Results
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£40.00Variations on a Theme of Michael Tippett (Brass Band - Score only) - Hindmarsh, Paul
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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£40.00Trittico (Brass Band - Score only) - Curnow, James
Trittico was commissioned by the Swiss Brass Band Association for their national championships in 1988.A trittico is a triptych or group of three paintings or musical compositions based on a common theme and presented or performed together. The present work is a set of three extended variations on the American shaped-note hymn Consolation.The work opens in grand style with motives based on intervals of the hymn tune. The opening motif, and smaller fragments of it reappear throughout the piece and serve as an underlying element alongside the theme itself.The first variation is essentially a scherzo which echoes the minor mood of the theme. The hemiolic opposition of compound and duple time is used to good effect and, again, the main motif is never far away. This is music with energy and forward movement.The second variation gives the soloists a chance to shine. The mood is tranquil, yet there is always some activity and the musical material pre-echoes the third variation.The third variation is another scherzo-like section, the main theme accompanied by a rhythmic ostinato. Toward the conclusion there is a short aleatoric passage - a variation within a variation allowing half the band to make their own variations in a cacophony of sound. An energetic coda draws together several elements to round off a work brim full of drive, energy, and self-propelled enthusiasm.Recorded on Polyphonic QPRL044D Brass from the ValleysDuration: 13:30
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£90.00
Trittico (Brass Band - Score and Parts) - Curnow, James
Trittico was commissioned by the Swiss Brass Band Association for their national championships in 1988.A trittico is a triptych or group of three paintings or musical compositions based on a common theme and presented or performed together. The present work is a set of three extended variations on the American shaped-note hymn Consolation.The work opens in grand style with motives based on intervals of the hymn tune. The opening motif, and smaller fragments of it reappear throughout the piece and serve as an underlying element alongside the theme itself.The first variation is essentially a scherzo which echoes the minor mood of the theme. The hemiolic opposition of compound and duple time is used to good effect and, again, the main motif is never far away. This is music with energy and forward movement.The second variation gives the soloists a chance to shine. The mood is tranquil, yet there is always some activity and the musical material pre-echoes the third variation.The third variation is another scherzo-like section, the main theme accompanied by a rhythmic ostinato. Toward the conclusion there is a short aleatoric passage - a variation within a variation allowing half the band to make their own variations in a cacophony of sound. An energetic coda draws together several elements to round off a work brim full of drive, energy, and self-propelled enthusiasm.Recorded on Polyphonic QPRL044D Brass from the ValleysDuration: 13:30
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£64.95Music for Greenwich (Brass Band - Score and Parts) - Gregson, Edward
Music for Greenwich was commissioned in 1980 by the Greenwich Theatre, London, for a new production of Peter Buckman's play 'All Together Now'.In this play, about a down-at-heels brass band in the North of England brought to a new level of self-confidence and achievement by an incoming conductor, the whole cast performed a test piece on stage every night (i.e. Music for Greenwich), in readiness for a competition which they have entered and, of course, win. Although the play is as much a social commentary as anything to do with music-making, every member of the cast had to be able to play a brass instrument to a greater or lesser extent (a difficult challenge for the casting Director!).For obvious reasons, the music is not technically difficult. The work is structured as follows: a brief fanfare-like opening is followed by an allegro section, rhythmic and playful; a slow lyrical section is then introduced (a suitably nostalgic melody featuring solos for cornet and trombone), before a return to the fast music, a hint of the fanfare, and finally a climactic flourish to round things off. This is music to be enjoyed, as hopefully it was every night by the audience and actors alike.Duration: 5.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£24.95
Music for Greenwich (Brass Band - Score only) - Gregson, Edward
