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Christmas Dream - Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice - Len Jenkins
The music playing in the background at the start of the 1974 Columbia film 'The Odessa File' Christmas Dream is a song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. This arrangement has a seasonal flavour, with typical Germanic 'bounce', and features an optional finish at about 3 minutes 25 seconds, or the full version at 4 minutes 15 seconds. Extra percussion parts are included (see Score).
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Off Duty - John Dankworth - Len Jenkins
The late John Dankworth (1927-2010) made a string of recordings in the 1960s that have since come to be regarded as some of the finest British jazz of their time. Amongst these is his composition 'Off Duty' which was recorded in the 1960s when the influence of pop and rock on jazz was at its height and instruments such as the bass guitar were beginning to be incorporated into jazz's vocabulary. At this time and almost subconsciously, a Dankworth 'pop' style also evolved. This was a balanced marriage between jazz and pop which is here demonstrated in 'Off Duty' thanks to the ingenious and original orchestration by John Dankworth, and the faithful arrangement for Brass Band by one of his fans, Len Jenkins. The title is interesting as John loved to play with words. 'Off Duty' could mean relaxing away from work, but could also carry the implication of something not attracting taxation.... a sort of 'duty-free'. About the same time, the Dave Brubeck Quartet produced the seminal 'Take Five'... so could this be John's take on that title, suggesting a short break? Which meaning fits best for you? The piece would best suit the capabilities of a brass band playing at the standard of Third Section or above.
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£29.95The Strong Tower (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Following the popularity of Turris Fortissima, I decided, albeit many years later, to revisit some of the material it contains and create a shorter piece, expanding on some of the ideas and motifs, allowing myself to follow those in different directions altogether. The result is this piece which I hope will also excite players and listeners alike.The music is marked at a quick tempo from the start, but despite several changes in meter, the tempo doesn't change until the small accelerando leads us into the presto section. In order to maintain the excitement and drama, it's important to set the pace and keep it consistent throughout.Section A introduces a few of the motifs that will be developed during the piece, including the main Turris Fortissima theme from bar 13 to 18.At section B, ensure the quavers are tight across the whole band with a strong attack, making an obvious difference in dynamic when fff is marked, in bars 23, 25 and 27. A more lyrical approach will be effective from the Horns in section C, with vigorous interruptions from the rest of the band breaking up their melody.Section D features long notes from muted 1st and 2nd Cornets and Trombones, with crescendos each time. These should be significant and sound as though they emerge from nowhere, completely cutting through the overall texture.Section D features long notes from muted 1st and 2nd Cornets and Trombones, with crescendos each time. These should be significant and sound as though they emerge from nowhere, completely cutting through the overall texture.Sections E and F are both passages of building intensity. Various contrasting motifs are layered, including a subtle reference to the hymn tune Ein' feste Burg (A mighty fortress is our God) from the Euphonium. The music becomes more busy and muddled, before reaching its climax at section G where the lyrical melody is heard again, this time from the Solo Cornets and Euphonium.In bars 141 to 145, there is a reference to Dean Goffin's My strength, my tower in the Basses, as used in Turris Fortissima. Allow this motif to dominate, keeping the notes full and grand-sounding. In bars 149 to 151 there is further use of the line from Ein' feste Burg in the Baritones, Trombones, Euphoniums and Basses leading into the final section.- Steven Ponsford
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£15.99Brass Essentials - An Study Companion (for all valve instruments in treble clef)
This book of 32 studies has been drawn from those Paul Cosh used as a student at the Royal Academy of Music, throughout his years as a professional player and as a teacher at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.The studies are divided into four main sections: Articulation, Finger Technique, Lyrical & Flexibility and Stamina & Technique and are drawn from those written by Arban, Charlier, Boehme, Brandt, Kopprasch and Sachse. Some of the studies have been re-imagined and edited to include new tempi and expression.There are helpful tips at the start of each section with most of the studies given suggested practice and performance tempi, although these are just a guide. Slow practise of the highly technical passages is vital to adhere to the overriding principle that every note counts.The Brass Essentials Study Companion can also work in conjunction with both the Brass Essentials: Arban Companion and the Brass Essentials: Practice Companion to vary your practice diet.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£15.00Symphony in Two Movements (Study Score Only)
