16 Wonderful Songs from Classic to Rock

David Garrett

 

• From renowned cross-over artists David Garrett


• Contains a range of pieces from Summertime to Smooth Criminal


• For intermediate to advanced players


• Includes pull-out violin part with complete fingerings by David Garrett

 

Renowned cross-over artist David Garrett has penned some of his unique interpretations of well-known hits in this inspiring, but technically demanding edition for violin and piano.

The sixteen transcriptions combine classical masterpieces by Beethoven and Paganini with hits by Justin Timberlake, Metallica and Led Zeppelin. The essence of the orchestral arrangements is complemented by the piano part created in collaboration with Franck van der Heijden and John Haywood.

The book includes a pull-out violin part with complete fingerings by David Garrett.

An introduction to Style and Technique

Chris Haigh

 

• Learn the basic techniques of jazz violin


• Contains easy pieces


• Includes free online audio files to download

 

Beginning Jazz Violin offers a great opportunity to learn the basics of jazz violin. Perfect for students, teachers or those returning to the violin. Over 150 audio demos are available to download to assist with learning. The book teaches techniques such as bowing techniques and patterns, playing with swing, improvising, 12- bar sequences and much more.

20 Most Famous Rock and Pop Songs

Dirko Juchem

 

 

• Arranged for alto and tenor saxophone


• Contains saxophone part and chord symbols


• Part of the Schott Saxophone Lounge series

 

 

This volume presents the highlights from Dirko Juchem’s Schott Saxophone Lounge series. Juchem covers a wide range of genres, including songs such as Fields of Gold and Imagine to saxophone favourites such as the Pink Panther Theme. The Schott Saxophone Lounge series is aimed at all saxophone players looking for fresh and easy-to-play arrangements. Author Dirko Juchem’s arrangements are as charming as they are easy to play, and the selection of pieces contains well-known hits along with some of his own personal favourites.

The Hilary Hahn Encores

Hilary Hahn

• Contains the 27 pieces written for the 2013 CD of the same title


• Difficult


• Piano accompaniment provided

 

Years in preparation, The Hilary Hahn Encores presents the 27 works from 27 composers written for the 2013 CD of the same title. The publication has been closely edited by Hilary Hahn. Ms. Hahn writes, “I was intrigued by the future of the genre and how composers might wish to redefine the form. When I pictured a novel set of favourite miniatures catching on – pieces crafted by today’s minds – the idea of a commissioned-encores project planted itself in my head.” Twenty-six composers of various ages and nationalities agreed to create pieces for the project, following the guidelines set forth. “I gave them two parameters: each piece should be under five minutes and for acoustic violin and piano.” The twenty-seventh work came from a competition, with more than four hundred entries which were reviewed by Ms. Hahn through a blind process before one piece was chosen. Composer biographies and commentary from each composer about her or his encore are included.

On Sunday 13 October, The Crossing chamber choir conducted by Donald Nally will give the world premiere of Gavin Bryars’ much anticipated choral work, A Native Hill, in its complete version. The work is Bryars’ second collaboration with The Crossing following The Fifth Century in 2014, which won a Grammy Award.

Gavin Bryars – A Native Hill: Political and social implications explored through rural themes

Setting text by American writer and poet Wendell Berry, A Native Hill  is Bryars’ most substantial work for unaccompanied choir to date. His decision to set Berry’s 1968 essay of the same name was influenced by the implicit social and political force that lies behind Berry’s words that, at first appearance, might seem to be purely pastoral descriptions of rural existence.

There’s a kind of breath to it and a sort of universality, which goes way beyond that. So I was struck by the […] profundity that was there by implication; not obviously. – Gavin Bryars

A Native Hill is composed in twelve sections that build to a finale in which the 24 voices of the choir separate into individual parts, forming a rich chromatic cluster. Out of the dense passages, Bryars slowly exposes familiar harmonies and melodic movement.

Later this year, Rondo Vocale will perform Bryars’ The Fifth Century and On Photography in Stuttgart on 17 November. In February 2020, Bryars’ String Quartet No. 4 for the Smith Quartet will receive its world premiere in Pisa, Italy. 

• Gavin Bryars – profile


• The Crossing Choir

 

Rodion Shchedrin’s opera Lolita opens at the Estates Theatre in Prague on 3 October in what will be the opera’s first Czech production. The new production will be directed by Sláva Daubnerová and conducted by Sergey Neller. Following the first night there will be eight more performances in Prague until 10 January 2020.