Music for Greenwich was commissioned in 1980 by the Greenwich Theatre, London, for a new production of Peter Buckman's play 'All Together Now'.In this play, about a down-at-heels brass band in the North of England brought to a new level of self-confidence and achievement by an incoming conductor, the whole cast performed a test piece on stage every night (i.e. Music for Greenwich), in readiness for a competition which they have entered and, of course, win. Although the play is as much a social commentary as anything to do with music-making, every member of the cast had to be able to play a brass instrument to a greater or lesser extent (a difficult challenge for the casting Director!).For obvious reasons, the music is not technically difficult. The work is structured as follows: a brief fanfare-like opening is followed by an allegro section, rhythmic and playful; a slow lyrical section is then introduced (a suitably nostalgic melody featuring solos for cornet and trombone), before a return to the fast music, a hint of the fanfare, and finally a climactic flourish to round things off. This is music to be enjoyed, as hopefully it was every night by the audience and actors alike.Duration: 5.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£107.95WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (Brass Band - Score and Parts) - Clarke, Nigel
Subtitled: Little Green Men in Intergalactic Spaceships with Ray-Guns and Phasers, A Space Symphony for Brass band. Written for the free choice test piece for Brass Band Buizingen for the Flemish Open Brass Band Championships. When Worlds Collide seeks to recreate the atmosphere and sentiment of the American cult Sci-Fi movies of the 1950's such as Robert Wise's 1951 film 'The day the Earth Stood Still' and 'Invasion of the Body Snatches' directed by Don Siegel in 1956, as well as Rudolph Mate's 1951 film 'When Worlds Collide'. It is programmatic with subtitled sub-sections as follows: Crop Circles; Lights in the Sky; Strange Happenings; Sightings; "We Come in Peace"; Alien Abduction; Analysis of the Earthlings; Teleportation; New Understandings; Visions of Far Off Worlds; Colonisation. Duration: approx. 19 mins.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£49.95
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (Brass Band - Score only) - Clarke, Nigel
Subtitled: Little Green Men in Intergalactic Spaceships with Ray-Guns and Phasers, A Space Symphony for Brass band. Written for the free choice test piece for Brass Band Buizingen for the Flemish Open Brass Band Championships. When Worlds Collide seeks to recreate the atmosphere and sentiment of the American cult Sci-Fi movies of the 1950's such as Robert Wise's 1951 film 'The day the Earth Stood Still' and 'Invasion of the Body Snatches' directed by Don Siegel in 1956, as well as Rudolph Mate's 1951 film 'When Worlds Collide'. It is programmatic with subtitled sub-sections as follows: Crop Circles; Lights in the Sky; Strange Happenings; Sightings; "We Come in Peace"; Alien Abduction; Analysis of the Earthlings; Teleportation; New Understandings; Visions of Far Off Worlds; Colonisation. Duration: approx. 19 mins.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£59.95Voices of Youth (Brass Band - Score and Parts) - Gregson, Edward
The suite Voices of Youth is one of Gregson's earliest brass band compositions, written while he was still a student at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Voices of Youth was commissioned by the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain and was premiered by them under the baton of Geoffrey Brand.The work has three movements:Nobility of Youth (Duration: 4.00)Sadness and Tenderness (Duration: 2.30)Gaiety (Duration: 2.45)In Nobility of Youth there are the rich sonorities beloved of Salvationist composers such as Eric Ball and, particularly, Ray Steadman Allen, whose music he admired. The modal contour of the melodies here and at the climax of the slow movement Sadness and Tenderness reveal lessons well learned from Holst and Vaughan Williams. Gaiety is probably the most interesting amalgam of all. Beginning in the harmonic world of Gilbert Vinter - whose influence Gregson readily acknowledges at this time - the music is transformed into a bravura waltz of which Percy Grainger might have been proud. It then veers off via a contrapuntal episode of academic correctness, into a coda that takes us into more adventurous harmonic realms.Duration: 10.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£15.00Harrison's Dream (Brass Band - Study Score) - Graham, Peter
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 GrahamJuly 2000 Recorded on Polyphonic QPRL219D Master Brass (Volume Fifteen). Duration: 14'30"
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£40.00A Song for Bram (Brass Band - Score and Parts) - Gregson, Edward
A Song for Bram is a short work, originally composed piano and brass band, and is dedicated to the memory of Bramwell Tovey, a close friend and colleague of the composer, and a conductor, composer, pianist and musician of huge talent, who sadly passed away before his time in the summer of 2022. In this short piece the composer has tried to imagine what kind of tune Bram would have improvised at the piano, something he frequently engaged in. No doubt it would have been a mixture of bluesy jazz, hymn tune, and love song, and this is how the solo piano takes off. In the middle section of a what is a simple tertiary structure, introduced are quotes from two hymn tunes Bram particularly loved, never having forgotten his Salvation Army roots. Bram's 'Song' returns, this time on a plaintive flugelhorn horn, and which reaches a climax with the full band before receding, literally, into the distance.....(to a new life beyond?).Duration: 6.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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