Results
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£45.00Cuban Overture - George Gershwin arr. Phillip Littlemore
Originally entitled Rumba, the Cuban Overture was a was written some time following a two-week holiday which Gershwin took in Havana in February 1932. The overture is dominated by Caribbean rhythms and Cuban native percussion, with a wide spectrum of instrumental colour and technique. It is a rich and exciting work with complexity and sophistication, illustrating the influence of Cuban music and dance. Although it received it's premiere under the title Rumba, it was renamed Cuban Overture three months later at a benefit concert conducted by Gershwin at the Metropolitan Opera to avoid giving audience the idea that it was simply a novelty item. The new title provided, as the composer stated, "a more just idea of the character and intent of the music".Duration: 6'20"Difficulty: 1st Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-9 working days
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£30.00Jerusalem - C. Hubert H. Parry arr. Phillip Littlemore
Sir Hubert Parry wrote the music to the hymn Jerusalem in 1916, during the gloom of World War I. It uses William Blake's poem And Did Those Feet In Ancient Times which itself was written around 1804, and first published in 1808.Parry's hymn was originally written for the 'Fight for Right' movement, formed to sustain the resolve of Britain during the Great War. The hymn received its premiere on the 28th March 1916 in the Queen's Hall, London at a 'Fight for Right' meeting. In 1917, Parry conducted it for the ladies of the Albert Hall choir as part of a call in favour of National Service for Women. This signalled a closer relationship with the women's suffrage movement which Parry and his wife, Maude, supported. A year later, Jerusalem was sung at a suffrage demonstration concert and was adopted by the Women's' Institute as their anthem in 1924.There are regular calls for the hymn to be adopted as the official National Anthem of England, but this is not new. The first such call can be traced back to the centenary of Blake's death in 1927 and the call continues undimmed to this present day. This brass band arrangement is based on Parry's original orchestration from 1916.Duration: 2'20"Difficulty: Suitable for all grades
Estimated dispatch 5-9 working days
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£35.00Pomp & CIrcumstance March No.1 - Edward Elgar arr. Phillip Littlemore
Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1 was completed in July 1901 although the 'big tune' actually dates from earlier in that same year. It was premiered in Liverpool by its dedicatees, the Liverpool Orchestral Society, on the 19th October. It was repeated in London a few days later by Henry Wood at the Promenade concerts and the result was sensational, the audience roared its applause, and refused to allow the concert to continue. In order to restore order, Wood conducted the march three times - the only time in the history of the Promenade concerts that an orchestral item was accorded a double encore in Wood's lifetime.Now a staple of the 'Last Night of the Proms', where it always manages a partial encore, and a fitting item for any such themed concerts. This new arrangement recreates the colour from the original orchestral version.A video of this arrangement can be found here: Pomp & Circumstance March No.1Duration: c.6''00"Diffculty: 3rd Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-9 working days
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£35.00Symphonic Dance No.3 - Sergei Rachmaninov arr. Phillip Littlemore
Completed in 1940, the set of Symphonic Dances was Sergei Rachmaninov's last composition. The work is fully representative of the composer's late style with its curious, shifting harmonies, the almost Prokofiev-like outer movements and the focus on individual instrumental tone colours throughout. Rachmaninov composed the Symphonic Dances four years after his Third Symphony, mostly at the Honeyman Estate, 'Orchard Point', in Centerport, New York, overlooking Long Island Sound. The three-movement work's original name was Fantastic Dances, with movement titles of 'Noon', 'Twilight' and 'Midnight'. When the composer wrote to the conductor Eugene Ormandy in late August, he said that the piece was finished and needed only to be orchestrated, but the manuscript for the full score actually bears completion dates of September and October 1940. It was premiered by Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, to whom it is dedicated, on 3rd January, 1941.This arrangement is of the last dance and is a kind of struggle between the Dies Irae theme, representing Death, and a quotation from Rachmaninov's own Vespers (also known as the All-night Vigil, 1915), representing Resurrection. The Resurrection theme proves victorious in the end as the composer actually wrote the word 'Hallelujah' at the relevant place the score (one bar after Fig. 16 in this arrangement). Duration: 3'45"Diffiuclty: 2nd Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-9 working days
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£40.00Finale from Symphony No. 1 - Sergei Rachmaninov arr. Phillip Littlemore
Rachmaninov composed his First Symphony in 1895, at the age of just 22 years. It received its first performance on March 27, 1897, at a Russian Symphony Society concert in St. Petersburg with Alexander Glazunov conducting. The premiere was not well-received, and Rachmaninov himself blamed Glazunov for a lacklustre approach for beating time rather than finding the music. Some contemporary reports even suggested that Glazunov was inebriated when he took to the stage!Despite the disappointment of the premiere performance, Rachmaninov never destroyed the score but left it behind when he left Russia to settle in the West, eventually it was given up for lost. After the composer's death, a two-piano transcription of the symphony surfaced in Moscow, followed by a set of orchestral parts at the conservatory in Saint Petersburg. In March 1945, the symphony was performed in Moscow for the first time since its 1897 premiere. It was a grand success, and this led to a new and more enthusiastic evaluation of the symphony. In March 1948 it received a similarly successful American premiere and the work proceeded to establish itself in the general repertory.The final movement (Allegro con fuoco) is colourful and grand but not without its darkly contrasting, menacing episodes that intensifies its malevolence. It is a work overflowing with ideas demonstrating a strong, highly individual, and self-assured young talent.Duration: 5'40"Difficulty: 2nd Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-9 working days
