Piano quartet - difficult - Digital Download Composed by John Casken (1949-). This edition: score and parts. Downloadable. Duration 16 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q3676. Published by Schott Music - Digital

Mixed choir (SATB or TrATB) and organ - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q23835

For mixed choir and organ. Composed by John Casken. This edition: choral score. Choral Music of Our Time. Downloadable, Choral score. Duration 15 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q23835. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q23835).

English.

John Casken's Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis was commissioned to mark the return of the Lindisfarne Gospels to the North East of England, where Casken lives. The book, dating from the 7th century, is one of the finest examples of Anglo-Saxon Northumbrian illuminated manuscript, containing the oldest surviving translation of the Gospels into English. The manuscript was produced at a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne but is normally housed at the British Library in London, and its special exhibition in the Palace Green Library at Durham was marked by a summer-long celebration of the arts. Casken's Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis is set in English.

B-Flat Clarinet,Piano - Level 4 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.1424650

Composed by David Ellis, John Casken, Julia Usher, and Richard Orton. Arranged by John Turner. 20th Century,Classical,Contemporary. Score and part. 44 pages. Forsyth Brothers Ltd #1005815. Published by Forsyth Brothers Ltd (A0.1424650).

Forsyth's Modern Wind Music series contains exciting and challenging, but not unduly difficult, works by talented English composers of current or recent vintage for recital, study or recreation. Each volume includes three works with piano, one unaccompanied piece, and one piece for two or more players of the instrument.

In this volume for clarinet John Casken's Taerset takes its title from Tarset in Northumberland, inspired by a holiday there, while Julia Usher's Subsequent Darkness is inspired by a game of chess. The solo work is a capricious Arabesque by Richard Orton, who also contributes a quartet for clarinets that plays on diaphragm articulation. David Ellis' Berceuse is an extended lullaby, but not without its troubled dreams.

Contents:

1. Berceuse by David Ellis
2. Taerset by John Casken
3. Subsequent Darkness by Julia Usher
4. Arabesque by Richard Orton
5. Sonora by Richard Orton (for four clarinets)

Piano - very easy to intermediate - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q24008

Three simple piano pieces for children. Composed by John Casken. This edition: Sheet music. Downloadable. Duration 4 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q24008. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q24008).

Sitting in a room, we hear the ticking of the clock, but it doesn't seem right. The speed is wrong (for a clock) and it is quite irregular. From a far corner someone starts to sing a quiet song while moving to its waltzing rhythm. And through the open window a faraway bird can be heard warbling in the distance.John Casken (2012).

Clarinet, 2 violins, viola, cello - difficult - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q583515

For clarinet quintet. Composed by John Casken. Downloadable, Score and parts. Duration 20 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q583515. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q583515).

There is a sense of unease in the imagined landscape of John Casken’s Misted Land, as familiar shapes take on a new and sometimes grotesque and frightening appearance. Fragments of folk-like melodies serve as points of a distant and reassuring familiarity.

Horn and piano - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q43081

For horn in F and piano. Composed by John Casken. This edition: Sheet music. Downloadable. Duration 11 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q43081. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q43081).

The title of this piece comes from ‘Celtic Cross’ by Norman MacCaig, a poem that brings to life the symbols of an earlier time, carved in stone, entwined and plaited in abstract forms. The idea of a coiling serpent and the image of the coiled horn also came together in my mind. The opening phrase of the piece is responsible for much of the musical material for the whole piece, a strong and vibrant phrase that I wanted to capture something of the essence of these noble creatures on Celtic crosses. The idea of plaiting and entwining plays an important part in the unfolding of the piece. John Casken.

Piano - difficult - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q50146

For solo piano. Composed by John Casken. This edition: Sheet music. Trees - wood - piano - nature - solo - forest - contemporary music. For solo piano. Downloadable. Duration 14 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q50146. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q50146).

In spite of having written many works including piano, before composing my new suite of pieces there were only two for solo piano: The Haunting Bough and Pleasure Ground. I decided to incorporate these in a new set of pieces extending the theme of trees and wood (I cut The Haunting Bough into two pieces which frame the suite as the first and last movements; Pleasure Ground is renamed Swinging Bough), and further developing my interest in the poetry, history and appearance of landscape and its features as extra-musical sources. John Casken.

