Just in time for Christmas ... a veritable banquet of music in this 10-minute arrangement of traditional carols, scored for choir and orchestra.
This piece follows on from my Suite of Carols , written some years ago. My wife finds it quite amusing that I like arranging carols so much, given that my favourite phrase at this time of year is "Bah, Humbug!" (in jest, I should add ...).
The fact is that carol melodies seem to inspire me creatively, and I do appreciate the spirit of giving that abounds at this time of year. In that spirit both the recording and score are free downloads until the end of the year.
Included in this feast are the following old and new favourites:
Work on Northland - a musical portrait of Canada's varied landscapes - has been ongoing since 2001. Northland VI is inspired by the prairie regions of the country and completes this project.
Composing most of the earlier parts of Northland was made easier by using sketches I had written much earlier. For example, the first part (sub-titled "Forests") is based on a rough piece I wrote after visits to the forests of northern Ontario. Northland II ("Critters") also draws on these visits (remembering the mosquito and black-fly bites!) and musically speaking steals from a very early "symphony" that will never otherwise see the light of day. Similarly, IV and V ("Mountains" and "Maritime") started with sketches drawn from my library of unfinished fragments.
However, this final instalment has been awaiting my attention for quite a while - partly because I was drawn to other projects, but also because I had already completed a portrait of the prairies (Prairie Night) back in the late '90s. Not wanting to repeat myself made this piece a trickier proposition than the others.
So, this was to be another stab at the Prairies ... totally different from the first ... and I needed a plan. Benjamin Britten reportedly said (about his compositional methods) that once you have a plan the notes take care of themselves. I've never found it quite that simple but I do get the drift!
Obvious maybe (and perhaps a bit hokey), but this idea got me started ... and even if the notes didn't quite take care of themselves the resulting piece is very different from my earlier prairie portrait.
The recording is available from the playlist.
- Winter / Spring 2011 -
Latin Translations
Apologies to classicists, but this has nothing to do with dead Roman poets. Latin Translations is actually my spin on what's generally referred to as "latin" music (music from Cuba and Brazil for example), in an orchestral setting.
In the winter months, when the snow is flying fast and furious, a Canuck's fancy sometimes turns to warmer climes, and so it was with me. For quite a while I'd thought about writing some orchestral pieces in the latin mold. Since a tropical vacation wasn't on the cards any time soon, this seemed like the perfect time to do just that.
I confess to doing quite a lot of research into the various genres, particularly the rhythmic patterns and idiomatic expressions, but I make no pretensions to authenticity in these pieces. I have neither the background or performance experience for that. They are simply my translations of a type of music that I thoroughly enjoy.
The first part hints at latin rhythm rather than explicitly using any particular genre, especially since much of it is in 5/4 time, but at various points you may hear allusions to tango, habañera and mariachi. The second is a boisterous samba, and the final part is a slow, slinky salsa!