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£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 5-9 working days
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£55.00Second Suite in F - Gustav Holst arr. Phillip Littlemore
Gustav Holst's Second Suite in F was composed in 1911, two years after the first suite, yet like his first suite it didn't receive its premiere until many years later, on 30th June 1922, at Royal Albert Hall in London and performed by band of The Military School of Music.The Suite uses English folk songs and folk dance tunes throughout. The opening march movement uses three tunes: a lively Morris Dance called Glorishears, the folk song Swansea Town and finally Cloudy Banks. The first two tunes are repeated to conclude the first movement. The second movement is a setting of I'll Love My Love, a sad story of a young maiden driven into Bedlam by grief over her lover being sent to sea by his parents to prevent their marriage. The Song of the Blacksmith follows with a lively hammer rhythms and the score actually asks for a blacksmith's anvil. The final movement is a fantasia based on the 16th Century English country-dance, The Dargason, with the Elizabethan love-song Greensleeves intertwined. This is a new brass band arrangement that has a lighter texture to that made by Sydney Herbert, restoring it to the original key of F and including sectioned omitted from the 1923 arrangement.Duration: c. 12 minutesDifficulty: 2nd Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-9 working days
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£40.00Three Christmas Portraits - Philip Doe
A delightful suite of three Christmas carols expertly adapted by Philip Doe. This suite of three pieces open with Christmas Day, a dainty and light opening that shows the more delicate aspects of brass playing. The centre piece is a new version of The Coventry Carol, which open with a first verse rendition for quartet before developing a more baroque-style treatment that sits over an ostinato bass line. The movement reaches its climax with flourishes from the cornets leading to a rendition of the carol at fortissimo an d treated with slightly altered harmonies before coming to rest with the opening quartet delivering the tierce de Picardie. The final movement is I Saw Three Ships, with handy interjections of several other carols make for a rousing climax to a enjoyable set of three Christmas portraits.Duration: 6'20"Diffiulty: Suitable for all grades
Estimated dispatch 5-9 working days
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£25.00O Mio Babbino Caro - vocal solo (Giacomo Puccini arr. Phillip Littlemore
O Mio Babbino Caro (Oh My Dear Papa) is taken from the opera Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini. It is sung by Schicchi's daughter, Lauretta. after tensions between Schicchi and his prospective in-laws have reached a breaking point that threaten to separate her from Rinuccio, the boy she loves.The story of Gianni Schicchi concerns a rich old man who dies leaving all his possessions to the local monastery. His outraged relatives agree to Gianni Schicchi impersonating the dead man so that he can dictate a new will. In doing so, Schicchi manages to bequeath himself the dead man's most hotly contested possessions - his mule, his house and his mills. This means that Schicchi can now provide a full dowry to enable his daughter to marry. It is the second opera of Puccini's operatic triptych, which also includes Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica .Duration: c.2'00"Grade: Suitable for all
Estimated dispatch 5-9 working days
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£40.00Legends of Cyfarthfa - Matthew Hall
Legends of CyfarthfaCombining the music of Joseph Parry and the legendary Cyfarthfa Band, Legends of Cyfarthfa is a technically challenging but musically rewarding concert work. Robert Crawshay owned the Cyfarthfa Ironworks in South Wales creating a business empire second to none.Cyfarthfa Castle was built by Crawshay as the family home from the income made via the ironworks. He wanted his own private band to play under the name of the ironworks with the best players in the world, playing on the highest quality instruments at the time. Employing the band members under the guise of iron workers, the Cyfarthfa Band was made up of virtuoso players, performing for the pleasure of the Crawshay dynasty.This virtuosity can be heard in some of the more technically challenging sections of Legends of Cyfarthfa. Joseph Parry was born in Cyfarthfa.He composed the first piece of music specifically written for brass band called Tydfil Overture for the Cyfarthfa Band, alongside many other memorable works for other instrumentation.Legends of Cyfarthfa incorporates many of Parry's works including his opera Blodwen, hymn tune Aberystwyth, folk melody Myfanwy and the Tydfil Overture, alongside many other melodies from Wales. Sospanfach, Men of Harlech, Lisa Lan and Calon Lan are just a number of the melodies that are used in this composition.The premiere performance was given by Tredegar Town Band under the direction of Ian Porthouse at the 2010 Brass in Concert Championships where it was awarded the Cyril Beere Memorial Trophy for Best New Composition or Arrangement.https://matthew-hall.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/05-Legends-Of-Cyfarthfa.mp3Legends of Cyfarthfa
Estimated dispatch 5-9 working days