The opera, which takes its title from the famous novel by Vladimir Nabokov, is Shchedrin’s fifth stage work inspired by Russian literature. Shchedrin himself compiled the opera’s libretto from the novel using music and dramaturgy to navigate the various layers of motivations that exist between the characters.

Rodion Shechdrin – Lolita: Opera inspired by Russian literature

Lolita follows Humbert Humbert who upon meeting 12-year-old Dolores develops a infatuation with her and gives her the nickname Lolita. In order to get  closer to Lolita, Humbert marries the girl’s mother, but when she dies shortly afterwards he embarks on an increasingly fraught relationship with the girl. Their relationship eventually ends and three years later Humbert meets Lolita again, now married to another man and expecting a baby. Lolita reveals to Humbert that when she left him she stayed with a friend of her mother’s, a playwright named Quilty, who tried to make her perform in his erotic films. Enraged by Lolita’s confession, Humbert finds Quilty and murders him before allowing himself to be arrested by the police.

To only repeat what others already did before will be boring for the listener. You have to hold the listener, give them something new and fresh. That is a very difficult task but that should be the goal in ideal circumstances for everyone dedicating oneself to composing. – Rodion Shchedrin

Audiences will have further opportunities to hear Shchedrin’s music this year, including performances of Two Tangos by Albéniz with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Centre Concert Hall, Washington DC on 7 and 9 November, as well as Beethovens Heiligenstädter Testament in Berlin on 28 November with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.

• Rodion Shchedrin – composer profile


• Lolita – work details 


• National Theatre Prague

Foto: Royal Opera Stockholm

The Seven Deadly Sins (Die sieben Todsünden) is one of Kurt Weill’s best-known and most frequently performed works. On 21 September, a new orchestration of the ballet chanté for 15 players will receive its premiere at Beethovenfest Bonn with Ensemble Modern and soloist Sarah Maria Sun conducted by HK Gruber. The new version has been created by Gruber and Christian Muthspiel in collaboration with the Kurt Weill Foundation and Schott Music.

The Brecht text is not a period piece. It is absolutely contemporary. In our day The Seven Deadly Sins is a manifesto against capitalism run amok, and it's a dangerous piece - for the capitalists. Because it lays bare how the world works: if you are honest, you have to pay the price, here, during this life. It is even more timely than it was twenty or thirty years ago.  (HK Gruber)

The Seven Deadly Sins: An Iconic Work in a New Orchestration

Initiated by the Kurt Weill Foundation, the new orchestration of The Seven Deadly Sins will for the first time enable fully staged performances by smaller ensembles, theatres and dance companies. The work has received innumerable successful interpretations and the new version will open up further possibilities for creative productions in even more varied settings. The soprano soloist in Gruber and Muthspiel’s version is accompanied by a male vocal quartet and the following ensemble: 1(pic).0.2.1-1.1.1.0-perc-pno.banjo(gtr)-str(1.1.1.1.1)

HK Gruber is regarded as a leading Weill expert, having frequently conducted, performed and recorded The Seven Deadly Sins and other works throughout his career. This new orchestration is characterised by its high level of fidelity to the original work, retaining Weill's original keys and using the ensemble in innovative ways to match the characteristic timbres of the orchestral version.

Playing on double-standards that are placed on the sisters, Anna 1 and Anna 2, as they make their seven-year journey through different US cities, the highly ironic and satirical work features some of Weill’s most recognisable music. It incorporates numerous popular American musical styles including foxtrot, polka, and barbershop. Despite being sung in German, the work was a success at its premiere performance in 1933 in Paris where Weill was living in exile, and it received a UK premiere at the Savoy Theatre that same year.

• Kurt Weill – composer profile


• Work details and online score (original version)


• Work details and online score (new Gruber/Muthspiel version)


• Ensemble Modern website

photo: Staatstheater Stuttgart / Bernhard Weis

The tragedy of Bizet’s Carmen has gripped audiences and inspired countless productions since its first performance in 1875. Today, the opera is one of the most well-known and frequently performed works in the genre. On 14 September, a new production by Barrie Kosky opens at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, conducted by Alexander Vedernikov. The new production will use material from Verlagsgruppe Hermann’s “Edition Meisterwerke”, which brings together all previously published versions of the work into a single critical edition allowing for direct comparison of the differences between individual publications.



