Opera in Seven Scenes. Par BENJAMIN GEORGE. Picture a day like this is the fourth collaboration between George Benjamin and Martin Crimp, whose acclaimed partnership produced Written on Skin, Lessons in Love and Violence, and Into the Little Hill. Playwright Martin Crimp’s text for the opera is a bittersweet fable on grief and renewal. It tells the story of a Woman (mezzosoprano) who has lost her …

Ursula Mamlok was born in Berlin in 1923, but was forced to emigrate via Ecuador to New York in 1939 because of her Jewish descent. In 2006 she returned to the city where she was born.In about three minutes, the small and charming two-part piece Kontraste [Contrasts] for oboe and harp captivates with clarity and limitation to the essentials. The name says it all: A lively humoresque is followed by…

Johann Sebastian Bach opened the second year of his Leipzig church compositions on 11 June 1724 with a performance of the cantata 'O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort'. The work is based on a church hymn by Johann Rist that depicts, in riveting language, the terrors of the Last Judgment and the torments of Hell, followed by an admonition to live a life pleasing to God. The poem inspired Bach to write one of…

Par SCHUMANN CLARA. Clara Schumann (née Wieck) was undoubtedly the most important female pianist of the 19th century. As a young child she toured Europe as a prodigy: her entire career as a celebrated piano virtuoso spanned more than 60 years. Equally important, but less well known, is the composer Clara Schumann, who published her Opus 1 at the age of eleven. Despite the domestic duties expected …

This is the full score of Aheym for String Quartet, composed by Bryce Dessner, best known as the guitarist of The National, but also an acclaimed composer in his own right.Composed in 2009 for the Kronos Quartet for their performance in Brooklyn's Prospect Park for the Celebrate Brooklyn! festival, Aheym (meaning 'homeward' in Yiddish) was directly inspired by his grandmother's migration to Americ…

Terrestre was commissioned to celebrate the composer's fiftieth birthday and while the name Terrestre calls to mind earthbound things, the score suggests the physical sensation of taking wing. The first of the two movements, l'Oiseau dansant, describes an aboriginal tale of a bird that teaches a village to dance, while the second movement, l'Oiseau, un satellite infime (infinitesimal) takes flight…

Having studied under Jean Pierre Rampal and Tony Aubin at the Conservatoire National de Paris, flautist Guy-Claude Luypaerts now divides his time between his work as a soloist, teacher and orchestral conductor, without neglecting his com­positional activity. Luypaerts has remained true to his childhood land: for this resident of the seaside village of Panne in western Flanders, the North Sea coast…

The starting point was the collected letters of Vincent van Gogh. In spite of the tragedies for which van Gogh is best known, his letters are filled with joyous exuberance for the practical considerations of his work: what he will paint next and, most importantly, what colours he will use. For Julian Anderson, it seems the painter relishes 'the sheer stuff of which his art is made'. In Van Gogh Bl…

The Song Of The Grey Seas is a choral composition for SATB (Soprano/Alto/Tenor/Bass) composed by Percy E. Fletcher with words by W. G. Rothery. Originally published in 1915, Song Of The Grey Seas is one of a number of compositions by English composer Percy E. Fletcher. Fletcher worked as the musical director at a number of theatres around London, all the while writing works for light orchestra, ch…

When his contemporaries heard the works that Johannes Brahms had composed during his summer holiday in Ischl in 1893 - the Piano Pieces op. 118 -, they were delighted. Clara Schumann was one of the first to be allowed to get to know the new pieces, and she attested that they contained 'a wealth of sentiment in the smallest of dimensions?. Philipp Spitta fittingly said that the works were 'perfect …

WAB 29. Par BRUCKNER ANTON. Anyone who is familiar with Bruckner?s symphonies and great masses will probably be astonished upon hearing his Missa solemnis of 1854: can the tradition of the Viennese classics still be so clearly evident in a work by Bruckner' And yet, isn?t it also possible to hear much of Bruckner?s later style'With this edition, the earliest of Bruckner?s orchestral masses is now …

Haydn's setting of the Passion of Christ in full vocal score. The work was originally written in 1786 as a program of instrumental music to accompany the Seven Words Of Jesus On The Cross, for a service at Cadiz. Haydn then embellished the work into a full Oratorio for Lent services at the Cathedral of Cadiz. This final version is presented here for SATB chorus and a Piano reduction of the orchest…