SKU: A0.987851

Preferred Contact Information: RMonteverdi@comcast.net Performing Rights Organization: BMI Website: robertgreenbergmusic.com Facebook Band Page: facebook.com/RobertGreenbergMusic Duration: ca. 6 1/2 minutes Year of composition: 2011 Program Note: Titles, like mold-scum atop month-old cottage cheese, can take on a life of their own. South Bay Angle was originally composed in 1991 during an Astor Piazzolla-inspired fit of tango-madness. While a more appropriate title for the piece would have been something on the lines of I Can Write One of Those! or This Gringo’s Token Tango, circumstances conspired in another titular direction. The piece was originally intended for performance on a program produced by Composers, Inc., a new-music collective in which I was (and remain) an artistic director. Composers Inc. was then in its seventh season. In those days when newspapers still mattered, Composers, Inc. sought to receive as many print reviews as possible. To that end, the organization invited Paul Hertelendy - who was then the music critic for the San Jose Mercury News - to cover its concerts. He said he would do so provided that there was some sort of south-bay angle which addressed the specific needs of his south-bay readership. Thinking myself clever, I thus entitled the piece South Bay Angle. Hertelandy would get his angle and Composers, Inc. would get its coverage. It didn’t work out that way. The piece was never performed; Hertelendy never got his angle; and Composers, Inc. never received a review from the San Jose Mercury News. Instead, twenty years later, I returned to South Bay Angle and rewrote it from the ground up. The piece is cast as a large-scale A-B-A form. The violin is a willing participant in the tango during the A sections, but a rather reluctant tangoista in the B section, during which it tries mightily to turn the music into a waltz. It does not succeed, and the piece ends as it began, in a blaze of rhythmic fury.

SKU: A0.1122089

Duration: 10 minutes, 16 pp. Description: In speaking of his recitation of his Four Quartets on phonograph, T. S. Eliot says: A recording of a poem by its author is no more definitive an 'interpretation' than a recording of a symphony conducted by the composer. The poem, if it is of any depth and complexity, will have meanings in it concealed from the author; and should be capable of being read in many ways, and with a variety of emotional emphasis.... Another reader, reciting the poem, need not feel bound to reproduce these rhythms: but, if he has studied the author's version, he can assure himself that he is departing from it deliberately, and not from ignorance. The composer could not have stated his intentions towards this piece better than to quote T. S. Eliot. No note or inflection is fixed in stone that it cannot be negotiated, changed to better suit the needs of the performer. This is especially true of the first movement which is composed around sections of the first of Eliot's Four Quartets (Burnt Norton), but applies generally to the whole piece. Much of the notation in this piece is meant to be suggestive. The performer may take a highly faithful approach to realizing the score, or consider the movements as models for directed improvisation. Movement 2, for example, asks the performer to continue to improvise in like manner, yet maps out a clear design for the music. Birthday Suit is dedicated to Robert S. Howe, a friend and obstetrician who welcomes into this world many people in their birthday suits. That is the most obvious reason for the title of this piece. A reason more germane to the music itself is the piece's reliance on the performer's own natural body rhythms (such as speech rhythms, involuntary eye movements, and rate of breathing) to help organize the flow of the music. In this way both metabolism and the written note cooperate to make music. There are three movements, Rhythm of Speech - Rhythm of Sight - Rhythm of Breath. Total 10 minutes. (Audio Sample of movement I is for oboe; YouTube Link of movement III is an arrangement for the Turkish ney.).

SKU: A0.750785

The Home Coming March (1908) - Concert Band Score and Parts PDF

Music by: ET Paull

Of course, eventually, all the soldiers and sailors had to eventually come home from all the battles and Paull had that eventuality well covered also. The artwork on the front cover (of unknown origin) is one that is full of imagery that covers all aspects of the services, Army and Navy and is full of patriotic and familial ideals. The border lists all of the US States and the corner pictures depict aspects of homecoming. The main image is a parade of victory. Let's let Paull explain it all to us as he did on the inside cover.

Why This Piece Of Music Was Named
The Home Coming March

  Explanatory

When the author had about completed the music of the present march, it occurred to him that it might be well to have suggestions made from a number of people, recommending a good name for same, for after all there is considerable in a name. He, therefore, had a special advertisement placed in several of the leading music Journals throughout the country, offering a prize of $10.00 in gold to anyone suggesting a name that would be accepted. Over three thousand names were sent in from all parts of the country, even from far away New Zealand and Australia, in which countries the author's marches are universal favorites. Included in the letters received was one from Mr. W. C. Bates, Secretary of the Sheffield Advertising Agency of New York and Chicago, in which he suggested the name The Home Coming March. After due consideration, this name was accepted, and the prize was awarded and paid to Mr. Bates, who stated that he was prompted to recommend this name on account of having been present during the impressive celebration of Old Home Week in Boston, Mass., last year. Probably no one idea is so universally dominant in the mind of the Human Race as that of home, or matters pertaining to home. The author believes that the name selected is one that will appeal to everyone; as the many pleasant associations with the words Home Coming are almost without limit. The title page of this march is without any exception the handsomest seen on a piece of music. The main body of the title pace represents a street scene, with buildings decorated and shows a handsome royal Arch of Welcome in the foreground, gaily decorated with flags, emblems, and bunting. A band is shown passing under the arch, leading a procession of the Home Guard, and thousands of people waving handkerchiefs, banners, flags, etc. Four smaller scenes also appear on the page, one representing the Home Coming of the soldier from war; another scene shows the Home Coming of the sailor boys embarking from their battleships; another scene represents the Home Coming reunion of the family and loved ones; the fourth scene represents the Home Coming of the father from work, where a little tot has been watching and waiting, and runs to meet him. The whole design of the title page is then surrounded by a border of differently designed medallions, on which appears the names of all the States of the Union, making without a doubt, the most unique and attractive title page ever conceived for a piece of music.

