearls the raindrops in the boat run riot. A sudden rolling gale comes and dispels them all, Below Lake View Pavilion sky-mirrored water's quiet.
The work Tone Poem is composed for chamber orchestra, 2 flutes, 2oboes, 2 B-flat clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 French horns, 1 percussion andstrings. The length is about 8 minutes. It is inspired by two poems by SuDong-po (1036-1101) about southern Chinese landscape paintings.The imagination of the two beautiful ancient Chinese poems became thesonic landscape pictures, to share with my musicians and audience.The brimming waves, the sunny day,The dimming hills, the rainy haze.The West Lake as the Beauty Xizi,Whether she is adorned richly or plainly.Like spilt ink dark clouds spread o'er the hills as a pall;Like bouncing pearls the raindrops in the boat run riot.A sudden rolling gale comes and dispels them all,Below Lake View Pavilion sky-mirrored water's quiet.

SKU: BR.SON-620

The American tone poems

ISBN 9790004803226. 10 x 12.5 inches.

Jean Sibelius wrote his last two tone poems Aallottaret op. 73 and Tapiola op. 112 as commissions for the United States. Aallottaret is the original Finnish title of op. 73, as is found on the autograph. Discreetly concealed behind this title, however, is the title The Oceanides, which also stems from Sibelius, and which Breitkopf & Hartel gladly placed in first position for the first edition of 1915, thus facilitating the diffusion of the work. The previously unpublished early version of Aallottaret is also presented in the volume of the Complete Edition; it had been hastily rejected shortly before the world premiere. Compared with this genesis, the origin of Tapiola , Sibelius last great symphonic poem, is relatively unspectacular: though he was under pressure to write and publish the work, Sibelius produced no different versions. There was only one printed edition from Breitkopf and no further revisions. Thanks are given to Professor Nors S. Josephson for his valuable work on this volume, the editing of which he began.

SKU: PR.465000130

ISBN 9781598064070. UPC: 680160600144. 9x12 inches.

Following a celebrated series of wind ensemble tone poems about national parks in the American West, Dan Welcher’s Upriver celebrates the Lewis & Clark Expedition from the Missouri River to Oregon’s Columbia Gorge, following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Welcher’s imaginative textures and inventiveness are freshly modern, evoking our American heritage, including references to Shenandoah and other folk songs known to have been sung on the expedition. For advanced players. Duration: 14’.
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s Corps of Discovery to find a water route to the Pacific and explore the uncharted West. He believed woolly mammoths, erupting volcanoes, and mountains of pure salt awaited them. What they found was no less mind-boggling: some 300 species unknown to science, nearly 50 Indian tribes, and the Rockies.Ihave been a student of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which Thomas Jefferson called the “Voyage of Discovery,” for as long as I can remember. This astonishing journey, lasting more than two-and-a-half years, began and ended in St. Louis, Missouri — and took the travelers up more than a few rivers in their quest to find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. In an age without speedy communication, this was akin to space travel out of radio range in our own time: no one knew if, indeed, the party had even survived the voyage for more than a year. Most of them were soldiers. A few were French-Canadian voyageurs — hired trappers and explorers, who were fluent in French (spoken extensively in the region, due to earlier explorers from France) and in some of the Indian languages they might encounter. One of the voyageurs, a man named Pierre Cruzatte, also happened to be a better-than-average fiddle player. In many respects, the travelers were completely on their own for supplies and survival, yet, incredibly, only one of them died during the voyage. Jefferson had outfitted them with food, weapons, medicine, and clothing — and along with other trinkets, a box of 200 jaw harps to be used in trading with the Indians. Their trip was long, perilous to the point of near catastrophe, and arduous. The dream of a Northwest Passage proved ephemeral, but the northwestern quarter of the continent had finally been explored, mapped, and described to an anxious world. When the party returned to St. Louis in 1806, and with the Louisiana Purchase now part of the United States, they were greeted as national heroes.Ihave written a sizeable number of works for wind ensemble that draw their inspiration from the monumental spaces found in the American West. Four of them (Arches, The Yellowstone Fires, Glacier, and Zion) take their names, and in large part their being, from actual national parks in Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. But Upriver, although it found its voice (and its finale) in the magnificent Columbia Gorge in Oregon, is about a much larger region. This piece, like its brother works about the national parks, doesn’t try to tell a story. Instead, it captures the flavor of a certain time, and of a grand adventure. Cast in one continuous movement and lasting close to fourteen minutes, the piece falls into several subsections, each with its own heading: The Dream (in which Jefferson’s vision of a vast expanse of western land is opened); The Promise, a chorale that re-appears several times in the course of the piece and represents the seriousness of the presidential mission; The River; The Voyageurs; The River II ; Death and Disappointment; Return to the Voyage; and The River III .The music includes several quoted melodies, one of which is familiar to everyone as the ultimate “river song,” and which becomes the through-stream of the work. All of the quoted tunes were either sung by the men on the voyage, or played by Cruzatte’s fiddle. From various journals and diaries, we know the men found enjoyment and solace in music, and almost every night encampment had at least a bit of music in it. In addition to Cruzatte, there were two other members of the party who played the fiddle, and others made do with singing, or playing upon sticks, bones, the ever-present jaw harps, and boat horns. From Lewis’ journals, I found all the tunes used in Upriver: Shenandoah (still popular after more than 200 years), V’la bon vent, Soldier’s Joy, Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier, Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy (a hymn sung to the tune “Beech Spring”) and Fisher’s Hornpipe. The work follows an emotional journey: not necessarily step-by-step with the Voyage of Discovery heroes, but a kind of grand arch. Beginning in the mists of history and myth, traversing peaks and valleys both real and emotional (and a solemn funeral scene), finding help from native people, and recalling their zeal upon finding the one great river that will, in fact, take them to the Pacific. When the men finally roar through the Columbia Gorge in their boats (a feat that even the Indians had not attempted), the magnificent river combines its theme with the chorale of Jefferson’s Promise. The Dream is fulfilled: not quite the one Jefferson had imagined (there is no navigable water passage from the Missouri to the Pacific), but the dream of a continental destiny.

