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£30.00The St Louis Blues - Sandy Coffin, W C Handy
Two-Step MarchCommissioned by John Wallace, this arrangement of The St Louis Blues has been crafted by Sandy Coffin through close listening of the available recordings of the Harlem Hellfighters Band. Sandy had been heavily involved with the Historic Brass Society symposium 2017 held in New York and assisted John with his research on this fascinating band and the style of music it generated.Eye-witness accounts refer to the 369th band 'dancing' rather than 'marching'. Above all, in modern performance, finding a 'dancing beat' is crucial to a successful performance of this Ragtime march in order to do justice to the great pioneering work of James Reese Europe.Note the flutter-tonguing and use of muting, the counter-melody in soprano cornet, and the wilder and yet wilder nature of each repetition of the Chorus.Look and Listen:Background to the Harlem HellfightersThe US Army 369th Regiment, made up largely of African-Americans from New York, became known as the Harlem Hellfighters because of the heroic reputation which accrued to them during the actions they engaged in during the First World War in Europe.James Reese Europe was one of the most active African-American composer/musical directors in the pre-war American music scene. The legendary Harlem Hellfighters Band, which he assembled in 1917 from African-American and Puerto Rican musicians, came at an important transitional point in musical history. A new form of music called jazz was emerging from Ragtime and the performing style of Europe's band was immersed in the flow of this new direction.Europe's Harlem Hellfighters influenced and inspired everyone who heard them, including the welcoming crowd when they disembarked in France, bowled over by their swinging rendition of La Marseillaise. Reese Europe became a war hero, commanding a machine-gun unit as well as the band.On return from War in 1919 the band led a ticker-tape parade along Fifth Avenue in New York and soon made about 30 shellac recordings. These recordings display some of the fingerprints of their performing style: ragging, improvising, muting, wailing, smearing (their word for glissando) - and from the evidence of their recordings they took the printed page as a blueprint for individuality.In May 1919 during the Hellfighters' triumphant coast-to-coast tour after their return, James Reese Europe was tragically murdered, bringing to premature close, at the age of 39, the work of a great musical innovator.
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 3-5 working days
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£12.00Of Men and Mountains (Brass Band Study Score)
Of Men and Mountains was commissioned by the Netherlands Brass Band Championships for their 10th Anniversary Contest, held in Drachten in December 1990.The title of the work and its genesis came about as a result of a train journey the composer took in July 1989 across Canada from Toronto to Vancouver. The awe-inspiring journey through the Rocky Mountains, with its high peaks and shafts of sunlight breaking through the clouds, with its canyons and ferocious rapids, made the composer understand a little more about the majesty of nature and the fragility of humanity. The eternal struggle between man and nature was personified in the building of this incredible railway, hence the title (after Blake).The work is dedicated to the memory of Eric Ball, who died shortly before the writing of the work commenced.Of Men and Mountains is in one continuous movement and lasts about 17 mins. Its form is difficult to describe because of its motivic and accumulative nature, but it is essentially a symphonic tone poem in search of a theme, which eventually comes in its final and complete state in the majestic ending after an ever-increasing paced scherzo.Duration: 17.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£45.00The Thunderer (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
This march, one of Sousa's most popular compositions, was written in 1889 and was dedicated to the Knights Templar of Washington, D.C. Sousa had been knighted by that organization three years earlier. The origins of the name of the march are unclear and the march is noteworthy not only for Sousa's usual creative skills but also for the use, in two sections of the march, of military-style percussion and, in the last section, of featured fanfares.This arrangement was prepared for the 2009 Summer concerts of Brass Band of the Western Reserve, musical director Dr Keith M Wilkinson. The arrangement highlights the particular features mentioned above and performances will be enhanced by following the indicated staging directions.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£24.9523 - A Lament for the Victims of Enschede (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
23 was composed for Brass Band Schoonhoven, and used as part of their programme for Brass in Concert in November 2016.On the 13 th May 2000, the Netherlands was shocked by an explosion in Roombeek - a district of Enschede, near the German border - after a fire broke out at a local fireworks depot. 23 people lost their lives in the tragic events. This piece pays tribute to their memory.The numbers 2 and 3 form the basis of the piece. The use of 5/4 allows the music to flow, alternating between 2 + 3 and 3 + 2; there are frequent passages where triplet quavers clash with straight quavers; and the tuned percussion make use of a scale composed of alternating intervals of 2 and 3 semitones.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£14.9523 - A Lament for the Victims of Enschede (Score Only)
