All Compositions
Music for Flute
 | A Dry Weather Legend Robert Russell Bennett (composer) | From Knoxville Symphony Orchestra program notes, Tuesday, February 18, 1947: "Mr. Bennett’s composition 'A Dry Weather Legend', for flute and orchestra, was written especially for and dedicated to his close friend and colleague Lamar Stringfield, our conductor, who performs the flute solo part in this world premiere performance." The piece is based on the “water-well” version of “The Tar Baby”, a West Virginia folk legend. | $80.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Two Pieces for Flute and PianoRobert Russell Bennett (composer) | A particularly fruitful period in Paris in 1928 included two pieces for flute and piano, the Nocturne and Dance, which Bennett later referred to together as Two Pieces. The “Nocturne” and “Dance” were written sequentially, but apparently as two separate pieces, during the fruitful summer of 1928, while Bennett was living in Paris (Fontainebleau) with his wife Louise and daughter Jean, continuing his private studies with Boulanger. Bennett and flutist Quinto Maganini together gave a private premiere for friends soon thereafter, quite likely at Boulanger’s house. | $32.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Five Improvisations on Exotic Scales | Composed for the Sagul Trio, which premiered music by several mid-20th century composers. It was played by them on 14 February 1947 at Town Hall, New York City, as part of radio station WNYC’s American Music Festival. The use of unusual scales was probably rooted in Bennett’s study of the Greek modes with Nadia Boulanger twenty years earlier. Each movement is preceded by an intonation or statement of its “exotic” scale. | $44.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Seven Postcards to Old Friends | Bennett writes little thank-you notes to the best and brightest of the musical scene - Irving Berlin, Vincent Youmans, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Noel Coward, George Gershwin, and Jerome Kern. Each composer's style peeks through in Bennett's impressions. | $35.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Six Souvenirs | For the flute talents of John Wummer and Mildred Hunt Wummer, Bennett composed a set of six descriptive movements, each an homage to friends integral to the American flute scene of the day. Certainly, the names George Barrere, William Kincaid, and Verne Powell are well-known, but to Bennett they were richly colorful friends. | $44.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Flute SonataPaul Mack Somers (composer) | A 70th birthday present for his wife Janet, Somers' Flute Sonata is a three-movement work in A-B-A fashion. The second movement, originally scored for bass flute, was recast for C flute to retain cohesion of the Sonata as a whole. (The middle movement has also been extracted as a solo for bass flute and piano, Dark Lake - 494-03140.) The finale ("allegro energetico") is a dynamic and punchy romp to a satisfying conclusion. It was premiered by Janet and pianist Michiko Otaki at a party celebrating Jan's and Paul's 70th birthdays. | $30.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Dark Lake | Dark Lake, the second movement of Somers' Flute Sonata, is here available in its original scoring for bass flute and piano. The composition of this tone poem was inspired in part by a passage from Ralph Waldo Emerson's May-Day. "…the pent and darkened lake, Cooled by the pendent mountain's shade, Whose deeps, till beams of noonday break, Afflicted moan, and latest hold Even into May the iceberg cold… " | $20.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | New Jersey Campmeeting: A Bloomfield Sabbath | Somers has crafted this work with inspiration from two 19th century composers with New Jersey connections. The familiar hymn tunes of William Bradbury, often sung at camp meetings, can be heard above a “sound wash” not unlike that used by Charles Ives. Bradbury is buried in Bloomfield while Ives was an organist in Bloomfield Presbyterian Church. The work was written for and premiered by the composer's wife, flutist Jan Somers. | $26.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | An Arch of Miniatures | The first and fifth movements use the same melodic material, but with very different speeds and rhythms. The second and fourth movements also use their own set of like material, first appearing as a horizontal two part invention like a conversation for the woodwinds, and then stacked in vertical harmonies as a piano solo. In the third movement, the keystone of the arch, the challenge was to compose a single-line work with no harmony stated, only perhaps implied. Thus the variety is gained by changing the colorations and registers within a single long line. The motivic material is drawn from within the other movements. | $43.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Music for Clarinet
