Results
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£127.95Music of the Angels (Symphonic Brass Ensemble - Score and Parts)
In 1998 Gregson was commissioned by conductor Martyn Brabbins to write a short concert opener with choir to mark his debut as Music Director of the Huddersfield Choral Society. Entitled ...and the seven trumpets... this ten minute flourish is founded on a verse from Chapter 8 of the Revelation To John (The Apocalypse), the last book in the Bible: 'and I saw the seven Angels which stood before God: and to them were given seven trumpets'. The performance employed the full power of the Huddersfield Town Hall organ and the brass section of the BBC Philharmonic, including seven trumpets and four horns placed strategically around hall.The following year, when Gregson received a commission from the Cheshire-based Foden's Brass Band (conducted at that time by Nicholas Childs) for a work to mark its centenary in 2000, he turned to the first portion of ...and the seven trumpets... as the basis for an ambitious celebratory work entitled The Trumpets of the Angels. "The opportunity to create an extended work which would break out of the brass band mould was an important milestone for me," the composer says. In 2015 he was asked by Nicholas Childs to create a new performing edition without organ for the Black Dyke Band. This received its first performance in April 2016 at the European Brass Band Festival in Lille. In 2018, Gregson revisited the music for a third time, returning the opening fanfares to orchestral brass and transforming substantial portions of the 'Black Dyke' version to create Music of the Angels, a dramatic canvas for symphonic brass and percussion.An array of bells and gongs offer an unmistakable key to the source of Gregson's inspiration. Inscribed In tribute to Olivier Messiaen, the work's principal material and its sound world, but crucially not the underlying musical processes, are influenced by Messiaen's masterpiece for wind and percussion, Et exspecto ressurectionem mortuorum (1964). Music of the Angels begins with braying of horns suggestive of the start of an ancient ritual. Six 'angel' trumpeters, set behind the ensemble, answer in sequence, with the evocative sound of tam-tams creating the Messiaen-like aura. Once the horns have reached the performing space, four of the trumpeters deliver highly contrasting fanfare cadenzas. At the climax of this episode, the individual fanfares are presented together, as if, perhaps, to reflect the Biblical writer's apocalyptic visions of hail, fire, seas of blood and the cataclysmic destruction of man and beast.This powerful vision of death and destruction gives way to a prayerful lament, re-imagining a sung Kyrie Eleison from the 'Black Dyke' edition, with flugel horn and euphonium obligati. The hushed atmosphere is broken by tenor and side drums, and trumpets five and six, which gallop away like the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the biblical account their steeds had 'heads like lions with fire and smoke and sulphur issuing from their mouths'.As the reverberation of a dramatic climax dies we hear the entry of the seventh trumpet, from 'on high', blazing forth with a version of the main that extends across the entire compass of the instrument - almost three octaves. Supported by a 'holy trinity' of gongs, an 'epic' final cadenza introduces new material which is further developed in a frenetic final section. This is announced by two sets of timpani, to the left and right. Braying brass (euphoniums and horns) once more adds an air of foreboding. As the music builds towards a magisterial conclusion, the Messiaen-inspired tritones of the principal motif are smoothed out into perfect 5ths and combined with the earlier material in a full-voiced chorale, over which the seventh trumpet blazes in triumph.- Programme note by Paul HindmarshScored for1 Trumpet in E flat (Trumpet 5)6 Trumpets in B flat (Trumpet 4 doubling Flugel Horn)4 Horns in F3 Tenor Trombones1 Bass TromboneEuphonium2 Tubas2 Timpani (Percussion 3 doubles Timpani 2)Percussion (3 players): 3 Tam-tams, 3 Suspended Cymbals, Bass Drum, Tenor Drum, Snare Drum, Tubular Bells.Duration: 16.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£27.95Three Fanfares (Brass Ensemble - Score and Parts)
