SKU: A0.633853

An excellent arrangement of famous Song Copacabana for Trombone and Piano (Jazz/Pop Version with Improvisation).
The composition is easy to read, fun to play and sound professional when performed. Arranged by Fishel Pustilnik, very well known as Composer/Publisher. His books Jazz & Pop Piano Paradise (Volumes 1-5) have become a commercial success and a hit with music teachers and students in Canada. (Thousands books already sold in Canada). They are also starting to enter the US, Brazil, Norway, Russia, Holland, Israel, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Greece, Latvia and UK markets. This is a wonderful new publication. These pieces offer much appeal for the young pianist and excellent choice for a supplementary book for students from Grade 3 to 8. Lore Ruschiensky, Editor, (from review in The Canadian Music Teacher) Yesterday I spent at least two pleasure filled hours playing through your imaginatively inventive compositions. Congratulations! I trust students will decide to program your well crafted and entertaining works on recitals and examinations. Review from Dr. Jack Behrens, B.Sc. (Julliard), PH.D (Harvard), Director of Academic Studies, The Glenn Gould School I liked this book the best so far. Great work! You have a gift for melody and your arrangements are very playable. Congratulations on the 3rd Volume. Mark Carlstein, Hal Leonard, Keyboard Publications.
Additional Information regarding my arrangements at SheetMusicPlus:
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SKU: A0.549853

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Awake, the voice is calling us) from Cantata BWV 140. Duration: ca. 4:00, Score: 6 pages, solo part 1 page, piano part: 4 pages. Program this for church services during the Easter season, weddings, or as a recital encore.

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme

(Awake, the Voice is calling us) also known as: Sleepers Awake

Bach composed his church cantata Wachet auf (BWV 140) as part of his second annual cantata cycle covering the entire annual church calendar. It is based on the hymn of the same name by Philipp Nicolai (1599). The hymn text covers the readings for the 27th Sunday after Trinity. Bach designed the cantata in seven movements, setting the stanzas in various forms. Among these forms are the chorale fantasia, the chorale prelude, and a four-part chorale. He casts the new lyrics as recitatives – in a manner similar to the opera.

Fourth Movement

Bach writes the fourth movement, Zion hört die Wächter singen (Zion hears the watchmen singing), in the style of a chorale prelude with the chorale phrases performed as a strict cantus firmus. The phrases seem to enter at times erratically against the famous lyrical melody. The violins play this melody in unison as a foil against the cantus phrases. The violin melody is so independent and complete that when the cantus melody appears it catches the listener at times totally off-guard. Bach later transcribed this movement for organ (BWV 645). This transcription became No. 1 of the Six Schübler Chorales.

Bach Overview

First of all, Johann Sebastian Bach is maybe the greatest composer in music history. Certainly, he was prolific. As a result, everyone has heard of his works. Furthermore, these works number well over a thousand. It seems like people are probably most familiar with the instrumental works such as the Brandenburg Concertos, and the Goldberg Variations. But, similarly famous are such noteworthy works as the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Musical Offering, and certainly the Art of Fugue. Seems like his most famous vocal works include the most noteworthy Mass in B Minor. Also, most noteworthy, though, are the St. John Passion, and certainly the Christmas Oratorio.

 History

Bach came from a long line of musicians and above all, composers. Consequently, he, first of all, pursued a career as a church organist. So as a result, he gained employment in various Protestant churches in Germany. For a while, he worked as a court musician in Weimar and Köthen. Here he probably developed his organ style and likewise his chamber music style. Eventually, he, therefore, gained an appointment as Cantor of St. Thomas in Leipzig. Here he worked until difficulties with his employer ultimately drove him away. The King of Poland finally appointed him as court composer.

 Style

It seems like Bach created a fascinating new international style. He synthesized elements of the most noteworthy European music ideas into his new style. Even more, this new style was probably his synthesis of European musical rhythm and form. Furthermore, he demonstrated a complete mastery of counterpoint and motivic development. His sense of harmonic organization probably propelled him to the top.

Revival              

Mendelssohn conducted a Bach revival in the nineteenth century. His effort probably helped to re-familiarize the public with the magnitude of Bach’s works. During this period, scholars published many noteworthy Bach biographies. Moreover, Wolfgang Schmieder published the BWV (Bach Werke Verzeichnis). As a result, this is now the official catalog of his entire artistic output. The BWV number allows us to locate a work in the catalog. Sometimes scholars will simply use an S (Schmieder) as an abbreviation for BWV.