 | Clarinet Quartet | A three-movement work which is clearly influenced by elements of American popular music, particularly big-band swing, but nevertheless keeps itself well within the “classical” camp. It is a delightful piece which requires excellent performers. It is filled with close harmonies and has many technical passages which challenge each of the four layers. Bennett's evocation of fife and drum in the final march is both inventive and witty, a description which fits the entire work. | $45.95 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Sonata for B♭ Clarinet and PianoPaul Mack Somers (composer) | The harmony uses doubly inflected thirds, which come off like blue notes. At the time of its composition I was both a traditional jazz pianist and a non-jazz composer, so I suppose it should be no surprise that the two worlds crossed paths in this piece. However, I find far more F. J. Haydn than W. C. Handy in the music. | $30.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | An Arch of Miniatures | The idea of writing a set of miniatures came from teaching an undergraduate class in music appreciation for non-music majors. The students expressed dismay when I announced that the next example I’d play was seven minutes long. They insisted that three minutes was about their limit. I thought I’d try to write some movements which would fit a modern undergrad’s attention span, yet use techniques which would likely be unfamiliar in the pop-music world. | $43.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
![](https://www.mauriceriverpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/494-03144.jpg") | Meditation on Jacob Wrestling | The Clarinet, March 2020, p. 6: "Grounded in tonality, Somers achieves stunning harmonic effects by horizontal layering, but also by willingness to employ vertical sonorities that are chosen for being the desired sound at that moment, without regard for others’ established rules. This is a singular work of both rhythmic and expressive vitality. Highly recommended." – Gregory Barrett | $33.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Music for Brass Ensemble
 | Arabesque | The composer's note from Tuesday evening, March 27, 1979, at Carnegie Recital Hall, New York City: "Charlie Chaplin once gave us his recipe for comedy: 'Think of the most ridiculous situation you can, and then direct and play it as though it were King Lear or Pelléas. Dead earnest and dead serious.' Instrumental music that tries to be funny—scherzos, burlesques, humoresques—nearly always ends up being merely cheerful. The Arabesque is written to be cheerful and to show what five fine artists, unconcerned with what the trade calls 'style,' can do when they read music." | $35.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Music for Violin
 | String QuartetRobert Russell Bennett (composer) | The work was premiered by the Guilet String Quartet on 13 December 1956 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The members of the Quartet – all-stars of their time – were Daniel Guilet, violin 1, who already was a founding member of the famed Beaux Arts Trio; David Sackson, violin 2, who became an advocate of Henry Cowell’s violin music; Emanuel Vardi, viola, who, simply put, is considered to be one of the greatest violists of the 20th century; and Benar Heifetz, violoncello, principal with the Philadelphia Orchestra and a member of the highly regarded Coolidge String Quartet. | $49.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Water Music | Bennett said that he wrote it one day when he “stayed home from a ball game.” The music is based on the famous Sailors’ Hornpipe, but soon becomes a witty compendium of modernist techniques, though omitting 12-tone. Not very far into the piece, for example, Bennett puts each player in a different key. He fragments and reassembles the tune to dramatic effect well beyond what one would expect from an essentially trivial folk melody. The first concert performance was by the Walden Quartet in 1945 at the Festival of Contemporary Music at Columbia University in New York. | $44.75 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Three Chaucer Songs | For the music director of His Majesty's Theatre in London, Bennett chose to set the three poems of Merciless Beauty, ascribed to Geoffrey Chaucer, of Canterbury Tales fame. Bennett intended the work "for women's voice or voices" with string quartet. Bennett concurrently prepared a voice and piano version. | $35.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Music for Viola
 | String QuartetRobert Russell Bennett (composer) | The work was premiered by the Guilet String Quartet on 13 December 1956 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The members of the Quartet – all-stars of their time – were Daniel Guilet, violin 1, who already was a founding member of the famed Beaux Arts Trio; David Sackson, violin 2, who became an advocate of Henry Cowell’s violin music; Emanuel Vardi, viola, who, simply put, is considered to be one of the greatest violists of the 20th century; and Benar Heifetz, violoncello, principal with the Philadelphia Orchestra and a member of the highly regarded Coolidge String Quartet. | $24.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Water Music | Bennett said that he wrote it one day when he “stayed home from a ball game.” The music is based on the famous Sailors’ Hornpipe, but soon becomes a witty compendium of modernist techniques, though omitting 12-tone. Not very far into the piece, for example, Bennett puts each player in a different key. He fragments and reassembles the tune to dramatic effect well beyond what one would expect from an essentially trivial folk melody. The first concert performance was by the Walden Quartet in 1945 at the Festival of Contemporary Music at Columbia University in New York. | $44.75 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
