Results
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£30.00Fairy Garden, The - Maurice Ravel arr. Phillip Littlemore
Ravel wrote his five short piano pieces entitled Ma Mere l'Oye (Mother Goose) for two young children, Mimie and Jean Godeski in 1910. The suite invites us to the enchanted world of childhood through these five atmospheric tales. The final part of Ravel's suite is a grand finale, although where Ravel got his inspiration for the fairy garden is unknown. Whatever its origin, it certainly is a delightful piece of music - slow in tempo, quiet to start, with rich harmonies and delicate solos, all leading to a tumultuous climax.Duration: 3'00"Difficulty: Suitable for all grades
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£25.00GymnopA(c)die No.1 - Erik Satie arr. Phillip Littlemore
Erik Satie's Gymnopedies is a series of three short piano pieces that were first published in 1888. These atmospheric pieces, all written in 3/4 time and sharing a common theme and structure, are recognised the world over and are his most famous compositions.Gymnopedie No.1 is divided into two almost identical parts, with a steady accompanying rhythm of crotchet-minim, crotchet-minim (short-long, short-long) that remains constant throughout - with the exception of the last two bars of each part! This gently lilting background supports an expressive melodic line which creates the occasional dissonance, yet seems impressively tension free.Duration: 3'10" Difficulty: Suitable for all grades
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£30.00I Vow To The, My Country - Gustav Holst/Geoff Knorr arr. Phillip Littlemore
Gustav Holst wrote his suite The Planets during the early years of the first world war. The expansive movement, Jupiter, contained a tune that Holst later used to set the poem by Cecil Spring-Rice, I Vow To Thee, My Country. Originally set for unison voices with orchestra, Holst adapted it as a hymn tune and called it Thaxted, named after the village where he lived for many years.The American composer, Geoff Knorr, incorporated Holst's music into his score for the strategy-based video game Civilisation V, where it is used to depict the England of Elizabeth I. It is from this music that this transcription is made.Although originally written in 1908 and entitled Urbs Dei, Spring-Rice revisited the text of his poem in January 1918 and significantly altered both the first and second verses to reflect his feelings about the war, and those that gave the ultimate sacrifice. He also renamed the poem with the title we know today. Because of its sentiment, it has now become a staple of Remembrance services.A video of this arrangement can be found here: I Vow To Thee, My CountryDuration: 5'40"Difficulty: Suitable for all
Estimated dispatch 5-7 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 5-7 working days
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£40.00Mars, The Bringer of War - Gustav Holst arr. Phillip Littlemore
Holst first became interested in astrology around 1912/13 and so began the gestation for a series of pieces that would ultimately become the suite The Planets.The suite itself was written between 1914 and 1916 and with the exception of Mercury, which was written last, Holst wrote the music in the sequence we now know them, and thus did not present the inner planets of Mercury, Venus and Mars in their planetary order. So, in 1914, came the insistent rhythmic tread of Mars, The Bringer of War. It is widely known that the sketches were completed prior to the outbreak of the First World War, so the music is less a reaction the the declaration of war itself, but more an impending sense of inevitability of a war to unfold. Even though Holst would not have known whether war would be declared as he wrote the music, it is almost certain that the news at the time would have had some influence on the music itself. Its insistent 5/4 rhythm, coupled with the winding melody line, the juxtaposition of keys such as D flat and C major all point to a sense of foreboding.Duration: 7'20"Difficulty: 2nd Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£35.00Pomp & Circumstance March No.4 - Edward Elgar arr. Phillip Littlemore
Pomp & Circumstance March No. 4 was completed in June 1907, shortly after his fiftieth birthday. Like the first, it contains an equally impressive 'big tune' in the trio section, but it also matches No.1 in that it has a lively, rhythmic march element to envelope it.Unlike No.1 though, Elgar cleverly superimposes one on top of the other for the final, extended coda. Several attempts have been made to fit words to the main tune, the first of which were by the composer's wife, Alice, for her song The King's Way to celebrate the opening of a road in London. The music was then set to Alfred Noye's Song of Victory before a later attempt to make a patriotic Song of Liberty for World War II by the author A P Herbert.Duration: 4'50"Difficulty: 3rd Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£60.00Suite from 49th Parallel - Ralph Vaughan Williams arr. Phillip Littlemore
Vaughan Williams was in his late sixties when an opportunity to write for the cinema materialised. He was approached by his former pupil Muir Mathieson, the director of music for the Ministry of Information, to write the score for the film 49th Parallel .The plot for 49th Parallel is set in the early part of World War II, when a German U-Boat sinks allied shipping in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and then tries to evade capture by the Canadian Military by sailing up to Hudson Bay. A handful of crew disembark to look for supplies and no sooner have they reached shore when the U-Boat is spotted by the Canadian Armed Forces and sunk. Leaving the shore party stranded in Canada they have no other option but to head for the neutral United States and, as their ill-fated journey unfolds, they meet a variety of characters whom they alienate due to their reprehensible actions. They These include a pacifist in the Canadian wilds played by Leslie Howard, a Hutterite leader, and a French-Canadian fur trapper, played by Laurence Olivier. The film premiered in the UK in October 1941 and in March 1942 for the US, when it was retitled The Invaders .The brass band suite to 49th Parallel, devised by Paul Hindmarsh and arranged by Phillip Littlemore, takes the Prologue from the cinematic score as its starting point. Stretches of pastoral musical themes depict the Canadian landscape before the atmosphere is broken with a menacing rendition, albeit briefly, of the Lutheran chorale Ein Feste Burg depicting the surfacing of the German U-Boat in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This gives way to the mechanical, jaunty section Control Room Alert with its persistent drive and energy. A brief interlude of The Lake in the Mountains leads into the most recognised piece of music of from the film, the Prelude, which accompanied both the opening and closing credits, and adds a most fitting conclusion to this suite.The suite has been recorded by the Tredegar Town Band, under their musical director Ian Porthouse, on the Albion Records CD Vaughan Williams on Brass
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£40.00Carmen Suite - Georges Bizet arr. Phillip Littlemore
Incredible as it seems today, Bizet's opera Carmen was met with a lukewarm reception at its premiere at the Paris Opera-Comique in 1875; critics condemned its subject matter as lurid and its music overly Wagnerian, and it ran for a mere 37 performances. Bizet died with a few days of it opening at the tragically early age of just thirty-six. Now hailed as the composer's supreme achievement, this colourful, passionate work continues to delight listeners around the world with its emotional, atmospheric music and the originality of its conception. Two orchestral suites were created in the latter part of the 19th Century each containing six pieces.This brass band arrangement brings together three of these pieces, the Aragonaise , the Habanera and Les Toreadors .Duration: c.7'00"Difficulty: 3rd Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-7 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 5-7 working days
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£40.00Dragons' Rise - Matthew Hall
Dragons' Rise was commissioned by the Tredegar Town Band in July 2008 for their CD recording Spirit of the Valleys, to represent the band beginning their resurrection from a difficult time in the bands history back through to becoming on of the best bands in the world. It was premiered by the Tredegar Town Band at the National Eisteddfod contest in Cardiff in August 2008, performed live on national television, where the band were victorious.Dragons' Rise was the first piece composed by Matthew as the bands new composer-in-residence. Subsequent pieces have included Legends of Cyfarthfa and Nightingale Dances, both winners of the Cyril Beere award for Best New Composition at Brass in Concert, The Smile and Activate.
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days