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£29.95
Casper's Lament (for Brass Band) - Jonathan Bates
'Casper's Lament' was composed for the Foden's Band's appearance at the 2021 Brass in Concert Championships held at The Sage, gateshead. The music is inspired by the lesser known side to 'Casper the Friendly Ghost'; a "good ghost" who much to the annoyance of his uncles chooses to help people rather than scare them. Despite the uplifting and joyful narrative to the 'Casper' stories, there is a much more tragic back story of how he come to be. Casper's mother passed away during his birth leaving him to be raised solely by his extremely devoted father until the age of 12 when having begged his father for a sled to play in the snow Casper contracted pneumonia from playing out in the cold for too long and passed away shortly after. Throughout Casper's childhood years, the pair were inseparable. So much so, that after his tragically young death, Casper simply could not leave his father to be alone in the mortal world and as a result he stuck around as the ghost we love come to know and love through the many books, series and films over the years. . .
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 1-3 working days
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£79.95
Grieg Variations - Jonathan Bates
DURATION: 12'30". DIFFICULTY: 2nd+. . 'Grieg Variations' is a through-composed work in the traditional style of a 'theme & variations'. The work opens with the main melodic fragment featured throughout Grieg Variations which comes from Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No.2; the final movement - 'Solveig's Song'. . This theme is followed by a set of 9 variations, each taking inspiration from various melodies and styles found within the Peer Gynt Suite. The first variation, a light-footed scherzo based upon the tonal line of Solveig's Song is followed by an 'Alla marcia' variation - in which the music is inspired by the 2nd movement - 'Arab Dance' - of the original suite. The 3rd variation takes a far darker and more aggressive turn in a variation set around the music of the 1st movement of the Peer Gynt Suite before a relaxation into a solemne revisiting of the original theme. Opening with a sombre and longing solo for Flugel horn, the focal point of this 4th variation is an extended solo for the Solo Euphonium, marked 'molto espressivo'. The new material here is used as a theme throughout this variation, being reprised by the full band immediately after as the music builds to a climax point at the top of the musical line. . Following this, there are 2 cadenzas for the Solo Horn and Solo Cornet respectively; the former inspired by the thematic material of Solveig's Song, and the latter from the Oboe cadenza at the beginning of Grieg's '2 Lyric Pieces, Op.68'. These cadenzas lead swiftly into the 7th variation, a bustling rhyhm-driven movement set in complex time. The 3rd movement of the Peer Gynt Suite No.2 - 'Peer Gynt's Homecoming' - makes it's first appearance in variation 8 in a triumphant battle-like setting before a combination of both this material and the Solveig's Song combine to bring Grieg Variations to it's close -not without a little nod to potentially Grieg's most famous work - In The Hall of the Mountain King. . .
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 1-3 working days
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£34.95
How To Catch A Killer... - Jonathan Bates
DURATION: 5 minutes. DIFFICULTY: Championship. 'How To Catch A Killer.' was composed as the energetic finale to Carlton Main Frickley Colliery Band's 2nd placed 'Murder in the Night' set at the 2018 Brass In Concert Championships. The piece is built upon a quite complex motif in the tuned percussion, exploring an almost sci-fi-esque soundworld as the identity of the killer is figured out. After the identity of the killer is revealed, there is a brief chase scene before the work draws to a dramatic and fiery conclusion. .
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£89.95
Songs of Ascent - Jonathan Bates
DURATION: 14 minutes. DIFFICULTY: Championship. 'Songs of Ascent' was composed for the Royal Northern College of Music Brass Band, as part of their programme for the 2019 RNCM Festival of Brass. In my view, the festival itself is the leading showcase for original contemporary music for the medium (in a concert setting) in the world and therefore an ideal place to explore new ideas and sounds, which was a notion fundamental to the construction of this work. The piece is subtitled 'Out of the Depths, I cry to you, O Lord'; the opening line of Psalm 130 (which forms part of a set of 15 psalsm, 120-134 known as the Songs of Ascent") which forms the main inspiration for much of the musical material. Following an extended opening for four individual tuba lines, there are a number of solos for members of the band off stage, with bleak and deep accompaniment lines, reflecting the words of Psalm 130. Amongst these 'songs of ascents', the most common and strong themes are repentance and redemption; with the central core of this work emerging 'from the depths' to reveal one of very few calming and reflective passages of the work utilising the tune of 'Guide Me O Thy Great Redeemer' in a new setting, featuring the Solo Horn and Bass Trombone, before returning to the ethereal and dark timbres that form much of the music up to this point. In terms of compositional technique, this work is solely based on a set of 4 9-note scales in their various unique transpositions (below). Each of these scales provide a set of 2 whole tone scales, 6 minor triads, 6 major triads and is built on 9 augmented triads. Whilst most of the music in this work is based melodically on the set of notes (heard right at the outset in the motif in the tuba line), the central section delves into the harmonic capabilities of these 'modes', using a number of the 7 'keys' which can be derived from the minor & major chords derived in each scale. All 4 scales are used independantly to each other, with whole sections of the work focussing on each mode. 'Songs of Ascent' was selected as the set work for the Championship Section at the Butlin's Mineworker's Championships in 2020.