| Three Chaucer Songs | For the music director of His Majesty's Theatre in London, Bennett chose to set the three poems of Merciless Beauty, ascribed to Geoffrey Chaucer, of Canterbury Tales fame. Bennett intended the work "for women's voice or voices" with string quartet. Bennett concurrently prepared a voice and piano version. | $35.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Seven Postcards to Old Friends | Bennett writes little thank-you notes to the best and brightest of the Broadway musical scene — Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Vincent Youmans, Cole Porter, Noel Coward, and George Gershwin. Each composer's music he had orchestrated, and something of each's style peeks through in Bennett's impressions. | $35.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Three Pieces for Viola and PianoPaul Mack Somers (composer) | "Song", "Pastorale", "Prelude, Meditation, and Fugue" The prominent violist Brett Deubner, asked me for some short program fillers for an upcoming recital in 2010. Otherwise engaged at the time, I quickly arranged two earlier pieces. About a year after doing the arrangements, Brett requested a more substantial original piece. I hadn't composed a fugue in years, so decided to conclude the new piece with one. | $43.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Meditations on Jacob Wrestling | The Clarinet, March 2020, p. 6: Grounded in tonality, Somers achieves stunning harmonic effects by horizontal layering, but also by willingness to employ vertical sonorities that are chosen for being the desired sound at that moment, without regard for others’ established rules. This is a singular work of both rhythmic and expressive vitality. Highly recommended. – Gregory Barrett | $33.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Music for Violoncello
 | String Quartet.Robert Russell Bennett (composer) | The work was premiered by the Guilet String Quartet on 13 December 1956 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The members of the Quartet – all-stars of their time – were Daniel Guilet, violin 1, who already was a founding member of the famed Beaux Arts Trio; David Sackson, violin 2, who became an advocate of Henry Cowell’s violin music; Emanuel Vardi, viola, who, simply put, is considered to be one of the greatest violists of the 20th century; and Benar Heifetz, violoncello, principal with the Philadelphia Orchestra and a member of the highly regarded Coolidge String Quartet. | $49.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Water Music | Bennett said that he wrote it one day when he “stayed home from a ball game.” The music is based on the famous Sailors’ Hornpipe, but soon becomes a witty compendium of modernist techniques, though omitting 12-tone. Not very far into the piece, for example, Bennett puts each player in a different key. He fragments and reassembles the tune to dramatic effect well beyond what one would expect from an essentially trivial folk melody. The first concert performance was by the Walden Quartet in 1945 at the Festival of Contemporary Music at Columbia University in New York. | $44.75 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
| Three Chaucer Songs | For the music director of His Majesty's Theatre in London, Bennett chose to set the three poems of Merciless Beauty, ascribed to Geoffrey Chaucer, of Canterbury Tales fame. Bennett intended the work "for women's voice or voices" with string quartet. Bennett concurrently prepared a voice and piano version. | $35.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Five Improvisations on Exotic Scales | Composed for the Sagul Trio, which premiered music by several mid-20th century composers. It was played by them on 14 February at Town Hall, New York City, as part of radio station WNYC’s 1947 American Music Festival. The use of unusual scales was probably rooted in Bennett’s study of the Greek modes with Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) twenty years earlier. Each movement is preceded by an intonation or statement of its “exotic” scale. | $44.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Sonata for Violoncello and PianoPaul Mack Somers (composer) | Commissioned by Ellen Zoe Hassman in 2008. I had long known that her long soaring lines were rightly her pride and joy, so I made sure to give her passages where she could show off that special attribute. Other ’cellists have since taken up the piece, one even excerpting the lyric slow movement as a standalone solo. | $45.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Music for String Ensembles
 | String QuartetRobert Russell Bennett (composer) | Bennett's 1956 String Quartet was dedicated to Hugo Grunwald, who served as treasurer for many years of "The Bohemians," an organization dedicated to service of musicians who had fallen on hard times. The work is comprised of three movements, the second a loving tribute to Grunwald's long service to musicians. The editors note that the source manuscript was an ozalid, a mirror image that was held up to a light source to read the music. | $49.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. | |
 | Water Music | A 1937 string quartet by a composer perhaps better known as arranger/orchestrator of some 300 Broadway and London productions, Water Music uses the folk tune Sailors' Hornpipe as a starting point. But, as the publisher points out, it "soon becomes a witty compendium of modernist techniques, though omitting 12-tone. Not very far into the piece, for example, Bennett puts each player in a different key. He fragments and reassembles the tune to dramatic effect well beyond what one would expect from an essentially trivial folk melody." | $44.75 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Music for Orchestra
