SATB and Cello (Full Score and Cello Part). Par ADOLPHE BRUCE. Written for the Chapel Choir of University College, Oxford, Giles Underwood, Director of Music. This setting of Pireeni Sundaralingam's poem LOT'S WIVES (about the Sri Lankan Civil War that took place between 1983-2009) was written in June of 2023, during the war between Russia and Ukraine and four months before the escalation between …

Par HAENDEL GEORG FRIEDRICH. The episode from Ovid‘s “Metamorphoses” in which Daphne attempts to escape Apollo’s advances by turning into a laurel tree, causing the devastated god to weave a laurel crown in memory of the nymph, has inspired the masterworks of many artists. Gian Lorenzo Bernini, whose famous marble sculpture is housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, is only one example of this. M…

from Andrea Chanier. Par GIORDANI GIUSEPPE. It has been said, and wisely so, that if you wish to find TRULY dramatic music, look to opera. This is an essentially complete transcription of Act IV of Umberto Giordano's tragic opera ANDREA CHENIER. One night before French poet Andrea Chenier's impending execution, his lover Madeleine comes to the prison at St. Lazare and, wishing to die rather than l…

Par BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN. Beethoven's Sonata in F major op. 54 was written in 1804, just after the highly virtuosic 'Waldstein' Sonata and before the 'Appassionata' Sonata, and has unjustly stood in the shadow of its predecessor and successor ever since. Its two movements are characterized by the friction between traditional form and creative abandon. While the opening movement marked 'In Tempo d'…

Op. 129. Par SCHUMANN ROBERT. R. Schumann Concerto for Violoncello in A minor Op.129 (Cello and Piano) Robert Schumann’s Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra is the first major Romantic work of this genre not to have been composed by a cellist. Nevertheless, Schumann, who worked on this late composition for several years, consulted the cellist Emil Bockmühl, who regularly played chamber music i…

Written by John and Michelle Phillips two years before they formed The Mamas And The Papas , the evocative California Dreamin' reflects a longing from chilly New York for the warmth of the West Coast. California Dreamin' was released by The Mamas And The Papas in 1965 and has since become almost an informal signature tune for the hippie phenomenon that had hardly started when it was written. It ha…

Par SPARKE PHILIP. Fanfare and Celebration was commissioned by the Brass Band of the Western Reserve (Dr Keith M. Wilkinson, director) to celebrate their 15th anniversary. Based in north-west Ohio, the band was formed in 1997 and was competing in the Championship Section of the North American Brass Band Championships in less than three years. The first performance of Fanfare and Celebration took p…

Par CASKEN JOHN. In spite of having written many works including piano, before composing my new suite of pieces there were only two for solo piano: The Haunting Bough and Pleasure Ground. I decided to incorporate these in a new set of pieces extending the theme of trees and wood (I cut The Haunting Bough into two pieces which frame the suite as the first and last movements; Pleasure Ground is rena…

Book 1. Par SIMPER CALEB. A prolific composer of Victorian church music, Caleb Simper was a humble musician whose choral works sold in vast quantities, rightly deserving their publisher's accolade as being 'sung throughout the civilised world'. Born in Wiltshire in 1857, Simper was largely self-taught. He attempted a number of professions, including piano tuning, before finding his vocation as an …