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 1-3 working days
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£29.95
Under the Cover of Night - Jonathan Bates
DURATION: 3 minutes. DIFFICULTY: 3rd+. 'Under the Cover of Night' was composed for BD1 Brass as part of a set of music inspired by the fairytale of Robin Hood and Maid Marian. . In BD1's adaption of the fairytale, Maid Marian is held hostage by the evil Sheriff of Nottingham and it is up to Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men to rescue her from captivity. This mysterious bluesy feature for Flugel, Drum Kit and Euphonium & Baritone section paints the picture of the group quietly creeping around in their attempt to rescue Marian. Within the music, there is opportunity for staging, with the Merry Men (Euphoniums & Baritones) moving around the band to reach Marian (Flugel) on the other side of the hall.
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 1-3 working days
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£34.95
Water Lilies - Jonathan Bates
DURATION: 5'00". DIFFICULTY: 1st Section+. 'Water Lilies' is a setting of a short poem by the American War poet Sara Teasdale from 1937. Teasdale's evocative writing is steadily becoming a renowned influence for composers - particularly in the choral scene, and this was where my first introduction to her work was founded in a work by Eriks Esenvalds entitled 'Stars'. . The percussion writing in this depicts a gentle ripple on a lake as water lilies float by at dusk, whilst the band writing explores a deep and personal interpretation of Teasdale's words which whilst on the face seem quite dark and brooding, yet really seem to express a feeling of longing and determination. . Water Lilies . If you have forgotten water lilies floating . On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade, . If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance, . Then you can return and not be afraid. . But if you remember, then turn away forever . To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart, . There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies, . And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart. . Sara Teasdale (1937). .
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 1-3 working days
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£29.95
Nightfall in Harlem - Jonathan Bates
DURATION: 5'30". DIFFICULTY: 1st+. 'Nightfall in Harlem' is a Flugel Horn solo in two short sections, each depicting a scene in the New York ditrict of Harlem, situated at the north end of Central Park. There is a heavy influence of jazz and blues throughout this solo with the opening 'Central park by night'; a moody and sleazy depiction of the bright lights of the New York skyline which engulf Central Park followed by the virtuosic 'Buskers', paying homage to the many jazz musicians who line the pavings of the park throughout the year.
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£34.99
Submerged... (Cornet Concerto No.2) - Jonathan Bates
'Submerged..' is a virtuoso concerto for Cornet composed as a response to the 'lost' Derbyshire villages of Ashopton & Derwent,. both of which were drowned in the early 1940's to make way for a new reservoir to aid the ever-increasing water demand from nearby. Sheffield and it's steel industry during World War 2. The work is through-composed but is defined by 3 clear main sections, 'The . Packhorse Bridge, Derwent', 'Ashopton Chapel' and 'Operation Chastise'. Much of the melodic and harmonic material throughout the. concerto is inspired by 3 contrasting sources; an original motif of towering block chords which opens the concerto, the famous opening. fragment of Eric Ball's 'High Peak' (1969) which was composed as a tribute to the district of Derbyshire where Ashopton & Derwent lie, . and finally Claude Debussy's haunting 'La Cath drale Engloutie' or 'The Sunken Cathedral', which was composed in 1910 around the legend of. the submerged cathedral of Ys. . I. Packhorse Bridge, Derwent (1925). One of the most striking features of the former village of Derwent was it's Packhorse Bridge, which spanned the River Derwent. adjacent to the Derwent Hall - a grand, picturesque Jacobean country house. In 1925, the renowned impressionist artist Stanley. Royle painted a striking image of the two in midwinter, with the partially frozen river sat quietly underneath the snow-topped. bridge in the foreground, while the old hall sits peacefully and dark in the background. The opening setion of this concerto paints. this picture in a quite schizophrenic manner; with frosty, shrill march-like material picturing the villagers crossing the narrow icy. bridge, combined with wild and frenzied waltz music of the grand hall and it's masquerade balls laying, for now, quietly mysterious. across the river. . II. Ashopton Chapel (1939). Ashopton was much the smaller and less-populated of the 2 'lost' villages, but still bore home to a Roman Catholic Chapel which was. the focal point of the village. The chapel - along with the rest of Ashopton - was drowned in 1943, but the final service to take place there. was held in 1939, with the final hymn being 'Day's Dying in the West'. This hymn forms a haunting coda to the 2nd section, with firstly the . piano leading the melody before an audio track containing an old recording of the hymn is accompanied by the sound of flowing water and . the rumble of storms as the village hypothetically disappears from existence with the hymn tune still echoing around the valley, before . subsiding into the growing roar of the engine of a Lancaster Bomber as it soars overhead towards Derwent to practise it's 'Dam-Buster' raid. . III. Operation Chastise (1943). The Derwent Reservoir lies adjacent to Ladybower Reservoir (of which Ashopton & Derwent were flooded to make way for) in the . Derbyshire High Peak, and during the 2nd World War was used as one of the central low-atitude practise areas of the 617 Squadron - more . commonly known affectionately as the 'Dambusters'. Before the destruction of Derwent, it's 'Packhorse Bridge' was dismantled stone by stone . and re-assembled upstream at Howden Dam to the north end of Derwent Reservoir. This is where the music begins, with a reconstruction of . the opening material before taking flight into a whirlwind tour of virtuosity from the soloist. .
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£8.50
INTRADA (score) - McKenzie, Jock
There is a link to a you tube video. Also contains parts for orchestral brass.
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 1-3 working days
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£8.50
INVENTION (score) - McKenzie, Jock
There is a link to a you tube video. Also contains parts for orchestral brass.
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 1-3 working days