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Alwyn, William: Sonatina for Violin and Piano Ref: H471

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Best known as the composer of classic film scores including The History of Mr Polly, The Winslow Boy and A Night to Remember, William Alwyn (1905-1985) also wrote symphonies, concertos and fluently idiomatic chamber music, of which this attractive Sonatina for violin and piano is a fine example.

Lasting around 12 minutes, and bearing the Alwyn hallmarks of rich, romantic harmony and vigorous, expressive line, it follows a traditional plan, opening with a flowing sonata first-movement both thoughtful and preludial in character. An introspective Adagio strikes a deeper note before a rousing finale, cast in the stirring rhythms of waltz and syncopated gigue, closes the work with a flourish.

Though premiered at the Royal Academy of Music in 1935, the Sonatina remained unpublished for 75 years, coming to wider notice in a recent recording by Madeleine Mitchell and Andrew Ball on the Naxos label. Violinists of Grades 7 to 8 standard or above will welcome this new work from the pen of an important 20th-century British composer, whose technical command of the medium will be immediately apparent.

Price: £8.50

People who bought this item also bought:

1. Schumann, Robert: Three Romances Op. 94 for Viola and Piano (Ref: H381)

2. Lloyd Webber, William: Sonatina for Viola and Piano (Ref: H369)

3. Schubert, Franz: Sonata 'Arpeggione'. Viola part arranged by Watson Forbes (Ref: H215)

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Bainton, Edgar: Sonata for Cello and Piano Ref: H460

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Never before published, Bainton's four-movement cello sonata is a substantial work in the tradition of Ireland, Bax and other late-Romantic composers for the instrument. Memorable themes and a colourful piano part convey a powerfully emotional narrative that will be welcomed by performers as a remarkable new addition to their repertoire.

Price: £12.95

Bridge, Frank: Phantasy in F sharp minor. Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano Ref: H472

[PDF Sample]

Score and Parts

Price: £17.50

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Bridge, Frank: Romance and Valse Russe arr. for Viola and Piano Ref: H475

Nos. 4 and 7 of the Miniatures for Piano Trio arranged for Viola and Piano by Michael Lieberman
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These transcriptions of two popular pieces (Nos. 4 and 7 of the Miniatures for violin, cello and piano) make available a pair of very charming and accessible works for Frank Bridge's own instrument the viola. There are opportunities here in particular for soloists to display their powers of cantabile delivery in high and low registers, supported by a sensitive and atmospheric piano accompaniment.

The unfolding melody of the Romance conveys a graceful nostalgia suggestive of Tchaikovsky's most intimate songs and short piano pieces. In the Valse Russe a flow of melody freighted with Slavic melancholy is faultlessly imagined by this most versatile of English twentieth-century composers.

Michael Lieberman's polished translation of the Romance and Valse Russe into the new medium preserves all that is essential of the originals and adds idiomatic fingering and bowing to the viola part. These pieces, which are of around Grade V standard, are potential new material both for examinations and for the refreshment of recital programmes with authentic yet unfamiliar romantic repertoire.

Price: £5.50

People who bought this item also bought:

1. Samuel, Rhian: Far across the sea (Ymhell dros y mor). Solo Harp (Ref: Y259)

2. Healey, Derek: Sleep, holy babe! (Ref: W213)

3. Archer, Malcolm: Sleigh Bells Across the Snow (Ref: H466)

Bridge, Frank: Spring Song and Lullaby for Violin and Piano. Ref: H473

Nos. 2 & 3 of 'Four Short Pieces'
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Once chiefly esteemed for the radicalism of his late style, Frank Bridge is no less admired today for his earlier works written in a polished romantic idiom tailored both to the taste of his audience and the capabilities of his performers.

The Four Short Pieces for violin and piano of 1912 are a perfect flowering of these gifts. With Meditation and Country Dance from the set already published separately by Stainer & Bell, the release of Spring Song and Lullaby as a pair makes the complete collection now available.

Spring Song is a charming aubade in the manner of Elgar's Chanson de Matin, but with a piquant modality also redolent of Gabriel Fauré's salon style. The smoothly eloquent melody of Lullaby showcases vibrato, evenness of tone and bowing control. An alternative Grade 3 choice in the new Associated Board violin syllabus starting in 2012, it will be preferred by many teachers and examination candidates for its musical distinction and poetical atmosphere.

