Staccato News | Fall 2020 by ScherzoEditions

FALL 2020

STACCATO NEWS SCHERZO EDITIONS’ NEWSLETTER

PUBLISHED WORKS | Summer Album of Pieces Marcus Tristan It was whilst I was studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London in the late 1980's that we were actively encouraged to compose music for the guitar, especially by my special tutor Hans Werner Henze, himself a composer who had written substantial and ground-breaking music for this instrument, that is mostly associated with lyrical and romantic pieces by Spanish composers such as Fernando Sor and Francisco Tarrega. And it is all-too-easy to slip into writing in “the Spanish idiom” when writing for the instrument, since those composers knew the instrument inside out. And this was one of the reasons why I believe we were encouraged to write for the guitar – to stamp our own ideas on the instrument and bend it to our specific creative needs, rather than let it shape what we wrote for it. All three pieces in this album are really, in some ways, tributes to other composers, only one of whom wrote anything for the guitar itself. Despite the title Dreamtime, which conjures up images of Australian aboriginals and their world of spiritual beliefs, this piece is in fact a capriccio on a fragment of a keyboard composition by Georg Friedrich Handel, which is taken apart and put together again in

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various new formations in an almost Cubist manner. The second piece, Andante, was inspired by a short piece for glass harmonica by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with which I was fascinated at the time. I had recently met Alfred Schnittke, and I was exploring the idea of whether style and period were symbiotic, and if it is possible to evoke the style of a previous era without getting bogged down in plagiarism. Copying anything is a meaningless activity, of course, since the original is not only always better, but it has the advantage of sincerity. The Rose Cross is a tribute to the great FrenchAlgerian composer Maurice Ohana, whose work I was introduced to by a South African guitarist called Rob Beer. Ohana wrote Tiento, one of the 20th century classics for guitar, and the Rose Cross was composed in his eternal memory.

Transbucólicas Paulo Bastos Transbucólicas are seven sketches written over ten years. These are extremely fleeting moments that only took their definitive form at the end of 2017. The musical narrative is based on musical memories that I have heard since the 80's, sounds from my imagination mixed between pure happiness and a village in the Mount Alvão, and also some musical themes from the catalogue of Michel Giacometti and Fernando Lopes-Graça. I now show everything together in a cycle, perhaps without the desirable aesthetic and technical unity, which will be characterized, if only for that reason, by the common trait and nostalgia of the "being" and feelings from Trás-os-Montes.

Espaço Sara Claro

GL 26 “ A Aldeia” - Folk Fantasy Gonçalo Lourenço

Conta do Tempo Ana Seara Transbucólicas are seven sketches written over ten years. These are extremely fleeting moments that only took their definitive form at the end of 2017. The musical narrative is based on musical memories that I have heard since the 80's, sounds from my imagination mixed between pure happiness and a village in the Mount Alvão, and also some musical themes from the catalogue of Michel Giacometti and Fernando Lopes-Graça. I now show everything together in a cycle, perhaps without the desirable aesthetic and technical unity, which will be characterized, if only for that reason, by the common trait and nostalgia of the "being" and feelings from Trás-os-Montes.

OUR COMPOSERS Man-Ching Donald Yu, Hong Kong born composer, pianist, and theorist. His music has received various reviews internationally while being described as “Forming an arresting and personal intermixing of tonal and atonal languages, with the musical colors and gestures of his native country infiltrating the mix.”(Fanfare Magazine), “The composer exhibits a radical way of sparse sound-disposition, through the expressive outburst to the final spiritualization of the musical material that fades away in a suspense manner.” (Augsburger Allgemeine, Germany) “Symphony no. 2 reflects an amazing combination for diatonic and chromatic material”(Zaholovok, Ukraine). As a prolific composer, more than hundreds compositional works ranges from chamber, vocal, electroacoustic, Chinese instrumental works to opera, choral works and symphonies. His works have been featured at various read more...

WORKS

Blossoms|brass ensemble

The Maximum Speed of Raphael’s Madonna| flute & piano Spring Flower|flute, clarinet & bassoon Flaming Passion|flute, violoncello & piano

Air|chamber orchestra Recede and Surge|clarinet & piano Apocalypse|orchestra Purple Sky|violoncello & piano

ARTS CORNER

Together we win 1917/1918.

James Montgomery Flagg, 1877-1960. | W. F. Powers Co., printer/lithographer (United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation)

Text implies that the military and the industrial workers together will help to win the war. Illustration shows three men, two in the military and one holding work tools, marching together.

PARTNERSHIPS

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