&n.

SKU: A0.549502

Score: 11 pages, solo part: 3 pages, piano part: 5 pages. Duration: 4:20. This is a popular recital piece that would work well also in church or school programs.

Mendelssohn Background

Felix Mendelssohn (1809 –1847) was, by all means, a German mastermind composer, musician, and orchestra conductor of the Romantic period. Consequently, Mendelssohn composed in the usual forms of the time - symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano music, and chamber music. To summarize, his most famous works include his music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, The Hebrides Overture, his later Concerto for Violin & Orchestra, and his Octet for Strings. His most well-known piano pieces, by and large, are the Songs Without Words. 

Artistic Standing

 Musical tastes change from time to time. Moreover, just such a change occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This plus rampant antisemitism brought a corresponding amount of undue criticism. Fortunately, however, his artistic inventiveness has indeed been critically re-evaluated. As a result, Mendelssohn is once again among the most prevalent composers of the Romantic era.

Early Family Life

Mendelssohn was, in fact, born into a prominent Jewish family. His grandfather was, notably, the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Felix was, in fact, raised without religion. At the age of seven, he was suddenly baptized as a Reformed Christian. He was, moreover, a child musical prodigy. Nevertheless, his parents did not attempt to exploit his talent.

Early Adulthood

Mendelssohn was, in general, successful in Germany. He conducted, in particular, a revival of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, specifically with his presentation of the St Matthew Passion in 1829. Felix was truly in demand throughout Europe as a composer, conductor, and soloist. For example, he visited Britain ten times. There, he premiered, namely, many of his significant works. His taste in music was. To be sure, inventive and well-crafted yet markedly conservative. This conservatism separated him by all means from more audacious musical colleagues like Liszt, Wagner, and Berlioz. Mendelssohn founded the Leipzig Conservatoire which, to clarify, became a defender of this conservative viewpoint.

Mature Adulthood

Schumann notably wrote that Mendelssohn was the Mozart of the nineteenth century, the most brilliant musician, the one who most clearly sees through the contradictions of the age and for the first time reconciles them. This observation points to a couple of features in particular that illustrate Mendelssohn's works and his artistic procedure.

Musical Features

In the first place, his musical style was fixed in his systematic mastery of the style of preceding masters. This being said, he certainly recognized and even developed early romanticism from the music of Beethoven and Weber. Secondly, it indicates that Mendelssohn sought to strengthen his inherited musical legacy rather than to exchange it with new forms and styles or replace it with exotic orchestration. Consequently, he diverged his contemporaries in the romantic period, such as Wagner, Berlioz, and Liszt. Mendelssohn revered Liszt's virtuosity at the keyboard but found his music rather insubstantial.

SKU: A0.810983

This fine work has sat dormant for many years and has now come to light thanks to the efforts of Charlie Vernon, Bass Trombonist of the Chicago Symphony, who performed this virtuoso work as a young performer.

The concerto is in the standard three movement form: Fast, slow, fast.

This publication is a reduction from the original orchestral version (to be released at some point in the future).

Here is a description of the Concerto by the composer, John W. Ware.

I started on the trombone concerto in my junior year studying composition at Indiana University.  While working on it, I learned of an opportunity to make it sort of a thesis piece (though students didn't write a thesis in composition while an undergrad).  The original version was for trombone with string orchestra, and it was performed by the IU String Orchestra, conducted by Dr. Arthur Corra, with Robert Priez, trombone, as part of my senior composition recital.  I thought the performance was quite good (Priez played extraordinarily well), and the piece received a newspaper review in the Indiana Daily Student, in which the reviewer wrote that the work was almost too exciting.  I thought at the time that he had given me and my music a fine compliment.  I made a piano version of the accompaniment, shortening and tightening the first movement, for performances in 1966; I made a second revision in 1967 for a performance by E. J. Eaton, trombonist at the University of Tennessee at Martin, arriving at the form in which the work exists now.