Price: £5.50

People who bought this item also bought:

1. Musidoku: The Musical Sudoku. Opus 2 (Ref: B904)

2. Musidoku: The Musical Sudoku. Opus 1 (Ref: B897)

Carse, Adam: The Winton Suite. Score Ref: Y249

[PDF Sample]

Reissued by popular demand, Adam Carse's Winton Suite is among the many treasures to be found in the Naxos CD series of English string miniatures, where it appears in volume six, together with music by Holst, Purcell and Warlock.

Standing worthily beside more familiar pieces for string orchestra such as Elgar's Serenade and Parry's Lady Radnor Suite, it is a five-movement work in a vigorous classical form that balances stirring fast music with lyrical, reflective passages.

It will have a wide currency among music lovers in general, and will appeal particularly to string specialists in search of repertoire for summer schools and educational courses, especially those involving young musicians whose technical limitations do not prevent them from tackling repertoire of genuine substance and stature.

Price: £9.50

People who bought this item also bought:

1. Carse, Adam: Two Sketches for String Orchestra. Parts (Ref: Y252)

2. Carse, Adam: Two Sketches for String Orchestra. Score (Ref: Y251)

3. Carse, Adam: The Winton Suite. Parts (Ref: Y250)

Carse, Adam: The Winton Suite. Parts Ref: Y250

Set of string parts (4.4.3.3.2)

Price: £30.00

People who bought this item also bought:

1. Carse, Adam: Two Sketches for String Orchestra. Parts (Ref: Y252)

2. Carse, Adam: Two Sketches for String Orchestra. Score (Ref: Y251)

3. Carse, Adam: The Winton Suite. Score (Ref: Y249)

Croft, William: Four Sonatas for Two Violins and Continuo Ref: Y268

Edited by H. Diack Johnstone
[PDF Sample]

Score and Parts

Performing edition corresponding with MB88.

Price: £28.50

Croft, William: Sonata in E major for Four Violins and Continuo Ref: Y266

Edited by H. Diack Johnstone
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Score and Parts

Performing edition corresponding with MB88.

Price: £15.00

Croft, William: Three Sonatas for Violin and Continuo Ref: Y270

Edited by H. Diack Johnstone
Performing edition corresponding with MB88.
[PDF Sample]

Price: £20.00

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Earnshaw, Alfred: Tarantella Op. 44, No 4 for Cello and Piano Ref: H467

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A highly respected cello teacher and performer, Alfred Earnshaw counted among his peers such notable twentieth-century composers of music for young cellists as Adam Carse and W. H. Squire. His Tarantella for cello and piano features on Children's Cello the delightful collection of cello miniatures recorded by Steven Isserlis and pianist Stephen Hough on a recent BIS recording (BISCD1562). Earnshaw commanded a fluent, graceful idiom ideally suited to inspire beginners with real musical values, and the piece combines open-string and first-position playing with the flair and character of an impressive recital item.

Price: £4.25

Elizabethan Consort Music: Sixteen "In Nomines" Ref: Y225

Edited by Paul Doe.
Set of String Parts corresponding with selected pieces from Musica Britannica Volumes 44 and 45.

1 In nomine. MB44, 13. ANON
2 In nomine I. MB45, 131. John BALDWIN
3 In nomine. MB44, 14. BREWSTER
4 In nomine II. MB45, 132. BREWSTER
5 In nomine. MB45, 133. John BUCK
6 In nomine. MB45, 134. [Robert?] GOLDER
7 In nomine I. MB44, 18. Robert PARSONS
8 In nomine II. MB44, 19. Robert PARSONS
9 In nomine I. MB44, 20. POYNT
10 In nomine . MB44, 21. Thomas PRESTON
11 In nomine I. MB44, 22. Henry STONINGS
12 In nomine I. MB44, 23. Thomas TALLIS
13 In nomine II . MB44, 24. Thomas TALLIS
14 In nomine . MB44, 25. John TAVERNER
15 In nomine . MB44, 26. John THORNE [?]
16 In nomine . MB44, 31. William WHYTBROKE

Price: £20.00

Hayes, Morgan: Dances on a Ground. String Quartet Ref: Y248

Score and parts
[PDF Sample]

Favoured by English composers from Purcell to Vaughan Williams and Britten, the ground-bass form receives a contemporary makeover in Morgan Hayes's Dances on a Ground. Artfully four-square, a cello ostinato stays stubbornly true to its original thoughts. Meanwhile, above it a capricious ensemble of two violins and viola swaggers its way through flights of melody and jumpy pizzicati to an ecstatic conclusion. Commissioned by Bromsgrove Concerts with funding provided by Arts Council England, Dances on a Ground was first performed by the innovative Smith Quartet at the Artrix, Bromsgrove, on 27 February 2009.

