Results
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£129.99Extreme Make-Over - Johan de Meij
The work, set as the test-piece for the 2005 European Brass Band Championships was inspired by a theme from the second movement of Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No.1 (Andante Cantabile). It consists of a number of musical metamorphoses on the theme and includes several excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Fourth and Sixth Symphonies and Romeo and Juliet. The most unconventional element of the work is instrumentation for ten tuned bottles to be played by members of the Cornet section. This gives the piece an Indonesian Gamelan effect. Why not give your players something to get their teeth into with this impressive major new work.
Estimated dispatch 5-14 working days
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£35.00Bolero - Maurice Ravel arr. Phillip Littlemore
Ravel's one-movement orchestral piece Bolero was written in 1928. It epitomises Ravel's preoccupation with restyling and reinventing dance movements. It was also one of the last pieces he composed before illness forced him into retirement. The original version has a duration of between 15 and 18 minutes, depending on the tempo set by the conductor. This brass band arrangement is significantly shorter, lasting a mere 4 minutes or so. There is also an 'extra' ending, similar to that used in the musical sensation Blast! which almost guarantees additional applause at a concert!Duration: c.4'30"Dofficulty: 3rd Section and above
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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£30.00Humming Chorus - Giacomo Puccini arr. Phillip Littlemore
In Puccini's opera, Madam Butterfly, the Coro a bocca chiusa (Humming Chorus) is performed by an off-stage chorus which hums a wordless, melancholy tune, whilst Butterfly, her maid Suzuki, and her child begin the long wait for husband Pinkerton to return after many years away. As night falls, Suzuki and the child are soon asleep, but Butterfly keeps her vigil. This arrangement features four flugel horns, each of which plays into the bell of a bass whilst the bass player moves the valves - creating a unique humming sound.Puccini actually wrote five versions of the opera, Madam Butterfly. After a disastrous premiere in early 1904, Puccini withdrew the opera and substantially rewrote it creating a very successful second version. However, he continued to tinker with the orchestration, not being satisfied until the fifth, and now standard, version dating from 1907.Duration: c.2'40"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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£35.00William Tell Overture - Finale
The overture to Rossini's opera William Tell is a fairly large scale work in four sections and lasting some twelve minutes. However, it is the Finale of the overture which is one of the most iconic pieces of music. This March of the Swiss Soldiers is a dynamic cavalry charge and galop often used in popular media to denote galloping horses, a race, or a hero riding to the rescue. Its most famous use in that respect is as the theme music for the radio and TV show The Lone Ranger! It was also used to great comic effect by Spike Jones and his City Slickers and it also finds it's way into the first movement of Shostakovich's 15th Symphony.Duration: c.3'20"Difficulty: 2md Section and above
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£40.00Finale from Symphony No. 5 - Pyotr Tchaikovsky arr. Phillip Littlemore
Tchaikovsky composed his Fifth Symphony in the summer of 1888. He suggested that the opening-and recurrent-theme of the symphony represented "a complete resignation before Fate." The finale begins with a slow introduction of the 'fate' theme which segues into an Allegro Vivace of drive and energy, during which a majestic version of the fate theme periodically emerges. Finally, after a notorious "false" ending, the music courses ahead to a dramatic climax.Duration: c.7'30"Diffculty: 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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£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 5-7 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
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