Score Spotlight: March & April 2013

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Gastoldi A lieta vita for Cello Quintet

Hans Erik Deckert arranged Giovanni Gastoldi’s A lieta vita, which translates to “A happy life.” The first verse of the work in English is:

A Happy Life
Love calls us, Fa la la
Whose long days,
If the heart loves
Give to the foundation
In such a Lord, Fa la la

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As the words clearly indicate, this madrigal is a happy and dancing movement in which the cello quintet assumes the role of the a cappella choir. The arrangement is quite simple and particularly suitable for children.

Schumann Romanze for 12 Celli

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Robert Schumann’s Romanze from Three Romances for Piano, Op. 28 comes to Ovation Press as an arrangement for 12 celli. This arrangement is transposed down a half-step (from F-sharp to F major), while retaining the same tonal experience and delicate transparent sound of the original. Editor Gerhard Roither comments that one should “visualize the cello concerto” when playing this arrangement.

Though not a composition written for the 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic like Roither’s previous two scores, he used the same instrumental arrangement of 12 celli for this Schumann rendition.

Chopin Etude in E-flat Minor for Cello Quartet

The sixth in Chopin’s first collection of etudes (Op. 10), the E-flat minor is a more moderate tempo work compared to many of his other etudes. In many ways it resembles the nocturnes (which Chopin is so famous for), with an expressively chromatic structure and polyphonic layers. The dark and somber timbre of the work has been commented by some to represent a form of “meditated grief,” speaking almost as an elegy would.(see Casella, Alfredo. F. Chopin. Studi per pianoforte. Milano: Edizioni Curci, 1946, p. 38.)

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Four Chorales from the Renaissance and early-Baroque

Continuing the theme from the first work above, Hans Erik Deckert also released four chorale arrangements from the Renaissance & Baroque periods. For the source material, Deckert has drawn upon some of the most prolific chorale composers of the age: Palestrina, Ockeghem, Praetorius, and Purcell.