One thing Paull mastered early in his career was the art of overstatement! Musically, this march is beginning to show the repetitiveness of many of Paull's works, especially evident as time passed. Once Paull found the formula (a fabulous cover and a playable, rousing march) that sold music, he stuck with it and was quite successful as a result.

This arrangement is for Full Concert Band with the original optional piano part ( Not on the score).  There are parts for Trombones 1 and 2 in TC and BC as well as parts of Euphonium in TC and BC.  The MP3 was recorded with NotePerformer 3.

Grade = 3.5  Duration =.

SKU: A0.1035224

Unless your name is Mozart, Mendelssohn or Korngold, the first compositional steps are always the hardest. Chopin was probably no older than 14 when he set to work on a set of variations for piano and flute. Already in love with opera, he decided on the happy- ending aria, Non più mesta (No longer sad) from Rossini’s opera Cinderella. As the curtain comes down, Cinderella gleefully warbles, No longer sad beside the fire shall I sit alone, singing; my long years of heartache were but a streak of lightning, a dream, a game. We are unsure what actually prompted Chopin to select this for his unique combination of flute and piano, but it was most likely written for the composer’s father who was a capable amateur flute player. In the end, the piece was probably dedicated to Józef Cichowski, a close friend of his fathers and an amateur flautist as well. We are indeed fortunate that this early piece of Chopin juvenilia has actually survived, as Jozef Nowakowski, one of the composer’s friends, kept the single manuscript copy as a memento. For one reason or another, the work did not appear in print until 1953. This charming and fluent set of variations presents the theme and four decorated versions of the original tune. Added triplet figuration enlivens the first variation, while the second relies on a florid bel canto style to embellish the theme. Rapid downward arpeggios propel variation three, and the concluding variant displays rapid staccato figuration. Stylistically, there is nothing in this composition to suggest Chopin’s hand. You certainly won’t hear Chopin’s fingerprint in the piano part, as all the interesting bits are given to the flute. In addition, it’s the only Chopin piano part that can comfortably be played by most amateurs. Clearly, the future poet of the piano had a long way to go! Here in a Flute and orchestra version.

SKU: A0.1335564

Too Much For Our Thirst
by Alexander Burdiss
Arranged for Trombone and Piano
Dedicated to Courtney Carmack
Performance Time: approx. 7:00

This is an adaptation for trombone of a piece originally written for tuba.
 
The Eyes of the Poor from Paris Spleen
Written by Charles Baudelaire, Translated by Arthur Symons
 
Ah! you want to know why I hate you to-day. It will probably be less easy for you to understand than for me to explain it to you; for you are, I think, the most perfect example of feminine impenetrability that could possibly be found.
 
We had spent a long day together, and it had seemed to me short. We had promised one another that we would think the same thoughts and that our two souls should become one soul; a dream which is not original, after all, except that, dreamed by all men, it has been realised by none.
 
In the evening you were a little tired, and you sat down outside a new café at the corner of a new boulevard, still littered with plaster and already displaying proudly its unfinished splendours. The café glittered. The very gas put on all the fervency of a fresh start, and lighted up with its full force the blinding whiteness of the walls, the dazzling sheets of glass in the mirrors, the gilt of cornices and mouldings, the chubby-cheeked pages straining back from hounds in leash, the ladies laughing at the falcons on their wrists, the nymphs and goddesses carrying fruits and pies and game on their heads, the Hebes and Ganymedes holding out at arm's-length little jars of syrups or parti-coloured obelisks of ices; the whole of history and of mythology brought together to make a paradise for gluttons. Exactly opposite to us, in the roadway, stood a man of about forty years of age, with a weary face and a greyish beard, holding a little boy by one hand and carrying on the other arm a little fellow too weak to walk. He was taking the nurse-maid's place, and had brought his children out for a walk in the evening. All were in rags. The three faces were extraordinarily serious, and the six eyes stared fixedly at the new café with an equal admiration, differentiated in each according to age.
 
The father's eyes said: How beautiful it is! how beautiful it is! One would think that all the gold of the poor world had found its way to these walls. The boy's eyes said: How beautiful it is! how beautiful it is! But that is a house which only people who are not like us can enter. As for the little one's eyes, they were too fascinated to express anything but stupid and utter joy.
 
Song-writers say that pleasure ennobles the soul and softens the heart. The song was right that evening, so far as I was concerned. Not only was I touched by this family of eyes, but I felt rather ashamed of our glasses and decanters, so much too much for our thirst. I turned to look at you, dear love, that I might read my own thought in you; I gazed deep into your eyes, so beautiful and so strangely sweet, your green eyes that are the home of caprice and under the sovereignty of the Moon; and you said to me: Those people are insupportable to me with their staring saucer- eyes! Couldn't you tell the head waiter to send them away?
 
So hard is it to understand one another, dearest, and so incommunicable is thought, even between people who are in love!