Selected as the Championship Section test piece for the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain 2025This work was jointly commissioned by the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain (NYBBGB) and the National Youth Brass Band of Wales (NYBBW), the latter with funding from T Cerdd (Music Centre Wales), to celebrate their 60th and 30th anniversaries respectively. The first performances were given at Cadogan Hall, London, in April 2012, by the NYBBGB, conducted by Bramwell Tovey; and at the Great Hall, Aberystwyth University, in July 2012, by the NYBBW, conducted by Nicholas Childs.When I was approached about a joint commission to write a new work to celebrate the anniversaries of these two outstanding youth bands I was delighted to accept, and decided to respond by writing a work apposite for the magnitude of these special occasions, namely a 'symphony for brass'.Through a long journey of writing music for brass band, which commenced with Connotations (1977), and continued with Dances and Arias (1984), Of Men and Mountains (1991), The Trumpets of the Angels (2000) and Rococo Variations (2008), I arrived at what I regard as the most important work of the cycle to date, combining as it does serious musical intent with considerable technical demands. It is perhaps my most abstract work for brass band, avoiding any programmatic content.The symphony lasts for some 19 minutes and is structured in two linked movements. The form is based on that used by Beethoven in his final piano sonata (Op.111), which is in two movements only: a compact sonata-form allegro, followed by a more expansive theme and four variations. Prokofiev also adopted this model in his 2nd Symphony of 1925.The opening Toccata of this Symphony is highly dramatic but compact, whilst still retaining the 'traditional' structural elements of exposition, development and recapitulation; indeed, it also has the 'traditional' element of a contrasting second subject - a gentle, lyrical modal melody first heard on solo cornets.In contrast, the longer and more substantial second movement Variations is built around a theme and four variations. The slowly unfolding chorale-like theme accumulates both added note harmony and increasing instrumentation, whilst the four variations which follow are by turn mercurial (fast, starting with all the instruments muted), march-like (menacing, with short rhythmic articulations underpinning an extended atonal melody), serene (a series of 'romances' for solo instruments alongside echoes of the chorale) with an emerging theme eventually bursting into a climax of passionate intent; whilst the final variation is a dynamic scherzo (concertante-like in its series of rapid-fire solos, duets, trios and quartets) with the music gradually incorporating elements of the main ideas from the first movement, thus acting as a recapitulation for the whole work. It reaches its peroration with a return to the very opening of the symphony, now in the 'home' tonality of F, and thus creating a truly symphonic dimension to the music.Most of the melodic material of the symphony is derived from the opening eleven-note 'row', which contains various intervallic sets, and although the work is not serially conceived it does use some typical quasi-serial procedures, such as canons, inversions, and retrogrades. The symphony uses somewhat limited percussion, in line with a 'classical' approach to the sound world of the brass band, alongside a use of multi-divisi instrumentation, whereby each player has an individual part rather than the traditional doubling within certain sections of the band.- Edward GregsonDuration: 19.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£38.95Unity Series Band Journal - Numbers 538 - 541, February 2025
538: For Christ alone (Morgan Juel Stavik)This gentle and delicate march takes its title from the chorus of Fred Fry's song (S.A.S.B. 960).539: Calling Today! (Noel Jones)The words for this three-verse arrangement were written by Fanny Crosby, with music composed by George Cole Stebbins. While the song doesn't feature in the current Salvation Army Song Book, it was included in both the 1955 and 1986 editions. This arrangement was prepared during the pandemic, where people were encouraged to make contact by telephone as much as possible, and certainly welcomed phone calls from so many friends. Thinking of the calls, led to the words of this song.540: When the saints go marching in (Thomas Mack)This arrangement was written for the service celebrating the life of Irma Long at the request of her daughter. Irma, a gentle and kind woman, was a soldier for 70 years, 40 of which were at Corry Corps, Pennsylvania, USA, where she was also a songster, a pre-school Sunday School teacher, and corps treasurer. She drove the country roads from her village to Corry five times a week, even during the hard snow and ice of winters, so that she and her three daughters could attend corps activities. 