This song for medium voice and piano was composed for Natalie Merchant was first performed with the composer at the piano at the 1997 Tibet House Benefit Concert and subsequently broadcast on the PBS television show Sessions at West 54th Street. The Latin text by the 12th century monk Godfrey of St Victor is a lament for the state of the nation. A full translation is included in the prefaceto this edition.
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List: 9.99
Das Erbe deutscher Musik' (The Heritage of German Music) continues the tradition of the various German Denkmäler series. It publishes important works from the history of German music in editions that are critical and at the same time practical. 'Das Erbe deutscher Musik' was established in 1933 in the traditions of the 'Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst' (1892-1931) and resumed in 1953 by the Musikgeschichtliche Kommission e.V. 'Das Erbe deutscher Musik' is published by various publishers as a main series with ten sections and a special series.
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List: 363.00
Comissioned by Roomful of Teeth, 7 Planets is an interplanetary exploration for 8 voices. Conceived in 2020 when observing the planets became a solace, providing a necessary stability for Alev Lenz, the seven movements are each based on one of the planetary frequencies. The work lasts around half an hour and requires some percussion at moments.
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List: 65.00
Gounod had no qualms about arranging well-known works by earlier masters after his own fashion. Thus in 1852 he added a melody with its own operatic climax to the famous arpeggios of the C-major Prelude BWV 846 from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. He first published instrumental versions of it under the title “Méditation”, then tried fitting various texts to the melody until in 1859 he arrived at the definitive vocal version using the text of the Ave Maria. Already by the 1890s it was claimed that “[we] have heard this sweet melody innumerable times from the best lady singers”, and its popularity has continued to the present day. Reason enough, then, for Henle Verlag to publish an Urtext edition of this worldwide hit, based on the sources and with appropriate critical commentary. In 1859, at the same time as the original edition for high voice, editions for middle and low voice, presumably commissioned by the publishers, were also issued. Following this model, the Henle Urtext edition of “Ave Maria” is also offered in two transpositions for the lower register.
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List: 9.95
Leokadiya Kashperova (1872–1940), hitherto consigned to a footnote in musical history as Stravinsky's piano teacher, is undergoing rediscovery. A double graduate of the St Petersburg Conservatoire, she emerged as a virtuoso pianist and composer in the romantic tradition. She was associated with some of the great musicians of her day, including Balakirev and Auer. She performed in both Germany and the UK in the 1900s, but her career petered out after 1920.
Following her graduation from the St Petersburg Conservatoire Kashperova became personally acquainted with the poet Yakov Polonsky and often attended his literary gatherings. When he died in 1898 Kashperova responded with this setting of one of his most celebrated ballads, for the benefit of the memorial fund created to support the poets widow and family. Here is a vivid musical dramatisation of the old proverb 'Pride comes before a fall' – quite literally a fall in the case of the haughty eagle who is deceived by the wily snake into displaying his arrogance once too often. Kashperovas music is full of vivid musical depiction, from the serpent slithering over the granite-stone to the crashes of thunder and lightning as both bird and reptile fly high above the mountain-tops, with disastrous consequences.
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List: 14.99
Winter Journey tells the story of desperate migration from troubled, war-torn countries to Europe, in all its indifference and rejection. The story is told from the perspective of three characters: a man from an unnamed country moving from hardship to hardship as he seeks a better life in Europe, and the woman and child he has left behind. The choir serves as a Greek chorus, while a politician (a speaking role) intervenes intermittently with refrains that will be familiar to many European ears: “The boat cannot dock at our port.”
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List: 40.00
Leokadiya Kashperova (1872–1940), hitherto consigned to a footnote in musical history as Stravinskys piano teacher, is undergoing rediscovery. A double graduate of the St Petersburg Conservatoire, she emerged as a virtuoso pianist and composer in the romantic tradition. She was associated with some of the great musicians of her day, including Balakirev and Auer. She performed in both Germany and the UK in the 1900s, but her career petered out after 1920.
Songs of Love was first published in 1904. No evidence survives of any public performance in Kashperova's lifetime although it is very likely that they were performed at her regular 'musical evenings at home on Tuesdays' mentioned in her Memoirs. The transparency of the piano writing strongly suggests that she would accompany herself singing. Kashperova, by all accounts, possesseda fine voice, and in the summer of 1906 she decided 'to learn from the artistry', as she put it, of the tenor Raimond von Zur-Mühlen who was widely celebrated for having developed (with Clara Schumann) the Lieder-Abend tradition. His summer-schools on the Baltic coast were frequented by aspiring singers from all over Europe, even Japan and India. Kashperova herself was responsible for the poetic lyrics of Songs of Love (in both Russian and German), which may well have emerged from her own bittersweet experience of lifeand love; she was not to marry until 1916 at the age of forty-four. That Kashperova is the author of both the music and the lyrics of Songs of Love would suggest that they express very personal sentiments.
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List: 44.00
