Par CURNOW JAMES. Contrasting colors and varied orchestration techniques make this majestic setting of OH LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM come alive for Christmas. Of the three different tunes that are commonly associated with the original carol text, this arrangement uses the melody that?s best known in England. ENGLISH CAROL FANTASY remains entirely accessible to bands at this level and plenty of cuein…

Par CURNOW JAMES. Contrasting colors and varied orchestration techniques make this majestic setting of OH LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM come alive for Christmas. Of the three different tunes that are commonly associated with the original carol text, this arrangement uses the melody that’s best known in England. ENGLISH CAROL FANTASY remains entirely accessible to bands at this level and plenty of cuein…

7 European Salon Pieces. Par POPP WILHELM. In the 19th Century nationalist themes came into fashion. Composers drew on songs and dances from their native lands, working them into paraphrased adaptations, pot pourri arrangements and sets of variations or incorporating folk elements from various cultures in their compositions. Flautist Wilhelm Popp (1828-1902), who wrote music for his instrument at…

Par PART ARVO. Following an initiative by Princess Caroline of Monaco/Hannover to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the reign of his Highness, Prince Rainier III of Monaco, composer Arvo Pärt was commissioned to compose a work for choir and orchestra. The finished work, Cantique des degrés, received its premiere on 19 November 1999 during a special service in the Cathedral of Monte-Carlo in the …

Par BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN. Ich Hatte Viel Bekümmernis - Lord My God, My heart And Soul Were Sore Distrest BWV 21. Cantata for the 3rd Sunday after Trinity. The cantata “Ich Hatte Viel Bekümmernis” dates from around 1713 and was probably performed for the first time that year in the Liebfrauenkirche in Halle. Its assigning to the third Sunday after Trinity probably only occurred the following year.…

Par ADES THOMAS. Thomas Adès and Philip Hensher's dazzlingly precocious chamber opera Powder Her Face propelled its composer to international attention after its premiere in 1995 and, with nearly 300 worldwide performances, remains one of the most frequently performed British operas of the last two decades. Charting the glamorous rise and seedy fall of the notorious socialite beauty Margaret, Duch…

A wedding without a famous wedding march - unimaginable! Wagner's 'Bridal Chorus' from 'Lohengrin' and Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March' from the incidental music of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' vie for the favour of bridal couples and wedding parties. If, however, the music shall be festive, Mendelssohn's background music for the wedding ceremony remains first choice. In order that the march cannot on…

Early to Later Intermediate Level. Par AUSTIN GLENDA. Each piano suite is addictive! Austin's Jazz Suite No. 2 in B-flat Major (2001) remains hugely popular, but this collection also features the charming first suite in F Major (one of her first published pieces), as well as the exciting third suite, also in F major and originally composed in 2019 for clarinet, cajon, and piano. The outer movement…

Par VAN DER ROOST JAN. This work consists of two movements. The first part is rather quiet and pastoral in character, written in a gently rocking 12/8 time and expressing the tranquillity of the area around the medieval town of Oudenburg in Belgium. After a beautiful orchestral climax the second section, inspired by the Roman past of Oudenburg, begins. A somewhat oppressive and impending introduct…

'It is the spirit which holds together noble and better men on this earth that is now addressed to you?, Beethoven wrote thus to the dedicatee of the Sonata op. 109, the nineteen-year-old Maximiliane Brentano in 1821. Beethoven had already composed a little piano trio (B flat major WoO 39) for her in 1812. And now she was receiving a very different kind of work - the first of the heavyweight last …

Brahms had already announced his ?retirement' from composition when in the spring of 1894 he played chamber music with the cellist Robert Hausmann and the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld. This encounter apparently renewed his enthusiasm for Mühlfeld's much admired playing and inspired him to write two clarinet sonatas in the summer of the same year. It remains unclear when exactly Brahms drafted vio…

The third volume of the Heifetz Collection is a treasure trove of material for violinists, including many items that have never been published before. Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987) remains a landmark among violinists of the twentieth century, a performer who virtually redefined the limits of the possible for his chosen instrument. These transcriptions and arrangements, made to enrich his own repertoi…