SKU: A0.1183507

For English horn solo and piano accompaniment with chords.
Key: D minor. 
Duration: 1'40.

SKU: A0.748358

INSTRUMENTATION: English Horn (F), Piano

Charles Gounod's vocal line / text is written for solo english horn with accompaniment.

ABOUT THE ARRANGER:  Patrick Sheehan has served as a professional music arranger, transcriptionist and copyist since 1999, and has over 1,000 works in his catalog spanning various genres: wind band, orchestra, chamber music, along with pop & rock selections.  His modus operandi centers around creating arrangements and transcriptions that are true to the original definitive versions and strives to produce clean and easy-to-read music.  For questions or more information, please contact the arranger at PatrickSheehanMusic@GMail.com.

SKU: A0.549472

Alexander Scriabin Op. 11 No. 2. Score: 8 pages, solo part: 2 pages, piano part: 2 pages. Duration: 3:10. An introspective and meditative work with a lot of dynamic and phrasing nuance. Works well for church meditations or recital encores.

Background

Op.11/2 Alto Clarinet version. First of all, Scriabin composed mostly for the solo piano and also the orchestra. This is probably because he was a gifted pianist and therefore certainly appreciated the piano. Scriabin grew up in the late Romantic period, consequently, he was fond of the great piano masters of the time. As a result, he wrote his first noteworthy compositions in the manner of Chopin and Liszt.

Forms

Likewise, Scriabin used many of the same forms as Chopin. These certainly include the étude, prelude, nocturne, and even the mazurka. In contrast, as he developed his own sense of style his music became more and more unusual. So, the last five of his Piano Sonatas do not have a key signature and therefore lean towards atonality.

Philosophy

Scriabin also developed a keen interest in philosophy and likewise poetry. He was above all particularly fascinated by Nietzsche, Delville, and Blavatsky. Consequently, he finally established his own ideas about metaphysics and certainly mysticism. Scriabin consequently advanced theories about the relationship between color and musical keys.

Synesthesia

He also may have experienced a condition called synesthesia where he could probably sense a response created from a different stimulus. Therefore, it was almost as if he could see music and hear colors. Scriabin, therefore, arranged the colors in a circle similar to the circle-of-fifths and assigned each key area a color. Finally, he assigned the key of C to the color red, while the key of G was orange. Similarly, he assigned D to yellow, A to green, and so forth. Strangely, he did not differentiate between major and minor key colors.

 Multimedia

Hence, his ability to translate colors into music certainly gave Scriabin a most noteworthy interest in creating multimedia events. Furthermore, He designed his biggest work, the Mysterium, to last an entire week. Even more, Scriabin made plans not only for music, but also colored lights, incense, and dancing. He designed the performance to occur in the foothills of the Himalaya mountains. The Mysterium was never performed, and only sketches of the work remain.

Modern Performances

In modern times, we often experience performances of Scriabin’s most famous completed works accompanied by colored laser lights and incense. These are the Poem of Ecstasy (completed in 1908) and the Poem of Fire (completed in 1910). The lighting effects for these early performances were accomplished by the clavier à lumiéres. It was a keyboard instrument that projected colored light onto a screen.

SKU: A0.950812

An evocation of the lost world of Eastern European Jewry before World War II, heard and felt through the filter of a Twenty-First Century American sensibility. I am not so much trying to evoke the prosaic aspects of daily life, my focus is on the intense Mysticism that flourished in those settings, the otherworldliness of the spiritual leaders who would not renounce their faith in the face of persecution, and eventually extermination.

It is hoped that this will be a welcome addition to the repertoire of the English Horn.