 | A Dry Weather Legend | From Knoxville Symphony Orchestra program notes, Tuesday, February 18, 1947: "Mr. Bennett’s composition 'A Dry Weather Legend', for flute and orchestra, was written especially for and dedicated to his close friend and colleague Lamar Stringfield, our conductor, who performs the flute solo part in this world premiere performance." The piece is based upon the “water-well” version of The Tar Baby, a West Virginia folk legend. | $80.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Music for Wind Ensemble/Band
 | A Dry Weather Legend Robert Russell Bennett (composer) arranged for band by Ernest Moran. | From Knoxville Symphony Orchestra program notes, Tuesday, February 18, 1947: "Mr. Bennett’s composition 'A Dry Weather Legend', for flute and orchestra, was written especially for and dedicated to his close friend and colleague Lamar Stringfield, our conductor, who performs the flute solo part in this world premiere performance." The piece is based upon the “water-well” version of The Tar Baby, a West Virginia folk legend. | $80.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Music for Vocal Solo
 | Four Teasdale Songs | “The Tune”, “I Could Snatch a Day”, “On the South Downs”, “An End” Bennett’s settings were premiered as part of a 1 March 1931 New York concert of music by six Americans sponsored by the League of Composers. Radiana Pazmor, a singer who was becoming well-known as a proponent of new music, took on the four songs. She was, not surprisingly, accompanied at the piano by the composer. | $20.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Three Chaucer Songs | For the music director of His Majesty's Theatre in London, Bennett chose to set the three poems of "Merciless Beauty," ascribed to Geoffrey Chaucer, the "Father of English Literature" of "Canterbury Tales" fame. Bennett intended the work "for women's voice or voices" with string quartet. Bennett concurrently prepared a voice and piano version. | $25.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Seven Art Songs for low, medium, and high voices and piano.Paul Mack Somers (composer) | High voice. 1. Setting of a wintry text from Benet's John Brown's Body. 2-4. Three dramatic Christmas poems by Penny Harter. Low voice. 5. A setting of Isaiah IX:2. The People Who Walked in Darkness. Medium voice. Two poems by P. M. S. 6. Postcard. Santa Fe, New Mexico, captured in an old door. 7. Benediction. A farewell to Comet Hayakutake. | $22.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Music for Vocal Ensemble
 | Come Dance and Sing Around the Ring.Philip R. Dietterich (composer) | A 19th century Shaker song is set in a skipping 6/8 setting. The opening verse is sung in unison voices, after which the SATB chorus exhorts us to celebrate life, love, and communion. Come Dance and Sing may be performed with or without piano accompaniment. | $2.25 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Duh Blin' Man.Philip R. Dietterich (composer) | This spiritual, which begins over a repeated "have mercy, my Lord" in the low voices, features realized dialect and pronunciation. A two-minute expression of jubilation, Duh Blin' Man is suitable for concert choir or as a song of praise. | $2.25 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Joyful Saints of God.Philip R. Dietterich (composer) | Joyful Saints of God is an earnest song of praise taken from a Shaker Heavenly March, built around the verse “Around the throne of God we spy beams of endless glory. We'll bow our faces and we'll cry, holy, holy, holy.” Dietterich suggests that the chorus should march while singing, as the Shakers may have done. | $2.25 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Winter Song.Philip R. Dietterich (composer) | Using a Shaker text, Dietterich infuses the cold blast of winds throughout his choral setting for unaccompanied choir. The soprano lines (with frequent divisi) soar above the other supporting voices, adding an airy effect. Piano part is included for rehearsals | $1.95 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Noe! Pastores, Cantate Domino. | Three antiphonal choirs: SSTT; AABB; SATB; Organ, Hand Bells, Conductor Garyth Nair (1943-2013) sent me Noe! Pastores by Guillaume Bouzignac (c. 1587 – c. 1643) and asked me if I would compose a new setting of the text. As I composed the music during that summer, mostly sitting under our big beach umbrella on the 58th Street beach of Ocean City, NJ, I heard the piece emerging from the various locations within the church. I included hand bells for their mellow, yet percussive, effect. Orchestral chimes work, too. | $8.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | And There Will Be Signs. S.A.(A.)T.B.(B.) Voices, Accompanied.Paul Mack Somers (composer) | Luke XXI: 25-26, 33. Dramatic anthem which can easily be adapted for solo art-song use. | $2.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | God of Concrete, God of Steel. S. Bar. Voices with piano and found percussion.Paul Mack Somers (composer) | Setting of a poem by Richard G. Jones. God is present in all modern things. Uses four percussionists playing on found items such as pieces of machinery or car parts. | $2.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Psalm One Hundred Twenty-One. S.A.T.B. Voices, Soprano or Tenor solo, with Piano | A setting of the well-known Psalm 121, which is over 7 minutes long and includes a solo part, first sung by a tenor. A worthwhile challenge for a choir! | $2.