Results
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£74.95
Eden (Score and Parts)
This work was commissioned by the Brass Band Heritage Trust as the test piece for the final of the 2005 Besson National Brass Band Championship, held at the Royal Albert Hall, London.The score is prefaced by the final lines from Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (completed in 1663), in which Adam and Eve, expelled from Paradise, make their uncertain way into the outside world:"...The world was all before them, where to chooseTheir place of rest, and providence their guide:They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,Through Eden took their solitary way."My work is in three linked sections. In the first, the characters of Adam, Eve and the serpent guarding the Tree of Knowledge are respectively represented by solo euphonium, cornet and trombone. The music opens in an idyllic and tranquil mood and leads into a duet between euphonium and cornet. Throughout this passage the prevailing mood darkens, though the soloists seem to remain oblivious to the increasingly fraught atmosphere. A whip-crack announces the malevolent appearance of the solo trombone who proceeds to engage the solo cornet in a sinister dialogue.The second section interprets the Eden story as a modern metaphor for the havoc mankind has inflicted upon the world, exploiting and abusing its resources in the pursuit of wealth. Though certainly intended here as a comment on the present-day, it is by no means a new idea: Milton himself had an almost prescient awareness of it in Book I of his poem, where men, led on by Mammon:"...Ransacked the centre and with impious handsRifled the bowels of their mother earthFor treasures better hid. Soon had his crewOpened into the hill a spacious woundAnd digged out ribs of gold."So this section is fast and violent, at times almost manic in its destructive energy. At length a furious climax subsides and a tolling bell ushers in the third and final section.This final part is slow, beginning with an intense lament featuring solos for tenor-horn, flgel-horn and repiano cornet and joined later by solo baritone, soprano cornet, Eb-bass and Bb-bass.At one stage in the planning of the work it seemed likely that the music would end here - in despair. Then, mid-way through writing it, I visited the extraordinary Eden Project in Cornwall. Here, in a disused quarry - a huge man-made wound in the earth - immense biomes, containing an abundance of plant species from every region of the globe, together with an inspirational education programme, perhaps offer a small ray of hope for the future. This is the image behind the work's conclusion and the optimism it aims to express is real enough, though it is hard-won and challenged to the last.John Pickard 2005
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£29.50
Eden (Score Only)
This work was commissioned by the Brass Band Heritage Trust as the test piece for the final of the 2005 Besson National Brass Band Championship, held at the Royal Albert Hall, London.The score is prefaced by the final lines from Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (completed in 1663), in which Adam and Eve, expelled from Paradise, make their uncertain way into the outside world:"...The world was all before them, where to chooseTheir place of rest, and providence their guide:They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,Through Eden took their solitary way."My work is in three linked sections. In the first, the characters of Adam, Eve and the serpent guarding the Tree of Knowledge are respectively represented by solo euphonium, cornet and trombone. The music opens in an idyllic and tranquil mood and leads into a duet between euphonium and cornet. Throughout this passage the prevailing mood darkens, though the soloists seem to remain oblivious to the increasingly fraught atmosphere. A whip-crack announces the malevolent appearance of the solo trombone who proceeds to engage the solo cornet in a sinister dialogue.The second section interprets the Eden story as a modern metaphor for the havoc mankind has inflicted upon the world, exploiting and abusing its resources in the pursuit of wealth. Though certainly intended here as a comment on the present-day, it is by no means a new idea: Milton himself had an almost prescient awareness of it in Book I of his poem, where men, led on by Mammon:"...Ransacked the centre and with impious handsRifled the bowels of their mother earthFor treasures better hid. Soon had his crewOpened into the hill a spacious woundAnd digged out ribs of gold."So this section is fast and violent, at times almost manic in its destructive energy. At length a furious climax subsides and a tolling bell ushers in the third and final section.This final part is slow, beginning with an intense lament featuring solos for tenor-horn, flgel-horn and repiano cornet and joined later by solo baritone, soprano cornet, Eb-bass and Bb-bass.At one stage in the planning of the work it seemed likely that the music would end here - in despair. Then, mid-way through writing it, I visited the extraordinary Eden Project in Cornwall. Here, in a disused quarry - a huge man-made wound in the earth - immense biomes, containing an abundance of plant species from every region of the globe, together with an inspirational education programme, perhaps offer a small ray of hope for the future. This is the image behind the work's conclusion and the optimism it aims to express is real enough, though it is hard-won and challenged to the last.John Pickard 2005
