Viola and Piano

Glière, Reinhold: Four Pieces for Viola and Piano

Präludium and Scherzo, op. 32
Intermezzo and Tarantella, op. 9

(originally for double bass and piano)

• HG-F1 Score and part $35.00
  
  

Nielsen, Carl: Fantasistykker (Fantasy Pieces), op. 2

(originally for oboe and piano)

• HN-F1 Score and part $25.00
  
  

Viola and Harp

Powers, Daniel: Reading Issa (2002)

In preparation

Voice, Viola, and Piano

Powers, Daniel: The Rain Is Full Of Ghosts (2006)

Three songs on poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay for mezzo-soprano, viola, and piano

• VI-RFG31 Standard set (one score and viola part $25.00
  
  
• VI-RFG32 Performance set (two scores, one viola part) $40.00
  
  

Weber, Carl Maria von: Two Arias from Der Freischütz

Und ob die Wolke sie verhülle (Cavatine)
Einst Träumte meiner sel’gen Base (Romanz und Arie)

for soprano, viola, and piano

• VOW-DF11 Standard set (one score, one viola part) $25.00
  
  
• VOW-DF12 Performance set (two scores, one viola part) $40.00
  
  

Viola and Orchestra

Powers, Daniel: Viola Concerto (2012)

The Viola Concerto is a work in progress, and will be available in early 2013

Though intended as a sing-along, this piece can also be performed by orchestra alone (for example, as a concert opener). There is also a choral score available as a free download from www.swanswingpress.com, which may be used if a chorus is available, either in conjunction with audience participation or not.

This revised version dates from 2010. Apart from minor corrections, it is for the most part the same as the original. The only really substantial change occurs in measures 68-71. The original instrumentation of that passage sounded unpleasantly thin (at least to my ears) when performed with audience participation. Accordingly, optional parts for lower brass and winds were added, which should be used when the piece is performed as a sing-along (in which case, flutes and oboe should not play). In all other situations, the original instrumentation for this passage should be used.

2.p.2.Eh.2.bcl.2 / 4.3.3.1. / T 3P / harp / strings
7 minutes

Preview

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• CO-SIE11 Performance set (includes full score) $225.00

The piccolo is an instrument that rarely gets to display the full range of its qualities. It is almost always used as a brilliant high-register instrument, adding a touch of sparkle and sometimes shrillness to even the fullest orchestral tutti passages. Its more expressive capabilities are almost totally ignored, as is the tone color of its lower notes. Faced with the task of writing a work featuring the piccolo as a solo instrument, I decided to make an effort to exploit all its capabilities, which is why the work begins with a lyrical theme in the piccolo’s low register.

The work is in one short movement, about 9 minutes long, and divided into a slow introduction followed by an Allegro. Actually, Introduction and Allegro, or something like it, would probably have been a more appropriate title. But I couldn’t resist the pun inherent in “Concerto Piccolo:” read one way, it implies a concerto for the piccolo, but literally translates to “small concerto.” (If I explain the joke, is it still funny?)

Preview

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piccolo and orchestra
0.2.2.2. / 2.2.0.0. / T 2P / harp / strings
8 minutes

• OP-CP1 Conductor’s full score $20.00
• OP-CP2 Set of orchestral parts $100.00
• OP-CP3 Reduction for piccolo and piano (includes piccolo part) $15.00

Jessel was born in the eastern German city of Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland), the son of a Jewish merchant and his American-born wife. At 17, he left school to pursue a career in the musical theater, and after several years of study, took a succession of conducting jobs in various German cities. From 1899 to 1911, he settled in Lübeck, where he was Kappelmeister at the Wilhelm Theater, after which he settled permanently in Berlin.

Jessel’s greatest success was the operetta Schwartzwaldmädel (Black Forest Girl), which premiered in Berlin in 1917. Within 10 years, it had run for 900 performances at the Komische Oper in Berlin as well as receiving nearly 6000 performances elsewhere in Germany and abroad. The 1921 operetta Die Postmeisterin (The Postmistress) was nearly as successful.

Jessel’s ideological outlook was conservative and nationalistic, which is reflected in his operettas. His second wife Anna joined the Nazi party in 1932, and Schwartzwaldmädel was reportedly a favorite of both Hitler and Himmler. Though a Jew by birth, Jessel had converted to Christianity in 1894, and fully expected to be accepted by the authorities even after the Nazis rose to power. Instead, performances of his music were banned in 1933, and he was forced out of all public positions. On December 15, 1941, he was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, and died on January 4, 1942 in the Berlin Jewish Hospital. 