This set includes three fanfares by Edward Gregson for symphonic brass and percussion ensemble:Fanfare for a New EraFanfare for the NorthFanfare for EuropeFanfare for a New Era: This fanfare was commissioned by Lady Sheila Stoller to celebrate the opening of the Stoller Hall at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester (UK). It is dedicated to Sir Norman Stoller, who generously donated the funding for the new concert hall. It was first performed by students of Chetham's School of Music, conducted by Stephen Threlfall, at the Royal Opening of the Stoller Hall on 24 April 2017. Ideally, the fanfare should be performed using as much spatial arrangement as possible, so that the antiphonal effects are heard to their best advantage. Whatever the chosen lay-out, the 1st Trumpet should be positioned off-stage in a suitable position. This could be a rear balcony if the venue is not too large, or in a side balcony in a larger concert hall. Duration: 3.00Fanfare for the North: This fanfare was commissioned by the Gateshead Garden Festival of 1990 and was first performed by London Brass Virtuosi, directed by David Honeyball, at the Royal Opening by HM The Queen. Its four-note motif (G, A, E, D), which is heard throughout the fanfare, is derived from the letters of 'Gateshead'. Duration: 1.15Fanfare for Europe: This fanfare was specially commissioned for two concerts celebrating the UK's entry into Europe (or the European Economic Community as it was then known) in 1973. The first performances were given at York Minister and the Royal Albert Hall, London, in January 1973. The fanfare was also featured as the opening music for the first episode of a series of short documentary programmes made for BBC Radio 4 in 2018 by Mark Mardell entitled Brexit: A Love Story? Duration: 1.15Duration: 5.30
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£24.9523 - A Lament for the Victims of Enschede (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
23 was composed for Brass Band Schoonhoven, and used as part of their programme for Brass in Concert in November 2016.On the 13 th May 2000, the Netherlands was shocked by an explosion in Roombeek - a district of Enschede, near the German border - after a fire broke out at a local fireworks depot. 23 people lost their lives in the tragic events. This piece pays tribute to their memory.The numbers 2 and 3 form the basis of the piece. The use of 5/4 allows the music to flow, alternating between 2 + 3 and 3 + 2; there are frequent passages where triplet quavers clash with straight quavers; and the tuned percussion make use of a scale composed of alternating intervals of 2 and 3 semitones.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£40.00Abide With Me (Euphonium Solo with Brass Band - Score and Parts)
My arrangement of William H. Monk's tune of 1861, uses the euphonium soloist as the central figure for the melodic line in the three verses. Surrounding the solo line is an irregular pulsed figure in the percussion to give the music an unsettled feel whilst the muted ensemble lightly colour the melodic contour of the soloist. From the low beginnings of the piece, where no high instrumentation is used, we are led through the darkened texture to a bright finale, although the sense of the forbidding is always present.Abide With Me has always been a favourite hymn of mine and it was when watching the film 28 Days Later that I believed it would make a rather striking arrangement for brass band. This was confirmed further when the hymn was used at the 2012 opening ceremony of the London Olympics. The juxtaposition between the static, slow moving melody and the rhythmic effects of the dancers was something that I thought could be captured in an arrangement.- Paul McGheeDuration: 5.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£40.00Two Aquarelles (Euphonium Feature with Brass Band - Score and Parts)
In the late spring of 1917, the Bradford born composer, Frederick Delius (1856 - 1934) composed two short part-songs at his home in Grez-sur-Loing. The river ran along the bottom of his garden and he called the two miniatures To be sung of a summer night on the water. The First World War was at its height, but one would never guess that from the languid and serene quality of these richly textured nocturnes. The songs were first heard in London on 28 June, sung by the Oriana Madrigal Society, conducted by Charles Kennedy Scott. In 1932 Delius's amanuensis, Eric Fenby, arranged them for string orchestra as Two Aquarelles. While I have taken Fenby's title, my arrangement is a note-for-note transcription of the choral original. It was prepared in early in 1993 for Besses o' th' Barn Band, of which I was Musical Director at the time. In the second song, the prominent tenor solo has been given to the solo euphonium, who should stand apart from the band in performance.- Paul HindmarshDuration: 5.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£95.00Variations on a Theme of Michael Tippett (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