23 was composed for Brass Band Schoonhoven, and used as part of their programme for Brass in Concert in November 2016.On the 13 th May 2000, the Netherlands was shocked by an explosion in Roombeek - a district of Enschede, near the German border - after a fire broke out at a local fireworks depot. 23 people lost their lives in the tragic events. This piece pays tribute to their memory.The numbers 2 and 3 form the basis of the piece. The use of 5/4 allows the music to flow, alternating between 2 + 3 and 3 + 2; there are frequent passages where triplet quavers clash with straight quavers; and the tuned percussion make use of a scale composed of alternating intervals of 2 and 3 semitones.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£64.95Platform to the Heavens
The piece takes its inspiration from the mountain ranges from one of my favourite countries, Switzerland.I have visited the Swiss Alps on many occasions and I am still taken back by its sheer awesome beauty with every visit. This commission gave me the opportunity to pay homage to this wonderful landscape and paint my own musical picture of it.The piece opens with what I imagine daybreak would be like at one of its many peaks. With the sun growing behind the mountain range, the piece builds from a single note to a huge climatic chord revealing Mother Nature's creation.Then at rehearsal figure 'C' the tempo changes dramatically as we fly through the many slopes of the mountains as if on a manic skiing expedition, revealing the many dangers within the Swiss Alps.The twists, turns and climaxes begin to die away as we enter rehearsal figure 'M' - nightfall over the mountains. As the sun disappears, the sky darkens to reveal the beautiful starlit sky above the mountain range. This middle section starts with the various cadenzas that serve as echoes around the Alps. It then leads to a lyrical solo at rehearsal figure 'O' as the moonlight illuminates the icy mountain peaks. A final cadenza to conclude this section highlights the end of nightfall as the sun starts to rise again.This recapitulation from the opening, signals a new dawn as the sun rises above the snowy peaks once again. The music at this point in its slightly altered state highlights the dawn of a new day in the Alps. The fast manic ski ride follows which takes the piece to its grand finale conclusion.The idea behind the title of this piece is that the Swiss Alps are so beautiful and vast; I can only imagine that they could be a platform connecting the earth to the heavens above.Paul Lovatt-Cooper
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£34.95The Southern Cross (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
The Southern Cross is one of several excellent marches by Brian Bowen in which he carried on the more sophisticated pattern of British marches by Wilfred Heaton, Leslie Condon and Ray Steadman-Allen. It was written for the Box Hill (Australia) Corps jubilee celebrations in 1970 and formed part of the band's repertoire when it toured Great Britain in the same year. The first half of the march features part of the song, 'March on!' by Klaus Ostby, an early pioneer of Salvation Army music in Scandinavia. The contrapuntal layering of melodies in the trio, especially in the finale where 'March on!' sounds one more triumphant time, is notable, as is the shift to a slower, more stately tempo. The harmonic and rhythmic style also represents the more modern sounds of Salvation Army brass band music in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Right from the opening gestures, listeners at early performances knew that a page had turned in the evolution of the Salvation Army march.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£34.95Fanfare of Joy (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Based on 'Joy to the World' and 'The First Nowell', this spectacular work opens with a majestic brass fanfare, before breaking in a Celtic-style dance which builds to a dramatic conclusion.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£59.95Judd: The Long Cloud of Witnesses
This music was written for the Amsterdam Staff Band's 50th Anniversary. The idea for using this theme in appreciation of the pioneers of the band who had gone before came to me during the thanksgiving service for my own mother's life. She was a life-long Salvationist, and the large crowd that gathered for her thanksgiving in Winchester gave such an inspiring rendition of this hymn at the end of the service that it moved me to write the music. In the closing pages of the score I have tried to suggest that final parade when those who loved the Lord join the 'long cloud of witnesses' in procession to their eternal home. - Kenneth Downie
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£34.95On the Castle Green
I was contacted by conductor and friend Desmond Graham who wanted to have a traditional concert march composed to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of his band; The Third Carrickfergus Band.Immediately my mind started wandering as I thought about all the great marches that I have enjoyed playing and listening to over the years. So when I put pen to paper I had already planned out the structure of the march and which instruments to feature.The march itself is split into two halves, the first in a minor key the second in a major key. The opening section starting loudly in F minor features stereotypical passages one would come to recognise in a traditional concert march: a cornet solo, a melodic bridging section and a robust bass solo led by the basses and trombones.The second half of the march changes pace and mood as it lifts into a major key giving it a more lighter feel. We hear a second cornet solo which plays the second theme of the march. After a second bridge section the theme is played by the front row cornets to allow the soprano to play an obligato melody similar to that heard in marches like "Army of the Nile" and "Stars and Stripes Forever". It all builds to a grandioso ending where the tempo drops and the final theme is played with a quick accel to the end.As for the title? In Carrickfergus lies an old castle that faces the town which is situated on a small plot of luscious green grass - "On The Castle Green".Paul Lovatt-Cooper
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days