Purcell Society Edition Companion Series Vol 1. Edited Bryan White Hardback Albion and Albanius is among the first operas in English, written to a libretto by John Dryden, and produced at the Dorset Garden Theatre, London, on 3 June 1685. Composed by the erstwhile Master of the King?s Musick to Charles II, the score is of particular interest as representing the French style of Lully, unusual in E…

Par L'ESTRANGE ALEXANDER (Arr.). When Cecil Sharp transcribed O Waly Waly in 1908, it bore this title but did not contain the title words (beginning instead with ‘Down in the meadows’). It has been suggested since that the version we know now may be a composite of three songs: the Scottish ‘Waly waly’ (meaning ‘a cry of woe or grief’), the Cecil Sharp transcript and an American song, The water is …

Par CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO MARIO. Born into a family that had lived in Florence since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) entertained only a distant relationship with the music he heard at synagogue. It was only when he discovered Schelemo, a rhapsody for cello and orchestra written in 1916 by Ernest Bloch, that he began to understand what ' Jewish mus…

Par VAN DER ROOST JAN. This work, in two movements, was written for the 50th anniversary of “Harmonie St. Cecilia” in Oudenburg, Belgium, and is dedicated to its conductor, Arne Wyntin. The first part is rather quiet and pastoral in character, and is written in a gently rocking 12/8 time. The tranquility of the area around the medieval town of Oudenburg, a rustic region not far from the North Sea,…

Beginner Series. Par GORDON ANDREW D.. Andrew D. Gordon has created 30: 12bar blues play-a-long backing tracks in various Blues styles, keys and tempos such as: Funky Blues, Boogie Blues, Jazz Blues, Minor Blues, Country Blues, Latin Blues, Old Time Jazz Blues, Jazz Swing Blues, Classic Blues Rock, Soulful Blues, Slow Blues and many more. Each of the 30 play-a-long tracks has been recorded with 12…

Quatuor avec piano de Jost est un hommage à l'exceptionnelle réalisateur japonais Akira Kurosawa et ses adaptations de trois tragédies de Shakespeare ('Hameau', 'King Lear', 'Macbeth'). Bien que ' Spinnwebwald ' retombe sur le titre de film de Kurosawa ' Das Schloss im Spinnwebwald ' ('Macbeth'), le travail renvoie non seulement à un seul film mais exprime aussi l'humeur dominant. Conformément à l…

Tango Guitar Duets. Par GARDEL CARLOS. Gardel's tangos remain classics, which no performer who aspires to be taken seriously can ignore. For this album Argentinian Tango specialist Diego selected some of Gardel's most popular tangos and arranged them for two guitars. The timbre of this instrument is exceptionally well suited to evoking in sound the musical riches of an impoverished community of im…

Par PART ARVO. Chad Smith, Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has long nurtured the desire to commission a new work by Arvo Pärt. When the Los Angeles Philharmonic submitted this idea to Arvo Pärt in February 2007, the suggestion came at precisely the right moment. Pärt was working at that time with an ancient canon in Church Slavonic containing a prayer to a guardian angel - the c…

Essential Repertoire for Piano. Core Classics is a collection of seven books of music from the piano canon, selected and graded by leading educationalists. Drawn from ABRSM's extensive back catalogue, each volume contains a rich selection of engaging pieces to form the backbone of any pianist's repertoire. From Bach to Beethoven, Scarlatti to Schumann, this series includes an abundance of much-lov…