After the Nazi era ended, Jessel’s stage music began to be heard in Germany again. Outside of Germany, his best-known work by far is Die Parade der Zinnsoldaten, known in the English-speaking world as Parade of the Wooden Soldiers (although “tin soldiers” would be a more accurate translation), which was published as a piano piece in 1897, followed by a version for small theater orchestra in 1905.

This edition generally follows the 1905 orchestral version, with the addition of optional instrumentation to make the work playable by full symphony orchestra.

Preview

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• OJ-PWS1 Score $12.50


• OJ-PWS2 performance set (score and set of parts) $90.00

Duration: approx. 3 minutes
Orchestra set includes original instrumentation and expanded instrumentation.

• original instrumentation: 1.1.2.1. / 2.2.1.0. / 3P / A Sax, T Sax (opt.) / banjo (opt.) / strings
• expanded instrumentation: 2.p.2.2.bcl.2. / 4.3.3.1. / T 3P / A sax, T sax (opt) / banjo (opt.) / strings

The nature of the melody makes it easily adaptable to instrumental writing. It can be performed, without alteration (except for transposition), by almost any instrument. The accompanying texture, while rich, is carefully written with every element clearly defined, making it adaptable to larger instrumental combinations. Rachmaninov himself created two orchestral versions, one with soprano and one without. Many other composers have also made transcriptions for a variety of ensembles.

So why one more?

This transcription of Vocalise for cello and string orchestra was commissioned by the Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra for a concert featuring the string section in a program of shorter works. Kurt Fowler, the THSO’s principal cellist, has played Vocalise many times with piano, and when it was noticed that the piece would fit in well with the program for the rest of the concert, it was decided to ask me to handle the orchestration.

My version differs somewhat from other transcriptions that I’m aware of, in that it is through-composed. The original is in two large sections, both of which are repeated; my version, rather than simply repeating each section, is instead written continuously from beginning to end. This allowed me to orchestrate each section differently on the repeat. Each section begins with full strings the first time through, but on the repeat, the dynamic drops and the texture thins out to a group of solo strings, bringing the full orchestra back in gradually. In other words, my orchestration was tailor-made to Kurt’s interpretation of the piece, which I’d heard him perform several times with my wife accompanying him.

• OR-V2 orchestra set (includes score and solo part) $75.00
  
  
  

Preview

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The community of users of Gary Garritan’s popular Garritan Personal Orchestra sample library have gotten together to create an annual Christmas CD. I’ve contributed pieces to most of them, most of which have been adaptations of arrangements I had already done for the concert world. But in 2007, I decided to do a new arrangement specifically for the GPO CD.

I had wanted to do something with the lovely Catalunian song Carol of the Birds for a long time, and it seemed to be well suited for a group of string instruments. So my idea was to create an arrangement using all of Garritan’s solo strings, which included 8 solo instruments as part of GPO, as well as the stand-alone Stradivarius Violin and Gofriller Cello (now discontinued). The result was a piece for 4 violins, viola, 4 cellos, and bass, which can be still be heard on the GPO Christmas CD linked above, but has (so far) never been performed by live instrumentalists.

I planned all along to transcribe it for string orchestra, and found time to do it in 2010. The string orchestra version can be previewed here. (Please contact me if you’re interested in the first version).

Previews

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The first two are actually different versions of the same arrangment, done in 2000. The first is for SSA chorus (C-AWH12) and the other for SATB (C-AWH11). Obviously there are some differences in the choral parts, but the piano part is the same in both versions, and the orchestral parts (C-AWH21) will work with either one.

The third arrangement, from 2008, is a completely new arrangement. I was requested to come up with something “in the Joan Sutherland tradition,” which I took to mean something in an “operatic” style, including a bit of coloratura at the end. Likewise, the orchestral part is fairly elaborate and occasionally demanding.

Previews

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SATB chorus a cappella

• S-BHA11 SATB a cappella octavo $1.00

This arrangement was commissioned by the Vigo County School Corporation, who had been honored with an invitation to send a choir of select High School students to Washington DC in June 2008. They performed at the National Cathedral and several receptions and were very well received.