Results
-
£59.99
Ave Verum Corpus - Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar (1857-1934) originally composed this work in 1887, as a Pie Jesu, when he was an organist in the St George's Church in Worcester. Years later, in 1902, he transformed the Pie Jesu into an Ave Verum for soprano and tenor solo, mixed choir and organ. This excellent arrangement was created by Robert van Beringen and skilfully retains the wonderful atmosphere of the original composition.
Estimated dispatch 5-14 working days
-
£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
-
£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
-
£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
-
£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
-
£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
-
£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
-
£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
-
£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
-
£25.00One Fine Day - vocal solo
One Fine Day is the most famous aria from the opera Madam Butterfly. It comes at the beginning of Act II, which is set three years after the action of Act I. Pinkerton, Butterfly's husband, a US Naval Officer has returned to the sea after their wedding. In this aria, she sings about the day he will return, seeing the ship appear on the horizon, then seeing it enter the harbour. When he arrives, they will be reunited for ever.Duration: c.3'00"Grade: Suitable for all
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
View Music