Results
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£74.95Eden (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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£29.50Eden (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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£39.95Judd: 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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£59.95Judd: Variations on Maccabeus
This set of variations was composed for the ISB's tour of Australia, New Zealand and Japan in 1995. Handel's majestic tune is associated with the great resurrection hymn 'Thine is the glory, risen, conquering Son' and melodic fragments of the tune form the basis of the four variations. The tune is heard in its entirety at the beginning and near the end and the piece finishes with a vigorous coda.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£34.95On 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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£37.95Benvenuto Cellini (Brass Band - Score only)
Berliozs opera Benvenuto Cellini was first produced in Paris in 1838 but was withdrawn as a failure, and it was not until the production in Dresden in 1888 that it was finally acclaimed by the Germans as a triumph. Adapted from certain episodes recorded in the memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, Tuscan sculptor and goldsmith, the story, laid in Rome during the mid-sixteenth century, is not strictly historical. The short opening Allegro, marked deciso con impeto, is conceived in the most brilliant Berlioz manner, utilising full instrumentation. In the Larghetto we meet at once the first of the opera themes " the Cardinals aria (from the last act) introduced in the bass, quasi pizzicato. A second melody leads to a resumption of the Allegro, the contrasting second subject in the tenor horns being an adaptation of Teresas aria (Act I). Towards the end the Cardinal theme is re-introduced by trombones, fortissimo against an energetic cornet and euphonium passage (senza stringendo " without hurry, says the score). After a unison passage storming skywards, there is a sudden, dramatic three-bar silent pause broken by Eb basses alone, again stating the Cardinal theme. A simple molto crescendo on the dominant, begun piano, leads to the long, resounding chord.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£82.95Benvenuto Cellini (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Berliozs opera Benvenuto Cellini was first produced in Paris in 1838 but was withdrawn as a failure, and it was not until the production in Dresden in 1888 that it was finally acclaimed by the Germans as a triumph. Adapted from certain episodes recorded in the memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, Tuscan sculptor and goldsmith, the story, laid in Rome during the mid-sixteenth century, is not strictly historical. The short opening Allegro, marked deciso con impeto, is conceived in the most brilliant Berlioz manner, utilising full instrumentation. In the Larghetto we meet at once the first of the opera themes " the Cardinals aria (from the last act) introduced in the bass, quasi pizzicato. A second melody leads to a resumption of the Allegro, the contrasting second subject in the tenor horns being an adaptation of Teresas aria (Act I). Towards the end the Cardinal theme is re-introduced by trombones, fortissimo against an energetic cornet and euphonium passage (senza stringendo " without hurry, says the score). After a unison passage storming skywards, there is a sudden, dramatic three-bar silent pause broken by Eb basses alone, again stating the Cardinal theme. A simple molto crescendo on the dominant, begun piano, leads to the long, resounding chord.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£59.99Infernal 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
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£44.95The Dawning (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
This early Peter Graham work in Sinfonietta form, takes as its central theme Joy Webb's original melody 'There will be God', which speaks of 'the dawning of a brand new day'. Peter Graham's dramatic treatment takes us into a world of 'cosmic power' and evokes ideas that one day wars will end as God will rule supreme.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£104.99Arkansas (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
This concert work, the latest of Jacob de Haan works based on American states, is a suite in three movements, based on a well-known folk tune from Arkansas. In the course of this varied work the folk song appears in its complete form and in fragments, in major and in minor, as a ballad in a lyrical orchestration, as a blues, accompanied by a jazzy rhythm and at the end again in its pure form. In the process, all instrumental groups of the brass band get their chance to shine!Duration: 9:30
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days