Par SPARKE PHILIP. To A New Dawn was commissioned by the United States Continental Army Band - Captain Timothy J. Holtan, Commander and Conductor. The brief was for a piece to celebrate the 3rd Millennium and it was the composer’s aim to provide a work which, as well as looking forward to the challenges of the new century, also contained moments of reflection about the last one. After a bright int…

Kammeroper Nr. 2. Par RIHM WOLFGANG. Chamber opera does not mean “little opera.” On the same scale as chamber music is to the symphony, it is rather the other way of talking onstage. The movable apparatus permits sophisticated voice-leading. A large ensemble demands simple conception to achieve the complexity it perhaps intends; this can be formulated more sharply and nuanced in a chamber ensemble…

Craig McLeish writes of The Negro Speaks of Rivers - Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was the first black American to earn his living from writing. He was an innovator of jazz poetry, becoming part of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s. He wrote plays, short stories, novels, and his poetry was widely read. He was also a journalist, columnist and lecturer. The Negro Speaks of Rivers was perha…

Following the birth of her first child, violinist Rachel Barton Pine went looking for a collection of lullabies written for violin and piano. After finding nothing in existence, she set about gathering sheet music and recording her own versions with pianist Matthew Hagle. This new collection celebrates the beauty of new life and parenthood with familiar tunes and new discoveries by composers such …

Par YAGLING VICTORIA. Victoria Yagling's Suite for Cello and String Orchestra (1967) is one of her first successes as a composer. The movement layout of the Suite is fast-slow-fast-slow. The first movement, Toccata, is a perpetual motion with a brisk tempo of 100 per dotted half. The Aria is reminiscent of Rachmaninov's Vocalise melody and Prokofiev's tonal language. This movement is the centerpie…

The Library Of Baroque Music is an enormously expansive collection of the greatest works produced during that prolific period that flourished between the Renaissance and Classical eras. All arranged for solo Piano, this volume features works drawn from all the major Baroque composers, including some of the greatest pieces of music ever composed. The progression and development of music during the …

Beethoven's four-movement Sonata in A-flat major op. 26 belongs to his most popular works. It is dedicated to Prince Lichnowsky, one of his most generous patrons and the dedicatee of, for example, the Grande Sonate pathétique op. 13 and Symphony No. 2 op. 35. The work's initial drafts date from 1800-01 - it was first published in March 1802. This demanding sonata is highly varied in its form: it b…

In E-flat major Op.102. Par SAINT-SAENS CAMILLE. The second half of the 19th century represented something of a ?Golden Age? of the violin sonata in France: influential violin sonatas such as those by Franck, Fauré and Saint-Saëns were among the successful works of this genre, inspiring many further compositions. Saint-Saëns? Violin Sonata No.2 was written in 1896 during a stay of several months b…

Ragtime is a word probably derived from 'ragged time'. It began to flourish in the 1890's, its basis being strong syncopation in both melody and accompaniment. Scott Joplin did not invent ragtime, but he stands out as its most prominent figure. This collection contains fourteen fun-to-play Joplin Piano transcriptions compiled, arranged and edited by John W. Schaum A.S.C.A.P.. / Piano

Ergänzt Von Robert D. Levin. Par MOZART WOLFGANG AMADEUS. The Requiem is known to the general public in the version undertaken immediately after Mozart's death by his pupil Franz Yaver Süßmayr. The attacks against Süßmayr's completion began in 1825, when the so-called 'Requiem Controversy' erupted. Over the last decade a number of musicians have attempted to cleanse the Requiem of the deficiencies…

Ergänzt Von Robert D. Levin. Par MOZART WOLFGANG AMADEUS. The Requiem is known to the general public in the version undertaken immediately after Mozart's death by his pupil Franz Yaver Süßmayr. The attacks against Süßmayr's completion began in 1825, when the so-called 'Requiem Controversy' erupted. Over the last decade a number of musicians have attempted to cleanse the Requiem of the deficiencies…