Price: £9.50

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Hayes, Morgan: Völklinger Hütte for Violin, Cello and Piano Ref: Y285

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Goethe's dictum that architecture is frozen music has been a powerful stimulus for composers over the centuries, but in the case of Morgan Hayes the stark features of modern industrial buildings rather than the splendours of the Gothic or Baroque styles have been an impressive influence.

In the case of his most recent work, Völklinger Hütte, the great German steel foundry of that name, in operation for over a hundred years, was the trigger for a powerful yet succint one-movement structure for piano trio. Situated in the town of Völklingen, this extraordinary monument to German engineering prowess is now a UNESCO world heritage site. Hayes discovered it by chance, through a reference in a Lonely Planet guide while he was visiting nearby Saarbrüken for a performance of another of his compositions.

The austere beauty of the location has infused the music with sharp dynamic and timbral extremes which also suggest its awesome scale. Grinding, machine-like textures cheek by jowl with passages of reposeful silence also project the nostalgic atmosphere of the now silent plant contrasted with the bustle of its heyday, still echoing in the brutally functional geometrical forms of its corroding chimneys, cranes and blast furnaces.

Völklinger Hütte lasts around six minutes.

Price: £7.50

Jenkins, John: Fantasia-Suites. Two Treble Viols (or Violins), two Basses (Viols) and Organ Ref: Y218

Set of String Parts.

Edited by Andrew Ashbee. The organ part is available in Musica Britannica Volume 26 (MB26).

Price: £20.00

Jenkins, John: Fantasia-Suites. (Nos. 1-5) Treble Viol (or Violin), two Bass Viols and Organ Ref: Y277

Set of String Parts.

Edited by Andrew Ashbee. The organ part is available in Musica Britannica Volume 90 (MB90).

Price: £23.00

People who bought this item also bought:

1. Jenkins, John: Fantasia-Suites. (Nos. 6-9) Treble Viol (or Violin), two Bass Viols and Organ (Ref: Y278)

2. Four-Part Fantasias for Viols: Alfonso FERRABOSCO THE YOUNGER (LXII) (Ref: MB62)

3. Jenkins, John: Three-part Fantasias. Set 1. Treble Viol (or Violin), Two Bass Viols and Organ (Ref: H396)

Jenkins, John: Fantasia-Suites. (Nos. 6-9) Treble Viol (or Violin), two Bass Viols and Organ Ref: Y278

Set of String Parts.

Edited by Andrew Ashbee. The organ part is available in Musica Britannica Volume 90 (MB90).

Price: £23.00

People who bought this item also bought:

1. Jenkins, John: Fantasia-Suites. (Nos. 1-5) Treble Viol (or Violin), two Bass Viols and Organ (Ref: Y277)

2. Fantasia-Suites II: John JENKINS (XC) (Ref: MB90)

3. Four-Part Fantasias for Viols: Alfonso FERRABOSCO THE YOUNGER (LXII) (Ref: MB62)

Jenkins, John: Thirty-two Airs. Two Treble Viols (or Violins), two Basses (Viols) and Organ Ref: Y242

Set of String Parts.

Edited by Andrew Ashbee. The organ part is available in Musica Britannica Volume 26 (MB26).

In the output of the long-lived 17th-century composer John Jenkins, the 32 'Ayres' for two trebles, two basses and organ have a special place. They were probably composed during the English Civil War, while the composer was in East Anglia, and his royalist patrons were subject to harassment by Parliamentarian forces. Though one of the pieces, 'Newark Siege', is a rare instance of programmatic music in Jenkins's output, the pieces in general are far removed from the lightweight dance idioms of the time, being full of contrapuntal interplay inspired perhaps by the consort airs of the court composer William Lawes.

The four parts retain original note values, and correspond to the edition in Musica Britannica MB36, though the bass parts have alto clefs for the higher passages. The organ part, not included with the instrumental material, is played from full score in the parent volume.

