Results
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£25.00Autumn Bacchanale (from The Seasons) - Alexander Glazunov
A lively, joyous item, ideal as a light interlude in any concert and especially appropriate for late season/Christmas themed events with its jaunty, positive sounds. Sue Hopkins has shown great creativity in crafting this arrangement of Glazunov's 'Autumn' movement, a bacchanale from his ballet The Seasons, hence its fondly referenced title of Autumn Bacchanale.Alexander Glazunov (1865 - 1936) was a Russian composer, music teacher and conductor. He was a child prodigy and was taught privately byRimsky-Korsakov, who said Glazunov's musical progress did not increase day by day but hour by hour. He began composing at age eleven and wrote his first symphony at age 16 in 1881 and it was premiered one year later.His ballet The Seasonswas first performed by the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg on 20 February 1900 and was choreographed by Marius Petipa.It was written in one act and four scenes, and this piece represents the moment when all The Seasons take part in a glorious dance while leaves from autumn trees rain upon their merriment.
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 3-5 working days
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£30.00Janacek's 'Taras Bulba' - Janacek
Comments from Tim Paton, the arranger of Janacek's 'Taras Bulba': "I will never forget the day in 1967 when I was introduced to the music of Leos Janacek, a Czech composer born in 1854, who died in 1928. Janacek was little known in Britain until the 1960's, when the conductor Charles Macherras introduced his unique music. I heard a recording of Macherras conducting the Pro Arte Orchestra in a performance of Janacek's "Sinfonietta".It was in 1969 that I first heard Janacek's Symphonic Rhapsody, "Taras Bulba".Janacek's music is exciting, powerful, emotive, impassioned and unpredictable.I have taken the first and third movements of this piece, and adapted them for Brass Band, which was at times extremely difficult, but rewarding. It sometimes took up to an hour to be satisfied that a mere several bars had been reproduced to convey the composer's intentions.The Death of AndriThe Cossaks, under the leadership of Taras Bulba, are fighting against the Poles in the 17th century. Taras's son Andri seeks to rescue his love, a Polish princess, from a city which is being besieged by the Cossaks. Having found her, he throws in his lot with the Poles, but is finally captured by his father, who executes him as a traitor before riding off again to battle.Prophesy and Death of Taras BulbaTaras himself is finally captured and condemned to be nailed to a tree and burned alive. As the flames creep around him, Taras has the satisfaction of seeing histroops escape, and as he dies, sees a vision of his country freed at last.This is incredibly descriptive music. The mood is constantly changing, creating feelings of love and anger, celebration and melancholy, despair and triumph.This Brass Band EditionThe duration of the original symphonic rhapsody, three movements, is approximately 23 minutes. I chose the first and third movements, so the Brass Band edition is approximately 14 minutes. The main reason is twofold: Being realistic about the demands this music would place on the stamina of the brass player; Keeping the piece less than 15 minutes, so that, if desired, it could be used on the contest platform.Two unique qualities of Janacek's music had to be taken into account when preparing this brass band version. His compositional technique was individual, at times not sticking to traditional expectations, in both form and orchestration. I imagined what the genius himself would have said looking at my work, and how to tackle a particular section to emulate his original intentions. This was particularly the case when dealing with high woodwind and violin parts, the use of tremolo in string parts, and the orchestral harp.Percussion: Janacek included timpani, side drum, cymbals, triangle and tubular bells. For reasons stated previously, I have also included xylophone and glockenspiel. I have also added the gong in a couple of places to enhance the dramatic effect of the music.
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 3-5 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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£30.00Os 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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£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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£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 5-7 working days
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£40.00Finale from Symphony No. 4 - Pyotr Tchaikovsky arr. Phillip Littlemore
Tchaikovsky began work on his Symphony No.4 in F minor in the early part of 1877, about the time he began his relationship with his long-term benefactor Nadezhda von Meck. The bulk of the composition was completed by the May of that year, although Tchaikovsky's hastily arranged marriage in the following July to Antonina Miliukova put further work on hold for a while.He returned to working on the symphony in the latter half of the same year, agonising over the orchestration of the much meatier first movement, yet finding the following movements less taxing. The Finale itself erupts with a fortissimo explosion before giving way to the Russian folk song, The Little Birch Tree , which offers much of the thematic material for the movement, until the return of the 'fate' theme from the opening of the symphony itself, which acts as a disturbing presence amongst the more carnival atmosphere of an otherwise buoyant Finale.Duration: 6'00"Difficulty: 2nd Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£30.00Ave Maria - Franz Schubert arr. Phillip Littlemore
Franz Schubert wrote his Ave Maria in 1825. It is the third of three song settings from Sir Walter Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake, itself written in 1810. It's proper title is Ellen's Song, named after the heroine of Scott's poem, Ellen Douglas.It has been suggested that the opening two words of the original song may have led to the idea of it being arranged for the full text of the Roman Catholic Prayer. It is now most often performed in this latter adaptation, thus leading to the misconception that it was originally set with the prayer in mind.Even in Schubert's own brief lifetime, he was only thirty-one when he died, this song was considered a masterpiece. It acquired greater popularity when it was used in the 1940 Walt Disney film Fantasia where its beauty and simplicity offered calm and respite following the tempestuous strains of Mussorgsky's A Night on Bare Mountain .Duration: 3'40"Difficulty: Suitable for all
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£30.00Carol of the Bells - Mykola Leontovych arr. Phillip Littlemore
This popular Christmas piece was composed by Mykola Leontovych around 1916. It is based on a Ukrainian folk chant known as 'Shchedryk', a New Year's carol. However, it was not until after the composer's death in 1921 that it was first introduced to Western audiences, when the Ukrainian National Choir included it on their tour of Europe and the Americas that same year. The film composer John Williams incorporated it into the score for the 1990 film Home Alone and he is credited for bringing it to a wider audience still, although it had been released on Christmas albums by a number of popular artists before that.This transcription for brass band has been adapted from the version created by Robert Prizeman, who arranged it for Libera, the world famous boys choir that he founded. Their unique, enchanting and, some say, heavenly sound delights audiences throughout the world through extensive concerts, recording and TV broadcasts. This brass band transcription introduces this skilled arrangement to a new genre and a whole new audience as well. A video of this arrangement can be found here: Carol of the BellsDuration: 3'00"Difficulty: Suitable for all
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days