Results
-
£55.00Ancient Airs and Dances - Ottorino Respighi arr. Phillip Littlemore
Ancient Airs and Dances is a set of three orchestral suites written in 1917, 1924 and 1932 respectively. In each, Respighi borrows melodic material from the 16th and 17th centuries, and then applies his own distinct voice to create something at once new and old. This arrangement takes four separate movements from two of the three sets. Balletto detto "Il Conte Orlando" by Simone Molinaro, was a popular piece from the beginning of the 17th century. Its noble rhythmic gestures in the opening and closing sections are answered by a more reflective mood in the middle. Gagliarda, by Vincenzo Galilei (father of the famous astronomer) was originally called Polymnia, after one of the muses of song. Arie di Corte (Courtly Airs), is based on a set of songs by Jean-Baptiste Besard, where sprightlier dances are enveloped by a stately dance. The finale is a clever alternation of two anonymous dances of the late 16th century. There are several variations on a passa-mezzo with interjections of a mascherada. The suite arrives at a brilliant finish with the mascherada's fanfare theme.A recording of this work can be found here: Ancient Airs and Dances.Duration: c. 9'30"Grade: 4th Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
-
£29.95Mozart Variations - Euphonium Solo (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
The main theme of this music comes from Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, a very well-known melody which is sometimes associated with sacred words. It is a beautiful tune which lends itself to variation treatment including these very light-hearted examples. While working on this music, the composer had the idea of incorporating references to other well-known Mozart themes, again, with a rather tongue-in-cheek approach. The result is a high-spirited, flamboyant solo that will be fun to play and to listen to.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
-
£14.95
Mozart Variations - Euphonium Solo (Brass Band - Score Only)
The main theme of this music comes from Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, a very well-known melody which is sometimes associated with sacred words. It is a beautiful tune which lends itself to variation treatment including these very light-hearted examples. While working on this music, the composer had the idea of incorporating references to other well-known Mozart themes, again, with a rather tongue-in-cheek approach. The result is a high-spirited, flamboyant solo that will be fun to play and to listen to.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
-
£19.95Mozart Variations (Euphonium and Piano)
The main theme of this music comes from Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, a very well-known melody which is sometimes associated with sacred words. It is a beautiful tune which lends itself to variation treatment including these very light-hearted examples. While working on this music, the composer had the idea of incorporating references to other well-known Mozart themes, again, with a rather tongue-in-cheek approach. The result is a high-spirited, flamboyant solo that will be fun to play and to listen to.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
-
£29.95Mozart Variations - Euphonium Solo (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
The main theme of this music comes from Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, a very well-known melody which is sometimes associated with sacred words. It is a beautiful tune which lends itself to variation treatment including these very light-hearted examples. While working on this music, the composer had the idea of incorporating references to other well-known Mozart themes, again, with a rather tongue-in-cheek approach. The result is a high-spirited, flamboyant solo that will be fun to play and to listen to.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
-
£107.95Symphony in Two Movements (Brass Band - Score and Parts) - Gregson, Edward
This 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
-
£57.95Symphony in Two Movements (Brass Band - Score only) - Gregson, Edward
This 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
-
£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
-
£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
-
£82.95The Flowers of the Forest (Brass Band - Score and Parts) - Bennett, Richard Rodney - Hindmarsh, Paul
In a preface to the score, the composer explains that 'the folk song The Flowers of the Forest is believed to date from 1513, the time if the battle of Flodden, in the course of which the archers of the Forest (a part of Scotland) were killed almost to a man'. Bennett had already used the same tune in his Six Scottish Folksongs (1972) for soprano, tenor and piano, and it is the arrangement he made then that forms the starting-point for the brass-band piece. A slow introduction (Poco Adagio) presents the folk song theme three times in succession - on solo cornet, on solo cornets and tenor horns, and on muted ripieno cornets in close harmony - after which the work unfolds through five sections and a coda. Although played without a break, each of these five sections has its own identity, developing elements of the tune somewhat in the manner of variations, but with each arising from and evolving into the next. The first of these sections (Con moto, tranquillo) is marked by an abrupt shift of tonality, and makes much of the slow rises and falls characteristic of the tune itself. The tempo gradually increases, to arrive at a scherzando section (Vivo) which includes the first appearance of the theme in its inverted form. A waltz-like trio is followed by a brief return of the scherzando, leading directly to a second, more extended, scherzo (con brio) based on a lilting figure no longer directly related to the theme. As this fades, a single side drum introduces an element of more overtly martial tension (Alla Marcia) and Bennett says that, from this point on, he was thinking of Debussy's tribute to the memory of an unknown soldier (in the second movement of En Blanc et noir, for two pianos). Bennett's march gradually gathers momentum, eventually culminating in a short-lived elegiac climax (Maestoso) before the music returns full-circle to the subdued melancholy of the opening. The work ends with a haunting pianissimo statement of the original tune.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
View Music