Fl(pic, afl).cl(bcl)-perc(mar, tubaphone, tub bell, tam-t, gong, lg Swiss cow bell, Japanese temple bowl, steel pan, bell tree, sm b.d, lg b.d, clav, 5 tempbl)-pno-vn.vc ensemble - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q22893

For ensemble. Composed by John Casken. This edition: study score. Music Of Our Time. Downloadable, Study score. Duration 20 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q22893. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q22893).

The work explores something of how we might experience winter. The title is a play on words and the normal meaning of reels as dances infects both the first movement, with its lilting triplet rhythms, and the last movement which incorporates a vigorous reel-like unison melody that unfolds as part of a series of energetic episodes. The song of the second movement is a long singing line given to the cello, and the ensemble here, as elsewhere, is coloured in the percussion by the use of a steel pan. John Casken.

Soprano voice and piano - difficult - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q6665

For soprano and piano. Composed by John Casken. This edition: Sheet music. Downloadable. Duration 12 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q6665. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q6665).

French.

Chansons de Verlaine were completed in 2006. The third song, Colloque sentimental, was written in 2003 for Alison Smart and Katharine Durran’s New French Song project. It was as a result of having written one short song to words by Verlaine that I subsequently decided to set two further poems to make a group of three. All three were also set by Debussy: L’ombre des arbres and Chevaux de bois appear in Ariettes Oubliées, while Colloque sentimental belongs to Debussy’s second set of Fêtes Galantes. The poems I have grouped together are linked by the idea of three different landscapes. In the first, Verlaine precedes the words of his own sad, pale landscape with words from Cyrano de Bergerac about a nightingale who fears himself about to fall into a river and drown. In the second poem the landscape has been occupied by a fairground where men, women and children watch as the hobby-horses go round and round before night falls and the church tolls a passing-bell. The third poem takes us into an old park where two ghosts recall their past. The one wonders if the other remembers the happy days of their past lives, but the other doesn’t want to remember, barely acknowledging the closeness they once shared, seeing only that ‘hope has fled, defeated, towards the dark sky.’ I am very grateful to Roger Nichols and Dominique Mols for their advice with the setting of the French texts and with the translations. John Casken Colloque sentimental was first performed by Alison Smart and Katherine Durran at the Purcell Room in London on 13 July 2004.

Baritone voice and piano - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q47100

For baritone and piano. Composed by John Casken. This edition: Sheet music. Downloadable. Duration 22 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q47100. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q47100).

English.

John Casken's 2009 setting of the Robert Browning poem 'Night and Morning' for tenor and piano was the starting point for a new song cycle, Lines from a Wanderer, exploring man’s desire to travel, to escape and be alone. This search for inner peace is contrasted with a deep nostalgia for places and people left behind in settings of two poems from W.B. Yeats, 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' and 'The Song of Wandering Aengus', as well as Thomas Hardy's 'The Discovery' and Robert Browning's 'The Italian in England'.

1(afl, pic).0.ca.0.ssax.1(cbsn)-1.0.1.0-perc(crot, vib, mar, bell plate, sizz cym, Swiss cow bell, gong [horizontal], tam-t, 2 bng, 2slit drum, wood drum, 2cong, 2b.d, marac, 5tempbl, vibraslap)-hp-str(0.0.1.0.1) 4 voices (Countertenor, 2 Tenors and Bass) and ensemble - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q19665

For four voices and instrumental ensemble. Composed by John Casken. This edition: study score. Music Of Our Time. Downloadable, Study score. Duration 30 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q19665. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q19665).

English.

The Anglo-Saxon poem The Dream of the Rood was probably written in the 8th Century and is the earliest dream-vision poem in Old English. A fragment of the poem from the section that describes the crucifixion can be found carved on the Ruthwell Cross in Dumfriesshire, and set in stone at a time when Ruthwell was part of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria. In responding to a commission for the Hilliard Ensemble, I was keen to find a dramatic text, but one that would also invite a musical response appropriate to the very nature of this kind of vocal quartet. Writing for the Hilliards together with a mixed instrumental ensemble, and for a generous cathedral acoustic, has had a strong influence on the types of textures and sonorities I have used. The structure of the work is dictated by the form of the poem, but the music could also be seen as consisting of a sequence of motets with both vocal and instrumental interludes. John Casken.