The libretto to Bizet’s opera was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halvéy, based on the eponymous novel by Proser Mérimée. The immense success Carmen enjoys today contrasts the initial reaction it received from the audience at its premiere in Paris, who reacted negatively to the subject matter of the opera. Unfortunately, Bizet did not live to see the opera’s breakthrough production in Vienna later that year.

Georges Bizet – Carmen: Critical Edition of a Classic

Carmen is a woman who is totally aware of her womanhood. Even more: I’m convinced that Mérimée built with this character a type of woman in which the feminine is totally realized - this shows her individual value as a literary creation. In a modern way one could say that Carmen is the ideal type of an emancipated woman, which means she is free, safe and makes her own decisions. Teresa Berganza

Carmen will run in Copenhagen until mid-February, and another production will be presented later in the season in Mannheim, Meiningen and Chemnitz.

• Work details: Bizet's Carmen as part of the Edition Meisterwerke of the Verlagsgruppe Hermann


• Royal Theatre Copenhagen

photo: Det Kongelige Teater

Ryan Wigglesworth will make no fewer than three appearances as a conductor at this year’s BBC Proms, including on 28 August 2019 when he will direct the world premiere of his Piano Concerto with Marc-André Hamelin and Britten Sinfonia. The new work is the result of a joint commission between BBC Radio 3 and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.



From the chorale figures of its opening arioso, to the contrapuntal scherzo and trio and the fugal finale, Wigglesworth’s Piano Concerto is characterised by its incorporation of Classical form and stylistic elements into his own contemporary idiom.

The solo piano part, neither bravura nor particularly virtuosic, often displays a poetic, intimate character. The work’s four movements are studies in character. The first, songlike; the second, a fast scherzo with a gentler central trio; the third, a nocturne based on a folk melody; and finally, a lively contrapuntal Gigue. - Ryan Wigglesworth

The lightly scored Notturno is one of the work’s more intimate moments. The orchestra is reduced to just strings and harp, accompanying the soloist in a small set of variations based on a Polish folk song Wigglesworth first heard around a campfire. His personal association of the melody with night is rendered in the dream-like and occasionally nightmarish quality of this movement.

Ryan Wigglesworth: Piano Concerto – Incorporation of classical form in a contemporary idiom

Audiences will be able to hear Wiggleworth’s Piano Concerto in performances around the world in coming seasons, including on 27, 28 and 29 February 2020 with Seattle Symphony Orchestra.

 

• Ryan Wigglesworth - profile


• Piano Concerto - work details


• BBC Proms

 

Photo: Benjamin Ealovega

L'arbre des songes, the tree of dreams - the perfect choice to conclude a concert beginning with Rêverie et Caprice by Hector Berlioz. In a dreamlike program, the Orchestre National de Lyon conducted by Kristiina Poska draws a link from Berlioz to Ravel, Debussy, and Dutilleux in their concert in La Côte-Saint-André on 21 August. The violin soloist will be Renaud Capuçon.

Capuçon himself has a link to L’arbre des songes through the work’s dedicatee, Isaac Stern: Not only was Capuçon Stern's student, but since 2005 he has played the Guarneri del Gesù ‘Panette’ that Stern used for 50 years. L’arbre des songes was commissioned for Isaac Stern by Radio France has remained a one of the most popular contemporary violin concertos since its first performance in 1985.

L'arbre des songes - Tree of dreams, free from conventions

Unlike a conventional concerto composed of separated movements, Dutilleux introduces orchestral interludes to preserve the "enchantment" between sections. The third interlude provides a special point in the work, calling to mind the sound of the orchestra tuning. This interlude is rare example of Dutilleaux’s use of aleatoric techniques. Gradually, more and more instruments freely join a duet between the clarinet and oboe, playing material based on notated sequences of sound.

All in all the piece grows somewhat like a tree, for the constant multiplication and renewal of its branches is the lyrical essence of the tree. This symbolic image, as well as the notion of seasonal cycle, inspired my choice of ”L’arbre des songes“ (The Tree of Dreams) as the title of the piece. – Henri Dutilleux

The concert will be broadcast from the Berlioz Festival in La Côte-Saint-André and available to stream online at www.francemusique.fr.

 

• Henri Dutilleux – profile


• L'arbre des songes –  work details


• Berlioz Festival