Results
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£35.00March to the Scaffold - Hector Berlioz arr. Phillip Littlemore
The March to the Scaffold is the fourth of five movements from Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. The symphony tells the story of a troubled young man and his quest to find his true love. This true love is depicted in the music by a melody known as a idee fixe (fixed idea) and appears in every movement.The fourth movement takes on a nightmarish character as having taken opium, the young man dreams that he has killed his true love and is about to be executed for his crime. The music is an unrelenting forced march to the scaffold. The idee fixe appears only once in this movement, as a sudden reminiscence just before the guillotine strikes the young man's head before the movement comes to an end with a perversely joyous conclusion.Duration: 4'30"Difficulty: 3rd Section and above
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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£40.00Night On Bare Mountain - Modeste Mussorgsky arr. Phillip Littlemore
Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky claimed to have been inspired by the confession of a witch who was burned at the stake in the 1660s. Bare Mountain is in fact Mount Triglav near Kiev, and the music depicts the legendary Sabbath celebrations of Russian witches held on the eve of St. John's Feast. Preliminary sketches for the piece date back as early 1858 when he was planning an opera on Gogel's tale. However, in 1867 he completed a work he called St. John's Eve of St. John's Night on Bare Mountain.Following Mussorgsky's death in 1881, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov reimagined the work and gave it the name we know today as Night on Bare Mountain. Duration: 10'00"Difficulty: First Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£30.00Os Justi - Anton Bruckner arr. Phillip Littlemore
Bruckner's four-part setting Os Justi was completed in 1879, the same year that he began work on the sixth symphony. He created an extraordinary motet in the Lydian mode, which achieves striking harmonic effects without using either a sharp or a flat. It concludes with a plainchant Alleluia.Duration: c.3'40"Difficulty: Suitable for all grades
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£30.00Pavane - Gabriel FaurA(c) arr. Phillip Littlemore
It is believed that Gabriel Faure wrote his Pavane as a piano piece in 1887, describing it as 'elegant, but not otherwise important'. He began work on the orchestral version a few months later, and scored it for modest forces, with the intention of performing it at a series of light Summer concerts that same year. At the behest of his benefactor, Elisabeth Greffulhe, he added a four-part choir, but it is rarely heard with the chorus these days. From the outset, the Pavane enjoyed great popularity. The music flows delicately and gracefully. A pulse beats gently and constantly beneath the arching melody lines, with elegant harmonic shifts and turns before the briefest of dramatic episodes. Calm is restored and the work draws to a tranquil conclusion.Duration: 5'30"Difficulty: Suitable for all grades
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£35.00Pomp & Circumstance March No.2 - Edward Elgar arr. Phillip Littlemore
Following the spectacular success of his Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1, which received over 100 performances in its first year, it was almost inevitable that Elgar would write a second. However, what is not commonly known is that the initial sketches for what was to become the Pomp & Circumstance March No. 2 were written first!Due to the successes of the first march, not least because it now features at every Prom concert, it is forgotten that not only did Elgar submit the manuscript for both marches to his publisher at the same time, but both marches were premiered at the same concert and both performed a few days later at the same Promenade Concert.Duration: 5'00"Difficulty: Suitable for all grades
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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£40.00Sorcerer's Apprentice, The - Paul Dukas arr. Phillip Littlemore
French composer Paul Dukas wrote his symphonic poem, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, between 1896 and 1897. Subtitled 'Scherzo after a ballad by Goethe', the piece was inspired by Goethe's 1797 poem of the same name. By far the most performed and recorded of Dukas' works, perhaps it's most notable appearance was in the Walt Disney animated film Fantasia from 1940, which led to the piece becoming widely known to audiences outside the classical concert hall.The original orchestral work is some 10 minutes in length, however this brass band transcription has been abridged to create a more manageable 6-minute work, yet it still retains the urgency, magic and colour of the original. Duration: 6'00"Difficulty: 2nd section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£30.00Stars and Stripes Forever, The - John Philip Sousa arr. Phillip Littlemore
The patriotic American march The Stars and Stripes Forever is the official National March of the United States of America, as decreed by a 1987 act of the U.S. Congress. It is probably Sousa's most famous composition.While on vacation in Europe with his wife, Sousa received word that his good friend and band manager, David Blakely, had died. Sousa quickly returned to the States aboard the S.S. Teutonic, and whilst aboard he began to form the music that was to become his most famous march. According to his Sousa's autobiography, Marching On, he composed the majority of the work on Christmas Day 1896: "I did not transfer a note of that music to paper while I was on the steamer, but when we reached shore, I set down the measures that my brain had been playing for me, and not a note of it has ever changed." For twenty-five years Sousa's Band played the march at almost every concert it held.Duration: 3'50"Difficulty: Suitable for all
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£35.00Voices of Spring - Johann Strauss II arr. Phillip Littlemore
Voices of Spring is one of the younger Strauss' later waltzes, and was written quite a few years later than most of his other great works. It is unusual in that it was introduced not as an instrumental work, but as a vehicle for a coloratura soprano (coloratura meaning prone to elaborate ornamentation). The worked dropped out of the repertoire fairly quickly only to emerge as one of the all-time classics once in orchestral form. It is a staple of the concerts by Andre Rieu and his orchestra.Duration: 3'45"Difficulty: 3rd Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days