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Fand IncWessex Press is a publisher of high quality sheet music, CDs and books, all focussing on accessible 20th Century and contemporary composers and concentrating mainly on first editions. Please use the tabs at the top of the page to explore the catalogue. Further details, such as information about ordering, can be found on the Contact/Info page.
This autumn we are pleased to announce the publication of Romance for Viola and Piano by Peter Thompson. This will be a welcome addition to the list of short repertoire pieces for the instrument; a meditative song of shaded contrasts well suited for a Grade 7+ player.
Fand is delighted to present John Mitchell’s highly idiomatic piano solo arrangement of E. J. Moeran’s Lonely Waters: a ‘must’ for lovers of Moeran’s distinctive music.
Lonely Waters is one of a pair of short orchestral pieces (the other being Whythorne’s Shadow) that Moeran wrote in 1931 as Two Pieces for Small Orchestra. Both pieces are based on existing melodies: Lonely Waters on a folksong and Whythorne’s Shadow on an Elizabethan tune.
Unusually, Lonely Waters has a choice of endings, one of which involves a singer providing a sung motto to the piece. The new piano arrangement preserves this pair of alternative endings. Indeed, since the vocal line is almost entirely unaccompanied, it might even be performed by the pianist.
Fand’s latest major publication is an important work by John Barton Armstrong. His Sonata for ’Cello and Piano is a long single-movement work that lasts for nearly half an hour; written in 1981, it ranks as one of his most significant scores after his symphonies and opera. The sonata was first performed in 1987 and received its first radio broadcast in 1988.
Also now available in commemoration of Carey Blyton’s 80th anniversary year is a new edition of Composer Interviews no 1: Carey Blyton. This second edition presents the interview (with minor updates and corrections) in an attractive new format and adds a recent essay by Peter Thompson, written for the anniversary year.
The publication of Sir Arnold Bax’s Welcome, Somer is another important first for Fand; this is a previously unpublished Bax song: a vigorous and typically characterful setting of words by Chaucer, for either soprano or tenor voice and piano.
In 1914, Bax composed Three Rondels by Chaucer for high voice and piano, of which only the first, Roundel, was ever published; the other two, Welcome, Somer and Of her Mercy, remained in manuscript form only.
Welcome, Somer was completed on 20 October 1914, four days before the wedding of Joan Thornycroft, its dedicatee, to Herbert Farjeon; the song was clearly intended as a wedding present. It is a setting of a rondel near the end of Chaucer’s long poem, The Parlement of Foules, in which a narrator describes a dream-vision.
As a supplement to the recent publication of Carey Blyton’s The Christmas Spirit in its two different authentic scorings for two equal voices and piano and choir (SATB) and string orchestra, Fand has also published a new arrangement of the piece for choir (SATB) and piano. This helpful and easily performed new scoring may be used in its own right – thus making the work more readily accessible for public performance – or may be used as a rehearsal score while learning the version for choir and string orchestra.
The Fand site has just undergone a major overhaul to add sound samples to its pages. The samples are of generous length and unusually good quality for a Web site. All CDs include sample tracks (including, in the case of shorter tracks, full-length samples). As for sheet music, a full performance is provided wherever possible, so as to allow visitors to get a good sense of the entire piece. A Speaker and Notes icon is used to indicate pieces that have associated sound samples; either alongside the titles in tabular listings or as badges on covers, as in the following example:
Fand is pleased to release two versions of Peter Thompson’s Capriccio for Violin and Orchestra, composed in 2007. As well as the orchestral version (which itself is available to buy as a regular-sized score or in a conductor-score edition), a reduction for violin and piano is also available.
We are delighted to be able to offer this double-CD box set of M. S. Sharifian’s monumental Islamic oratorio.
Eclipse is the first symphonic work based on a religious subject ever to be written in the 1400-year history of Islamic culture. As such, it is surely “crossover” music at its most pertinent, blending, as it does, so many different aspects of East and West. The result is a powerful and moving statement, the music combining elements of both traditions into one, thereby mirroring one of the most important issues facing contemporary mankind. It is performed, fittingly, by a truly international cast: a Romanian orchestra, the Oltenia Philharmonic Choir, a Persian traditional singer and Western soloists, including the British soprano, Florence Lippett.
This is a unique opportunity to purchase the first edition of a landmark recording. Translated explanatory notes are included with the CD, which has original booklet notes in Persian.
After a long period of preparation, Fand Music Press is very excited to launch its landmark event of the year: AN ENTIRE NEW WEB SITE! This isn’t just a superficial makeover; it’s a completely new database-driven site, planned afresh and written from scratch.
We hope you will enjoy exploring the features of the new site, which is far more detailed than ever before. The new database underlying the site contains just about everything you might want to know about the products in the Fand catalogue, and the site can now automatically cross-reference and catalogue pieces by instrument, by composer and so on. Use the tabs at the top of the page to explore what’s available. The buttons in the left column bring you back to this News page or provide additional information about Fand.
You will also notice that we now have online ordering for all items, accomplished through PayPal. This should make ordering items immeasurably easier than it was previously, as well as being a quicker and more secure process. (However, you can still send us a cheque through the post if you would really prefer to use the old ordering method!)
There’s still more to come, too. Although this new site is fully working and complete in itself, it will be expanded over the coming weeks and months to include further new features, such as:
As if the new Web site weren’t enough, Fand has also produced two exciting new musical issues:
Sir Arnold Bax’s A Rabelaisian Catechism was written in 1920, and was one of a set of seven arrangements of French folksongs that Bax wrote at that time, but the only one never to be published until now. Set for baritone and piano, it takes the form of a chanson de série in which a question is put twelve times and the answer given cumulatively, in the manner of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Peter Thompson’s The Oblation is a delicate new setting of a poem by A. C. Swinburne for medium voice and piano.
Welcome to Fand’s latest news. We must draw your attention to new items in our catalogue. You will possibly already be aware of our edition of Gary Higginson’s Shadows for piano; it is a set of pieces of Grades 3–4 level, and is a great introduction to different styles of composition. Here Higginson ‘shadows’ various composers, from Machaut to George Lloyd, from Bach to Peter Warlock. The volume has been welcomed enthusiastically by both Music Teacher and Piano magazines. And now, new this summer, comes Scenes from Shakespeare, again by Gary Higginson. It is a follow-up volume to Shadows, and is a set of eight pieces for pianists of higher grade, each prefaced by a quotation from Shakespeare.
Next, the first ever edition of Sir Arnold Bax’s Salzburg Sonata in B flat for piano. This piece, written by Bax in his 50s, is tremendous fun both to play and to listen to. It was never published in his lifetime, yet Bax clearly liked it, incorporating the second movement into his Violin Concerto, and, as the manuscript shows, devoted a lot of time and care into its composition. It is a great rarity, and will get you chuckling with delight as the ‘brazen romantic’ puts the ‘classical sonata’ through its paces. It includes an introductory note from Graham Parlett.
Another volume we must mention is the Fand Grade 5 Piano Album. Here is a varied selection of pieces from Sir Arnold Bax (the Minuet from the Salzburg Sonata) to Roger Eno; from Francis Pott to Warlock and Fauré tributes by Gary Higginson; from … well, discover for yourself—that’s Fand’s motto! There’s nothing above Grade 5 level here; 13 pieces, 31 pages.
Previous announcements may be found in the Fand News Archive.