541: There is sunshine (Wilfried Weiland)This work introduces a new composer to our band journals. Wilfried Weiland was the Band master at Berlin Central Corps and a member of the German Staff Band for several years. Although this is Wilfried's first published contribution with The Salvation Army, he has had several brass pieces published in the United Kingdom and abroad. The arrangement was originally written in July 2022 for the 25th anniversary of the Naumburg Corps, Germany. The reggae genre, employed here, has not been featured within our journals before but suits the style of a brass band well.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£15.00Harrison's Dream (Brass Band - Study Score)
At 8.00pm on the 22nd of October 1707, the Association, flagship of the Royal Navy, struck rocks off the Scilly Isles with the loss of the entire crew. Throughout the rest of the evening the remaining three ships in the fleet suffered the same fate. Only 26 of the original 1,647 crew members survived. This disaster was a direct result of an inability to calculate longitude, the most pressing scientific problem of the time. It pushed the longitude question to the forefront of the national consciousness and precipitated the Longitude Act. Parliament funded a prize of �20,000 to anyone whose method or device would solve the dilemma. For carpenter and self-taught clockmaker John Harrison, this was the beginning of a 40 year obsession. To calculate longitude it is necessary to know the time aboard ship and at the home port or place of known longitude, at precisely the same moment. Harrison's dream was to build a clock so accurate that this calculation could be made, an audacious feat of engineering. This work reflects on aspects of this epic tale, brilliantly brought to life in Dava Sobel's book Longitude. Much of the music is mechanistic in tone and is constructed along precise mathematical and metrical lines. The heart of the work however is human - the attraction of the �20,000 prize is often cited as Harrison's motivation. However, the realisation that countless lives depended on a solution was one which haunted Harrison. The emotional core of the music reflects on this, and in particular the evening of 22ndOctober 1707. Peter GrahamCheshireJuly 2000
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£15.99Brass Essentials - An Arban Companion (for all valve instruments)
Brass Essentials: An Arban Companion works through the Arban Cornet Method in the sequence that the excerpts appear in the original publication. It is not a method in itself, but a way to address the building blocks of a solid technique - good sound, good intonation, developing technical skills and applying rhythmic accuracy. It is suitable for all valve instruments.Simply choose which of the sections applies to the issues you are facing in your playing at any given time. Advice is given at the head of each section on how to deal with the technical processes involved for that particular area of practice as well as suggestions on rehearsal and performance tempi.A regular approach to the most basic aspects of playing a brass instrument will help maintain a strong technique whilst addressing any problems that may occur during your playing life, as they do from time to time. It can also provide a regular practice diet that will encourage real attention to detail.Brass Essentials: An Arban Companion can be used as a resource for teachers helping players starting out on their musical journey, but also performers at any point in their musical life as a back-to-basics approach is often the way forward when dealing with playing issues. The overriding principle is that every note counts!Section Headings : Set-Up, Articulation and Sound; Light Articulations; Syncopation, Spacing and Rhythm; Single Tonguing; Controlled Slurring Technique; Running Scales and Chromatics; Breathing, Shaping and Phrasing; Arpeggios, Dominant Sevenths and Diminished Sevenths; Triple Tonguing; Double Tonguing; The Studies
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£29.95Judd: Christmas Presence
Written for Birmingham Citadel Band to play at their annual carol concert at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, this piece tells the story of the Nativity using the carols 'Who is he?' and 'Calypso Carol' (Christmas Collection 16). Brief appearances are made by the shepherds ('While shepherds watched'), the angels ('Ding dong! merrily on high') and the wise men ('Three kings' march' and 'We three kings of Orient are'). The music finishes with a majestic setting of the chorus of 'Who is he?', reminding us who the baby Jesus is:'Tis the Lord! O wondrous story,'Tis the Lord, the king of Glory!At his feet we humbly fall,Crown him, crown him Lord of all!
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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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