Of Noblest Cities is intended for a choir of between 12 and about 40 voices, although it may also be given by just six singers, one to a part (SSATBB). The piece can be performed unaccompanied, if no suitable organ is available, simply by leaving approximately two crotchet beats of silence between the end of the last note of one verse and the beginning of the next. Underlying the melody is a simpl…

SAM-Klang. Par FAURE GABRIEL. Le Requiem de Gabriel Fauré est sans doute l’œuvre chorale la plus connue et la plus fréquemment interprétée de la fin du XIXe siècle et du début du XXe siècle. En tant que chef de chœur et organiste, Fauré a cherché à façonner une nouvelle musique religieuse, loin du bel canto qui régnait à Paris et du style romantique allemande plébiscité qui dominait une grande par…

Par GRIFFIN MICHAEL. When it comes to musical skill, why is it that some people achieve so much more than others? We are frequently led to believe this is because of a talent hardwired into their DNA. Now, music educator Michael Griffin dismisses that age-old notion in favour of another known factor: practice. His new book, Learning Strategies for Musical Success illustrates how the quantity and q…

Big Sky Montana contains three pieces that imaginatively depict this western state. 'Land of the Shining Mountains' uses multiple key changes to display the majesty of Montana's various mountain ranges. Challenges for the student include large reaches in the left hand, a few accents, and syncopated rhythms. 'Song of the Sky' portrays birds with many quick melodic ornaments in the upper register. T…

The title of Paul Mealor's, Spectred Light refers to the ghostly lights sometimes seen at night or twilight over rivers or lakes. Tales of the 'Spectred Lights' can be found in numerous folk tales around the world, and it is often depicted as a malicious character in these stories. In Welsh folklore, it is said that the light is 'fairy fire' held in the hand of a 'pwca' - a small goblin-like fairy…

Score + Parties. Par BRAHMS JOHANNES. Bärenreiter's scholarly-critical edition of Brahms' popular Quintet in F minor for piano and strings contains everything a cutting edge Urtext edition is meant to offer. It presents a solid and wellresearched musical text based on Brahms' autograph as well as the first edition, and draws on the autograph of the two-piano version (composed six years later) for …

Par MARTIN MATTHEW. The Festival Anthem I saw the Lord (2012) is a setting of words from Isaiah Ch 6, some of which are perhaps better known in the context of the great Victorian anthem by John Stainer. This Trinitarian/Dedication text (starting with the words “in the year that King Uzziah died”) is both powerful and full of dramatic imagery - flying seraphim, live coals, cries of the Tersanctus -…

Par BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN. Practical performing Urtext edition based on the latest state of Bach research. Every era hears and interprets Bach anew, and every era also evaluates the sources afresh and with new eyes. 40 years after the publication of the St. Matthew Passion in the New Bach Edition, Klaus Hofmann, Director of the Johann Sebastian Bach Institute Göttingen for many years and a contrib…

Offertorium Zum Ostersonntag. Par EBERLIN JOHANN ERNST. Eberlin’s programmatic setting of the offertory “Terra tremuit” was written for the festive liturgy of Easter Sunday at Salzburg Cathedral, which in the 17th and 18th centuries was a center of the cultivation of the polyphonic offertory. Verses 9 and 10 of Psalm 76 [Vulgata 75], with their vivid description of the earth trembling and falling …

Par PART ARVO. Arvo Pärt wrote the prayer of peace 'Da pacem Domine' to fulfil a commission from Jordi Savall. He began to set this ninth-century Gregorian antiphon two days after the Madrid bombings on 11 March 2004 as his personal tribute to the victims. Since then 'Da pacem Domine' has been performed every year in Spain to commemorate the victims of this terrorist attack. Even while originally …