Mixed choir (SATB) and organ - intermediate to advanced - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q7137

For SATB choir and organ. Composed by John Casken. This edition: choral score. Choral Music of Our Time. Downloadable, choral score. Duration 6 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q7137. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q7137).

English.

Composed for the Alwinton and Holystone Church Choir near the composer's home in Northumberland, John Casken sets Christina Rossetti's In the bleak mid-winter - a poem popularised by Gustav Holts' setting of the same name for SATB choir and organ. A traditional carol based on the nativity it paints a vivid picture of the chill of winter and is ideal for choirs wishing to move away from the well-known whilst retaining an element of tradition. Constantly flowing organ lines create a sense of unease but this is uplifting music with subtle crescendos and powerful homophonic writing for the voices.

Orchestra - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q19130

Composed by John Casken. This edition: study score. Music Of Our Time. Downloadable, Study score. Duration 20 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q19130. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q19130).

My Concerto for Orchestra (2007) is a twenty-minute work in which different sections of the orchestra, as well as individual solos and duos from within the orchestra, are highlighted as the music unfolds. The work continues my interest in two-movement forms that began with my Cello Concerto (1991), and was later developed in Sortilège (1996) and Symphony (Broken Consort) (2004). In these works, and in the Concerto for Orchestra, each movement is given equal weight and importance with the second developing earlier material and taking it in new directions. The two-movement form of the Concerto for Orchestra derives from a symphonic sonata structure, reshaping the traditional four-movement form and combining this with aspects of sonata form, a tradition that goes back to Liszt, Schoenberg and Sibelius: 1st movement (i) exposition of ideas - dramatic and sudden (ii) scherzo and development 1 - resolute 2nd movement (iii) adagio - calm and unhurried (iv) development 2 with recapitulation - intense and energetic The Concerto for Orchestra was commissioned by the Musikalische Akademie des Nationaltheatre-Orchesters Mannheim with the support of Die Landesbank Baden-Württemberg for its first two performances on 31st March and 1st April 2008 conducted by Friedemann Layer. The score is dedicated in friendship and admiration to Ronald Zollman. John Casken

3(3.pic).2.ca.2(2.Ebcl).bcl.3(3.cbsn)-4.3(1.Dtpt).2.btbn.1-timp.3perc(crot, vib, tub bells, sizz cym, Chinese cym, h.h, Swiss cow-bell, gong, horizontal gong, 2tam-t, tamb, bng, s.d, 5tom-t, b.d, clav, casts, marac, 5tempbl, wdbl, cabaça, vibraslap)-hp-str.

2vln.vla.2vc string quintet - difficult - Digital Download

SKU: S9.Q20011

For string quintet. Composed by John Casken. This edition: score and parts. Downloadable, Score and parts. Duration 21 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q20011. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q20011).

Inevitable Rifts for string quintet, like Schubert’s Quintet in C, D.956, adds an extra cello to the string quartet. This undoubtedly makes for a richer sound, but what I wanted to explore was the tensions and differences created by forming an alliance between the viola and two cellos quite separate from the two violins, a rift heard at the very start with the lower instruments playing dark, pulsating chords, and the violins moving together in a slow broken cantilena. As the drama unfolds there are times when roles are reversed and also where new groupings are formed. The full quintet eventually coalesces in an extended central section based on the rocking figuration that accompanies a brief transitional dialogue for the two cellos. Inevitably, further rifts arise and the work ends with the two groups apart, although this time the violins try to emulate the pulsating chords, but even they part company at the very end. Rift, of course, also means a chasm or valley, and the placing at the beginning of the violins in a higher register with widely spaced intervals, and the viola and cellos at the bottom of their register, was a deliberate evocation of this kind of landscape. The work was commissioned by the Musiktage Mondsee Festival in Austria for Heinrich Schiff and the Rosamunde Quartet for its premiere performance on 4 September 2009. John Casken.