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£31.95Adam Zero, Suite from (Brass Band - Score only)
Selected as the Section 2 test piece for the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain 2025Following his ballet Checkmate, Bliss composed another score for the, by then, Sadler's Wells Ballet, Miracle in the Gorbals, which was choreographed by Robert Helpmann, to a scenario by Michael Benthall. Premired in 1944, the ballet made a considerable impact and was a box-office success. It was followed in turn by a further collaboration with Helpmann and Benthall, Adam Zero. This would serve Helpmann, in the eponymous role, as a vehicle in two respects: demonstrating his gifts as a dancer-actor and as a choreographer. First performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 8 April 1946, Adam Zero was conducted by Constant Lambert, the work's dedicatee. Bliss considered it 'his most varied and exciting ballet score'. Benthall provided a synopsis for the programme:There is a philosophy that life moves in an endless series of timeless cycles. As Nature passes through Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, so man is born, makes a success in his own particular sphere, loses his position to a younger generation, sees his world crumble before his eyes and only finds peace in death. This age-old story is told in terms of a Company creating a ballet and calling on the resources of the theatre to do so. Lighting, stage mechanism, dance conventions, musical forms and costumes and scenery of all periods are used to symbolize the world of 'Adam Zero'.Apart from Adam, as the Principal Dancer, other main roles included the Stage Director (representing Omnipotence), and Adam's Fates (Designer, Wardrobe Mistress, and Dresser). 'The Woman in this allegory', wrote Bliss, 'under the symbol of the Choreographer, was both the creator and destroyer of Adam: his first love, his wife, his mistress, and finally the figure of beneficent Death.' When the curtain rose, the 'audience saw the Covent Garden stage right back to the wall, completely empty except for the protagonists, 'the Company poised, still and expectant, as they await the birth of... Adam Zero.'Unfortunately, soon after the premire, Helpmann injured himself and had to withdraw from the remaining performances. Despite generally positive reviews, the ballet did not capture the imagination of audiences and, to Bliss's considerable disappointment, was not revived. Seventy years would elapse before its first major return to the stage, in 2016, performed by the ballet company of Stadttheater Bremerhaven with choreography by Sergei Vanaev.Bliss extracted a concert suite from the ballet, conducting its first performance with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra on 28 October 1948. For his own suite, arranged for brass band in 2023, Dr Robert Childs chose three dances linked to the seasons, book-ending them with the ebullient 'Fanfare Overture' and 'Fanfare Coda'. After Adam has grown to manhood, his Fates clothe him in a costume synonymous with confident youth, appropriate for the virile, ardent 'Dance of Spring'. In the 'Approach of Autumn', Adam, now wearing a sombre costume, has grown older: his Fates have streaked grey in his hair and put lines on his face. But they had earlier raised Adam to the zenith of his power, and the 'Dance of Summer' depicts him in the prime of life, in music of sweeping grandeur. The 'Fanfare Coda' signals that the next cycle of life is about to begin.Duration: 10.30
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£15.00My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose - Helen Douthwaite
Robert Burns' beautiful melody is brought to life as a euphonium solo with brass band accompaniment in this simple, yet highly effective, arrangement by Helen Douthwaite.Originally arranged by Helen for the Kirkintilloch Youth Band, the piece not only features the soloist with a carefully crafted, accessible solo line, but also enables the rest of the band to shine through the tutti elements.Set includes score and parts for:Solo CornetRepiano Cornet2nd Cornet3rd CornetFlugelhornSolo Eb Tenor Horn1st Eb Tenor Horn2nd Eb Tenor Horn1st Baritone2nd Baritone1st Trombone2nd TromboneBass TromboneEuphoniumEb BassBb Bass (optional)GlockenspielPercussionAdditional world parts also provided include F Horn 1/2/3, Baritone 1/2 in bass clef, Trombone 1/2 in bass clef, Euphonium in bass clef, Tuba.