A Centenary Tribute by Michael Ball, Edward Gregson, Elgar Howarth, Bramwell Tovey and Philip WilbyThis unique 'pice d'occasion' arose out of a telephone conversation in 2004 with Alan Wycherley, who was the soprano cornet player of the Foden's Richardson Band at the time. He indicated that the band would like to include an original birthday tribute for Edward Gregson (60) and Elgar Howarth (70) in its concert at the 2005 RNCM Festival of Brass in Manchester. I have been Artistic Director of Manchester's Festival of Brass since it was established in 1990 as a BBC Radio 3 series, As the centenary of the birth of Sir Michael Tippett fell on 5 January 2005, I devised this collective work as a way of embracing all three anniversaries in a novel way.The idea of joint compositions is not a new one in the classical music world. In the 1860s, Verdi was joined by a number of his contemporaries in a Requiem Mass for Rossini. In this country there have been a number of orchestral examples over the past fifty years, but never before for the brass band. Although Tippett composed only one work for brass band, Festal Brass with Blues, his orchestral works and operas are full of idiomatic brass writing. The theme I chose for this celebration is one of Tippet's most memorable miniatures featuring wind and brass. In the opera Midsummer Marriage it marks the entry of the Ancients. It is also included in the orchestral Suite in D (1948), for the Birthday of Prince Charles.I invited five of the leading contemporary voices in brass band music to add their own creative perspectives to the little Tippett theme, with it's characteristic rhythms, embellishments and modality - the Lydian mode. Each contribution was designed to fit into a tonal and formal template to give the whole work a flow and continuity. In Danse des Amis, Bramwell Tovey has composed a jazzy, humorous variation. Inspiration came from Tippett's love of jazz and, more personally, from the characteristically syncopated gait of the distinguished music critic John Amis, who Tovey once observed leaving a performance of Tippett's opera King Priam before the end. Incidentally, that performance was conducted by Elgar Howarth.We hear Edward Gregson in lyrical mode. His Midsummer Song is redolent of the sound world of Tippett's opera A Midsummer Marriage and it ends with a brief reference to a favourite of Gregson's, Tippett's Concerto for Orchestra. Michael Ball provides a brief moment of light, airy activity bringing to mind perhaps Tippett's love of Shakespearian fantasy, especially The Tempest. Elgar Howarth juxtaposes a slowed down version of the processional theme with distant recollections of fanfares from King Priam. Philip Wilby has rounded the tribute off with a spectacular fugue. During its inexorable progress Wilby ingeniously introduces the two other birthday references - the three-note musical signature that Elgar Howarth includes in much of his music and the characteristic theme which begins Edward Gregson's substantial work for brass an organ The Trumpets of the Angels. An elaborated reprise of Tippett's little theme is followed by a dynamic coda.- Paul HindmarshDuration: 13.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£34.95Chalk Farm No. 2 (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
In 1909, The Salvation Army published a march called 'Chalk Farm'. 'Chalk Farm No. 2' was written to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Bandmaster Punchard, Bandmaster to Chalk Farm band for 50 years. The tune 'March on, we shall win the day' is common to both marches. The later march is symphonic rather than processional, including as it does irregular bars of 5 and 7 beats.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£112.00March Slav (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
March Slav was composed in 1876 for a charity concert to support the war in the Balkans. It was completed in the remarkably short time of 5 days and was encored twice at its first performance! The themes are based loosely on Serbian folk songs and there is also a reference to the Russian national anthem. The mood is funereal in style at the opening but this gives way to a very triumphant style by the end.This arrangement was prepared for the 2007 Summer concerts of Brass Band of the Western Reserve, musical director Dr Keith M Wilkinson (www.bbwesternreserve.org). It has been recorded by BBWR on the CD Slides Rule!
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£44.99Whirlegigg (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Whirlegigg is the middle English word for a contraption that continuously spins. A great fascination with many inventors of the medieval period was to develop a perpetual motion machine constantly turning and giving off energy. This idea is particularly apt for this piece. A simple ternary structure gives ample opportunity for both boisterous and reflective material with gyrating accompaniment figures never far away. The machine almost stops near the end, but finally musters one last burst of excitement and energy to bring the work to its close. Suitable for 1st Section Bands and above. Duration: 5.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£16.99The Foggy Dew (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
The Foggy Dew is one of those charming Irish melodies which seem to capture the beauty and serenity of that country, all of which is evoked in this delicate arrangement by Philip Doe. Suitable for Youth/4th Section Bands and above. Duration: 5.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