SKU: BR.PB-5654

ISBN 9790004215517. 10 x 12.5 inches.

Farewell Tod und Verklarung marks a turning point in Richard Strauss's corpus of tone poems: Even before the November 1889 premiere of his previous work Don Juan, Strauss had finished his third work in this genre. He leads the listener with great clarity through the dying hour of a person who had pursued the highest ideals. The present Urtext edition evaluates for the first time all the corrections that Strauss made in the galley proofs of the work's full score and parts, correlating these to the music text. The preface provides insight into the genesis and reception history, while the detailed Critical Report systematically documents all of the editorial decisions.

SKU: BR.OB-5654-19

ISBN 9790004348444. 10 x 12.5 inches.

Farewell Tod und Verklarung marks a turning point in Richard Strauss's corpus of tone poems: Even before the November 1889 premiere of his previous work Don Juan, Strauss had finished his third work in this genre. He leads the listener with great clarity through the dying hour of a person who had pursued the highest ideals. The present Urtext edition evaluates for the first time all the corrections that Strauss made in the galley proofs of the work's full score and parts, correlating these to the music text. The preface provides insight into the genesis and reception history, while the detailed Critical Report systematically documents all of the editorial decisions.

SKU: HL.14027165

Danish.

REVEILLE RETRAITE for solo trumpetA joint commission between Hakan Hardenberger and Danmarks RadioDedicated to Hakan HardenbergerProgramme note:Everybody knows or has at least heard of the time honoured military bugle calls: Reveille Retraite, the awakening at sunrise the turning in at sunset. In a way it's the UR concept of the nature of the trumpet, an instrument capable of glorious panache as well as sublime, inward looking finesse. My piece is, as indicated in the title, a two fold composition in the form of two contrasting tone poems, each mirroring a fragment of original text, what one could call spiritual appetizers. At the end of chapter 8 of his high spirited Memoirs Hector Berlioz laments the murder of a man he admired, Prince Lichnowsky, who was stabbed to death in Frankfurt in September 1848 by German peasants: Oh, I must get out, walk, run, shout under the open sky! Now, there's a juicy bit of high strung romantic Sturm und Drang for you and the perfect motto for any awakening... Then night fall, Retraite, in which I've drawn upon the early, melancholy poem ALONE by Edgar Allan Poe and taken out one single line as 'subtitle' for this very hushed and withdrawn movement: And all I lov'd, I lov'd alone. I guess it won't hurt to quote the poem in its entirety:From childhood's hour I have not beenAs others were I have not seenAs others saw I could not bringMy passions from a common spring.From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow; I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone;And all1 lov'd, I lov'd alone.THEN in my childhood in the dawnOf a most stormy life was drawnFrom ev'ry depth of good and illThe mystery which binds me still:From the torrent, or the fountain,From the red cliff of the mountain,From the sun that 'round me roll`dIn its autumn tint of gold From the lightning in the skyAs it pass'd me flying by From the thunder and the storm,And the cloud that took the form(When the rest of Beaven was blue)Of a demon in my view.Edgar Allan PoeProgramme note by Poul Ruders, January 2004.