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 3-5 working days
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£42.00The Essence of Time (Score only) - Peter Graham
The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3 commences: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven; a time to be born; a time to dance; a time to love; a time to hate; a time to die; a time to mourn; a time for war; a time for peace. These extracts are each represented by a variation, or part variation, which attempt a musical portrayal of the individual characteristics of the moods of the activities listed. The 'essence' is for the interpreter and listener to decide. Duration: 13:00
Estimated dispatch 7-9 working days
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£52.00The Essence of Time (Parts only) - Peter Graham
The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3 commences: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven; a time to be born; a time to dance; a time to love; a time to hate; a time to die; a time to mourn; a time for war; a time for peace. These extracts are each represented by a variation, or part variation, which attempt a musical portrayal of the individual characteristics of the moods of the activities listed. The 'essence' is for the interpreter and listener to decide. Duration: 13:00
Estimated dispatch 7-9 working days
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£42.00The Lord is King! (Score only) - Philip Wilby
The Lord is King! for baritone solo, Chorus, Organ (ad lib.) and brass band was rst performed by the North Yorkshire Chorus with the Grimethorpe Colliery Band in 1999. It is also available with solo trumpet and organ accompaniment. It is made up of three colourful song settings: The Trumpet, Come Down, O Love Divine, and Psalm 96.
Estimated dispatch 7-9 working days
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£52.00The Lord is King! (Parts only) - Philip WIlby
The Lord is King! for baritone solo, Chorus, Organ (ad lib.) and brass band was rst performed by the North Yorkshire Chorus with the Grimethorpe Colliery Band in 1999. It is also available with solo trumpet and organ accompaniment. It is made up of three colourful song settings: The Trumpet, Come Down, O Love Divine, and Psalm 96.
Estimated dispatch 7-9 working days
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£42.00The Seasons (Score only) - Philip Wilby
Composer Philip Wilby writes... "The music of this little suite of pieces traces the year's change; from a cold, late autumn to an indoor winter; though a spring waltz to a final open-air march. My aim was to provide music which is both enjoyable to rehearse and perform but not forbiddingly difficult to play". The work's popularity among brass bands the world over suggests that he hit the nail on the head - audiences love it, too!
Estimated dispatch 7-9 working days
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£52.00The Seasons (Parts only) - Philip WIlby
Composer Philip Wilby writes... "The music of this little suite of pieces traces the year's change; from a cold, late autumn to an indoor winter; though a spring waltz to a final open-air march. My aim was to provide music which is both enjoyable to rehearse and perform but not forbiddingly difficult to play". The work's popularity among brass bands the world over suggests that he hit the nail on the head - audiences love it, too!
Estimated dispatch 7-9 working days
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£22.00Journey of the Lone Wolf (Brass Band - Score only)
Championship Section Test Piece for the 2016 National Finals of the British Brass Band Championship.The Lone Wolf of the title is the great Hungarian composer and folklorist Bla Bartok. Bartok's journey took him from the hills of the Balkans to the heart of the new world. His singular vision may have meant a life out in the cold, a life without warmth and love, a life without true happiness, a death mourned by a few in a strange land.The first of the three linked movements is capturing the Peasants' Song and follows the young Bartok and fellow composer Zoltan Kolday as they embark on Summertime adventures through the Hungarian countryside to collect and catalogue the astonishing variety of Gypsy and folk music heard in the Balkan hills. The arrival of WW1 plunges Bartok's beloved Hungary into chaos.Bartok was at times a cold man, aloof and lonely. The occasional moments of tenderness he showed are portrayed in Night Music. His brief but intense affairs speak of a love he could only long for. Jazz is my night music and here there are hints of what Bartok may have heard in the USA later in his life.Having been forced by the world's evils to leave his homeland of Hungary for America Bartok, the anti-fascist, felt isolated and angry. In the finale, Flight and Fight, we hear his longing for a simpler time of Gypsy folk dances as well as his maturity and depth as a composer finally exploring deeper colours and darker themes.Duration: 15.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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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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