Description
Music by Davd W Solomons arranged by Colin Bayliss
The five movements (also available separately as shown) are:
1 Meinau Rag
http://dwsolo.musicaneo.com/sheetmusic/sm-179082_sweet_4_chamber_orchestra_-_1_meinau_rag.html
2 An Amble round Mercury
http://dwsolo.musicaneo.com/sheetmusic/sm-179167_sweet_4_chamber_orchestra_-_2_an_amble_round_mercury.html
3 Pretty How Town
http://dwsolo.musicaneo.com/sheetmusic/sm-179229_sweet_4_chamber_orchestra_-_3_pretty_how_town.html
4 Landscape before sunrise
http://dwsolo.musicaneo.com/sheetmusic/sm-179319_sweet_4_chamber_orchestra_-_4_landscape_before_sunrise.html
5 Little Laser Lady
http://dwsolo.musicaneo.com/sheetmusic/sm-179451_sweet_4_chamber_orchestra_-_5_little_laser_lady.html
The orchestration is: Piccolo [except in the 4th movement], 2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, Clarinet, Bassoon and string orchestra including double bass.
The zip file contains all scores and parts.
Many years ago, at a performance of Solomons' Suite for recorder Orchestra,
Colin Bayliss suggested it would also work nicely with a concert band. This idea was shelved for a while
but has now blossomed into a suite for Chamber Orchestra, arranged by Colin.
The original Suite for Recorder Orchestra is also available on Musicaneo, at
http://dwsolo.musicaneo.com/sheetmusic/sm-85305_suite_for_recorder_orchestra.html
Each movement has its own story and reflects various places where the composer has lived or poems that have inspired him:
Meinau Rag was written in honour of his 8 month stay in La Meinau, a suburb of Strasbourg - it was one of several "ragtimes", a style he experimented with on the guitar at that time.
Other arrangements of this music can be heard on youtube, including this live performance for cello and guitar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH8LT0VAW24
An Amble round Mercury refers to the pond and associated statue of Mercury in the centre of Tom Quad at his college, Christ Church Oxford. The ostinato is one that he has used on many pieces and was originally written to accompany a setting from the Book of Elijah - "and in that day thou shalt say O Lord" - in his college days.
Pretty How Town, a perky and rhythmically complex piece, is based on the poem - "anyone lived in a pretty how town" by e.e.cummings.
An idea of the song the composer originally wrote for the poem can be heard on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhBZIu-6-3A
The more laid back Landscape before sunrise is based on a setting of many ways in which the world says "Goodnight" and is inspired by the view from the composer's 18th floor flat in Aldgate East overlooking a multicultural population. The rhythms of the original song "Goodnight" follow the phrases in each language: "Good Night, buona notte, gute Nacht, kali nykhta, oyasumi nasai, nos da..."etc The original song performed by the composer can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VY_s7sGgWQ
Little Laser Lady, an upbeat end to the suite, is based on a poem by a friend of the composer, whose girlfriend (and wife to be) would always visit him in her Laser (a make of car in Australia)
(She is the sun in the afternoon, she is the night's familiar, she comes on a beam of yellow gold light......)
The sound sample here is the 5th movement.
(I have categorised this work as "Medium" difficulty, but the 3rd movement is in fact closer to "Advanced")