The first movement is in fairly normal sonata-allegro form, in the key of A minor.  It alternates between assertive and more thoughtful moods.   There is no introduction; the soloist enters immediately and dominates much of the movement. The main theme is--by some manipulation--a source for most of the other themes, and all of the themes are used in close proximity to each other, including contrapuntal combinations, especially near the end.  Originally the movement included a lengthy fugato, now much shortened and including a stretto that builds and subsides before a cadenza leading to a coda based on both the principal and secondary themes.  Key relations in this movement, as in the other two, are quite free and often chromatic, with frequent third-relations; but returns to the tonic at the end are emphatic.  The writing is challenging for both soloist and accompanist; the piece is substantial, requiring technique and stamina.

The second movement is in F minor and is also built on both contrast and close relationships between the main and secondary themes.  The main theme is heard in the piano part before the soloist enters.  The mood is more lyric than in the first movement, but with dramatic episodes also.  In this movement are some definite derivations from themes in the first movement.  The ending is a sort of lengthened shadow of the opening.

The finale returns to A minor, with themes slightly related to polonaise rhythms, but with strong echoes of first-movement themes.  Here, too, dramatic and lyric episodes alternate, with dotted rhythms frequently propelling the music forward.  The introduction is a brief and simple preparation for the solo entry.  Later in the movement, a very brief, slightly slower section is soon overtaken by the original tempo.  Toward the end, there is a second cadenza, again leading to a swift and energetic coda.

The work is about 20 minutes in length and is appropriate for advanced performers.

SKU: A0.549221

J. S. Bach BWV 508.

Bist du bei mir

Bach adapted this aria from a lost Stölzel opera called Diomedes. He changed the original orchestral instrumentation to soprano, strings, and continuo.  He also modified the voice-leading making it sound more like a Bach composition. The work appears as BWV 508 No. 25 in the Anna Magdalena Notebook No. 2.  

Source

Only a few remnants of the original opera have survived. Historians speculate that Anna Magdalena got the song from the Leipzig Opera after the bankruptcy of 1720. Chances are good, though, that the tune was a favorite of everyone in Leipzig at the time.  

Lyrics

When thou art near, I go with joy
To death and to my rest.
O how joyous would my end be,
If your fair hands
            Would close my faithful eyes. - Unknown

Bach Overview

First of all, Johann Sebastian Bach is maybe the greatest composer in music history. Certainly, he was prolific. As a result, everyone has heard of his works. Furthermore, these works number well over a thousand. It seems like people are probably most familiar with instrumental works such as the Brandenburg Concertos, and the Goldberg Variations. But, similarly famous are such noteworthy works as the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Musical Offering, and certainly the Art of Fugue. Seems like his most famous vocal works include the most noteworthy Mass in B Minor. Also, most noteworthy are the St. John Passion, and indeed the Christmas Oratorio.

 History

Bach came from a long line of musicians and above all, composers. Consequently, he, first of all, pursued a career as a church organist. So as a result, he gained employment in various Protestant churches in Germany. For a while, he worked as a court musician in Weimar and Köthen. Here he probably developed his organ style and likewise his chamber music style. Eventually, he, therefore, gained an appointment as Cantor of St. Thomas in Leipzig. Here he worked until difficulties with his employer ultimately drove him away. The King of Poland finally appointed him as court composer.

 Style

It seems like Bach created a fascinating new international style. He synthesized elements of the most noteworthy European music ideas into his new style. Even more, this new style was probably his synthesis of European musical rhythm and form. Furthermore, he demonstrated a complete mastery of counterpoint and motivic development. His sense of harmonic organization probably propelled him to the top.

Revival              

Mendelssohn conducted a Bach revival in the nineteenth century. His effort probably helped to re-familiarize the public with the magnitude of Bach’s works. During this period, scholars published many noteworthy Bach biographies. Moreover, Wolfgang Schmieder published the BWV (Bach Werke Verzeichnis). As a result, this is now the official catalog of his entire artistic output. The BWV number allows us to locate a work in the catalog. Sometimes scholars will simply use an S (Schmieder) as an abbreviation for BWV.

 Voyager

NASA launched two Voyager spacecraft in 1977. Onboard are phonograph records with sounds, music, and images of life on Earth. The purpose of the launch was to inform intelligent extraterrestrial life forms about conditions on Earth. The music on the disc is varied. There is Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Stravinsky among others. However, because Bach is so important in our music history, it contains three times more Bach than all the others combined.