Price: £24.50

Samuel, Rhian: Dance of the Curlews. Two Harps Ref: Y245

[Standard: Advanced]
[PDF Sample]

Dance of the Curlews was written at the request of harpist Skaila Kanga for her students at the Royal Academy of Music, London. It is an erratic dance in irregular metres, one harp answering the other until a climax in 5/4 is reached. In a contrasting central section, the instruments work together to create a little skipping melody as well as its quiet, steady accompaniment. This too rises to a 5/4 climax before the return of the first material which eventually dies away. Throughout the piece, each harp has its own mode or 'scale'; though the modes are quite similar, at times they produce marked harmonic clashes. This is yet another way in which the piece explores unrelentingly the relationship of one instrument to the other.

Price: £8.50

People who bought this item also bought:

1. Samuel, Rhian: Through Windows and the Balustrades Beyond for Flute, Harp and Viola (Ref: Y167)

Samuel, Rhian: Emerging (lightly). Solo Viola and Chamber Ensemble Ref: Y244

Solo Viola and Flute, Clarinet in B flat, Two Violins, Cello and Harp
[PDF Sample]

Commissioned by Mobius for its tenth anniversary project, and first performed by them at the Wigmore Hall on 22 March 2008, Emerging (lightly) is a showcase for solo viola, flute, clarinet, harp, two violins and cello. The music is fleet and light, concerned with the developing relationship between two contrasting ideas that is mediated by the solo instrument. Writing in The Times, Richard Morrison praised Emerging (lightly) for its musical argument: 'Here the viola was the still centre of a quicksilver polyphonic whirl, before intoning a haunting folk-like tune over an oasis of calm G major. The impression was of a serene character quelling fractious colleagues. Intriguing and stimulating ...'

Price: £20.50

Samuel, Rhian: Far across the sea (Ymhell dros y mor). Solo Harp Ref: Y259

[Standard: Intermediate]
[PDF Sample]

'Far Across the Sea' (Ymhell dros y môr) is the latest instrumental work from a composer noted for her original and sensitive writing for harp and harp ensemble.

In this gentle solo, what sounds like a folksong - and a very fine one - is in fact a newly composed tune, crafted with artful simplicity. But as the music journeys further from its characteristically Welsh opening, teasing out new suggestions from the material, the sense of nostalgia becomes definitely more contemporary than traditional, though the uplifting conclusion restores the tone of bardic rhetoric.

This work would be a rewarding item for players of intermediate standard, and was recommended for the under 18 category of the 2009 Wales International Harp Festival.

Price: £5.50

People who bought this item also bought:

1. Healey, Derek: Sleep, holy babe! (Ref: W213)

2. Bridge, Frank: Romance and Valse Russe arr. for Viola and Piano (Ref: H475)

3. Archer, Malcolm: Sleigh Bells Across the Snow (Ref: H466)

Samuel, Rhian: Phantasy Trio for violin, cello and piano Ref: Y273

Score and Parts
[PDF Sample]

Rhian Samuel's Phantasy Trio is a lively and challenging addition to the repertoire of an instrumental genre infrequently visited by contemporary composers. Its five movements are played without a break, their musical discourse focused by the sustained dynamic interaction of piano, violin and cello. After a preludial opening of filigree arabesques shared between the players, material in the spirit of an Irish jig forms the topic of the second and fourth movements, which enclose a scherzo of violent contrasts. In the finale, thematic elements of much that has gone before are gathered up and assessed, to conclude the score in a mood of quiet fantasy and a hushed final cadence.

Price: £14.50

Samuel, Rhian: The Last Dance Ref: Y262

Score and Parts
[PDF Sample]

Written in 2009 for an event to celebrate the Bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin, The Last Dance is a musical reflection on contemporary questions about the survival of our planet. It begins with energetic, even frenetic, material exchanged between the instruments. This is interspersed with moments of respose that are gradually extended, until the piece concludes with a quiet final section with solo first violin playing high above the other instruments, an ending open to many different interpretations.

Price: £16.50

Two Eighteenth-Century Pieces Ref: H468

[Standard: Intermediate]
[PDF Sample]

Arranged for Double Bass and Piano by H Samuel Sterling

Rameau: Tambourin
Giordani: Larghetto

The lively Tambourin by Rameau is among the most popular of baroque instrumental pieces, and in H. Samuel Sterling's idiomatic arrangement for double bass and piano it forms a welcome addition to the bassist's repertoire. Giordani's stately Larghetto is an ideal counterweight, and an exercise in sustained, expressive playing that is included in the Associated Board Grade 6 syllabus for the instrument.

Price: £4.75

Ward, John: Oxford Fantasias/Two-part Ayres Ref: Y221

Set of Parts
Edited by Ian Payne. Score available in Musica Britannica Volume 83 (MB83).

Price: £24.50

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