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£32.50
Vienna Nights (Score Only)
The City of Vienna stands at one of the historic crossroads of the world, linking east and west and embracing artistic influences from all sides. In the 250th anniversary year of Mozart's birth, this fantasy on Mozart's celebrated Piano Sonata in A (K331), has been composed true to the form and content of the original, but also to the underlying substance of the conception.One of Mozart's distinguishing features, and one that links him to later music by Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler and Schoenberg, is the breadth of his musical vision. His music links intellectual rigour with ecstatic utterance and darker preoccupations. It is, perhaps, this shadow-laden side of his musical nature which gives his work a profundity often absent in the work of his contemporaries. Admirers of his Requiem Mass or the Statue music in Don Giovanni will recognise that it is this extra sense of reality which makes Mozart so relevant to the modern age, and where he may link hands with the other great Viennese thinkers such as Berg, Webern and Adorno.The composer follows the three movement plan of the Sonata closely. The original begins with a Theme and Variations which is freely quoted. His Minuet is mirrored in the Recitative and Notturno, where each section of the band lays down a metaphoric rose to his memory. Famously, the sonata ends in populistic style with a Turkish Rondo. Ever since the Hapsburg-Ottoman Wars, which came to an end in the seventeenth century, Viennese composers have included Turkish elements in their music, not least in the use of certain percussion instruments. Vienna Nights is thusly a homage.It celebrates the world's greatest composer, but also the city which fostered his work. Here, in your imagination, you might easily conjure up a caf table near the Opera House, where Mozart, Mahler and Sigmund Freud, observed by us all from a discreet distance, may meet as old friends.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£34.95
HMS Indefatigable (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
HMS Indefatigable is a contest march, composed for the Virtuosi GUS Band, under the direction of Adam Cooke, and used as part of their programme for Brass in Concert in November 2016.The march is named after the battlecruiser HMS Indefatigable; an ill-fated ship of the British fleet that fell victim to German Bombardment in the Battle of Jutland, in 1916. During the initial 30 minutes of the battle, the Indefatigable sustained heavy fire from the German battleship SMS Von der Tann, which struck Indefatigable's armoury and caused the ship to suffer a catastrophic explosion, resulting in the ship sinking, with all but two lives lost. 1,017 souls perished.This piece aims to capture the might and power of the great ship at sea, incorporating a touch of menace, hinting at the unfortunate end awaiting the HMS Indefatigable, whilst serving as a fitting tribute to the ship and her crew.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£14.95
HMS Indefatigable (Score Only)
HMS Indefatigable is a contest march, composed for the Virtuosi GUS Band, under the direction of Adam Cooke, and used as part of their programme for Brass in Concert in November 2016.The march is named after the battlecruiser HMS Indefatigable; an ill-fated ship of the British fleet that fell victim to German Bombardment in the Battle of Jutland, in 1916. During the initial 30 minutes of the battle, the Indefatigable sustained heavy fire from the German battleship SMS Von der Tann, which struck Indefatigable's armoury and caused the ship to suffer a catastrophic explosion, resulting in the ship sinking, with all but two lives lost. 1,017 souls perished.This piece aims to capture the might and power of the great ship at sea, incorporating a touch of menace, hinting at the unfortunate end awaiting the HMS Indefatigable, whilst serving as a fitting tribute to the ship and her crew.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£44.95
Bravura (A Fantasy on British Folk Songs) (Euphonium Solo with Brass Band)
Bravura is a companion piece to the composer's earlier euphonium display piece Brillante, utilising the same traditional 19th century "fantasy variation" structure, familiar to generations of brass soloists. Folk songs from the four corners of Great Britain are featured; Oranges and Lemons, (England), The Blue Bells of Scotland, The Minstrel Boy (Ireland) and the famous Welsh anthem Men of Harlech.The solo is a conflation of the original version, written for the 2002 Royal Albert Hall Gala Concert, which followed the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain. On that occasion the combined talents of virtuosi David Childs, Derick Kane, Steven Mead and David Thornton (with guests Robert and Nicholas Childs) were on display, each personalising the cadenza section towards the end. This version incorporates a published cadenza, though soloists should feel free to improvise their own material at this point.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£39.95
Judd: Praise to the Lord
Written for the 2003 tour of Canada and USA by Bristol Easton Band of The Salvation Army, this set of variations provides the whole band with a stern examination of technical and musical aptitude, whilst engaging the listener from beginning to end. The commission given to the composer was to create a set of variations with a similar framework to that of Edward Gregson's 'Variations on Laudate Dominum'. As in the famous Gregson work, the theme (Lobe den Herren) is not heard in its entirety until the final section when the majestic tune provides a fitting and stirring conclusion to the music.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£34.95
On the Castle Green
I was contacted by conductor and friend Desmond Graham who wanted to have a traditional concert march composed to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of his band; The Third Carrickfergus Band.Immediately my mind started wandering as I thought about all the great marches that I have enjoyed playing and listening to over the years. So when I put pen to paper I had already planned out the structure of the march and which instruments to feature.The march itself is split into two halves, the first in a minor key the second in a major key. The opening section starting loudly in F minor features stereotypical passages one would come to recognise in a traditional concert march: a cornet solo, a melodic bridging section and a robust bass solo led by the basses and trombones.The second half of the march changes pace and mood as it lifts into a major key giving it a more lighter feel. We hear a second cornet solo which plays the second theme of the march. After a second bridge section the theme is played by the front row cornets to allow the soprano to play an obligato melody similar to that heard in marches like "Army of the Nile" and "Stars and Stripes Forever". It all builds to a grandioso ending where the tempo drops and the final theme is played with a quick accel to the end.As for the title? In Carrickfergus lies an old castle that faces the town which is situated on a small plot of luscious green grass - "On The Castle Green".Paul Lovatt-Cooper
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£34.95
Pound the Streets
This piece was commissioned for the National Youth Band of Scotland by the Scottish Brass Band Association for the Tartan Heart Festival 2010.The Tartan Heart Festival is a huge musical festival that took place in the picturesque Belladrum Estate in Inverness-shire. It features many famous pop and rock artists including Feeder, Amy MacDonald, The Levellers, Divine Comedy and Badly Drawn Boy to name but a few.Special guests to open the festival were the National Youth Band of Scotland who performed a programme of music that started with this piece Pound The Streets. As they were playing at a rock festival I wanted to compose a piece that didn't follow the more traditional types of concert openers I have written in the past. So instead I opted for a fast paced piece that has a pounding rock rhythm from the drum kit and relentless riffs and ostinati from the brass ensemble.I had lots of fun composing this piece as it is so different to a lot of music I have composed in the past. It gave me the opportunity to incorporate musical styles that I enjoy listening to when I am away from brass bands and to write in a pop/rock style.So the end product is a brass rock piece that has lots of energy, a feel-good factor and is lots of fun to play and listen to. I hope you enjoy, Pound The Streets.Paul Lovatt-Cooper
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£59.99
Infernal Ride (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Infernal Ride is mercurial and virtuosic, reflecting the mad-cap chase of Ichabod Crane's final ride on his horse, Gunpowder, in the story by Washington Irving, namely The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Often an atmosphere of driven fear pushes the music forward, only briefly stopping for breath. The work closes with flourishes in rapid succession, perhaps with the hapless Ichabod meeting his unfortunate end!Suitable for 1st Section Bands and aboveDuration: 7.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days