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | So I Walk. S.A.T.B. Voices, Unaccompanied.Paul Mack Somers (composer) | A slow, a cappella meditation from text from the Dead Sea Scrolls. | $1.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Turn the Wheel. S. Bar. Voices, Accompanied.Paul Mack Somers (composer) | Text from the Dead Sea Scrolls: "So I walk on uplands unbounded, and know that there is hope for that which Thou didst mold out of dust to have consort with things eternal." | $1.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Veni, Creator Spiritus. S. A. B. Voices, Accompanied.Paul Mack Somers (composer) | Attributed to Rhababus Maurus (776-856). Includes both Latin and the English translation by Jack Diether (used with permission). | $1.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Whatever Is True. S.A.T.B. Voices, Accompanied.Paul Mack Somers (composer) | Philippians IV:8-9: "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence worthy of praise, what you have learned and received and heard in me, do. And the God of peace will be with you." | $1.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Music for Solo Piano – Concert
 | River Countries, vol. 1. Down Jersey Scenes.Paul Mack Somers (composer) | Down Jersey is that part of Southern New Jersey in which the watershed drains into Delaware Bay, not the Delaware River or the Atlantic Ocean. Vast marshes, meandering rivers, and small towns are found here. The half dozen images were commissioned by pianist Michiko Otaki, who then toured the suite through the American south and mid-west. | $37.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | River Countries, vol. 2. Maurice River Pictures.Paul Mack Somers (composer) | The Maurice River is fed by drainage from the famous New Jersey Pine Barrens, is dammed to create Union Lake in Millville, and then ambles southward, gaining in size, to empty into the marshes of the Delaware Bay. Of its 50 miles, the lowest 10 are a navigable estuary. Somers was inspired to compose these six pieces, commissioned by pianist Ron Levy, which depict both the small town life of Down Jersey and the natural wonders of the river's variety. | $37.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | River Countries, vol. 3. East Haven Spirits.Paul Mack Somers (composer) | Commissioned by Hagaman Memorial Library and premiered by Ron Levy to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the East Haven, Connecticut library, East Haven Spirits explores the town and its surroundings through the Dewey Decimal System. Images depicted include a local iron foundry, its colonial period church, "Fog on the Sound," its trolley museum, and the ghosts of a Revolutionary War fort. | $37.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Chamber Music With Piano
| Two Pieces for Flute and PianoRobert Russell Bennett (composer) | A particularly fruitful period in Paris in 1928 included two pieces for flute and piano, the Nocturne and Dance, which Bennett later referred to together as Two Pieces. The “Nocturne” and “Dance” were written sequentially, but apparently as two separate pieces, during the fruitful summer of 1928, while Bennett was living in Paris (Fontainebleau) with his wife Louise and daughter Jean, continuing his private studies with Boulanger. Bennett and flutist Quinto Maganini together gave a private premiere for friends soon thereafter, quite likely at Boulanger’s house. | $32.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Five Improvisations on Exotic Scales | Composed for the Sagul Trio, which premiered music by several mid-20th century composers. It was played by them on 14 February 1947 at Town Hall, New York City, as part of radio station WNYC’s American Music Festival. The use of non-diatonic scales was probably rooted in Bennett’s study of the Greek modes with Nadia Boulanger twenty years earlier. Each movement is preceded by an intonation or statement of its “exotic” scale. | $44.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Seven Postcards to Old Friends | Bennett writes little thank-you notes to the best and brightest of the Broadway musical scene — Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Vincent Youmans, Cole Porter, Noel Coward, and George Gershwin. Each composer's music he had orchestrated, and something of each's style peeks through in Bennett's impressions. | $35.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Six Souvenirs | For the flute talents of John Wummer and Mildred Hunt Wummer, Bennett composed a set of six descriptive movements, each an homage to friends integral to the American flute scene of the day. Certainly, the names George Barrére, William Kincaid, and Verne Powell are well-known, but to Bennett they were richly colorful friends. | $44.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
| Three Chaucer Songs | For the music director of His Majesty's Theatre in London, Bennett chose to set the three poems of Merciless Beauty, ascribed to Geoffrey Chaucer, of Canterbury Tales fame. Bennett intended the work "for women's voice or voices" with string quartet. Bennett concurrently prepared a voice and piano version. | $35.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
| Flute SonataPaul Mack Somers (composer) | A 70th birthday present for his wife Janet, Somers' Flute Sonata is a three-movement work in A-B-A fashion. The second movement, originally scored for bass flute, was recast for C flute to retain cohesion of the Sonata as a whole. (The middle movement has also been extracted as a solo for bass flute and piano, Dark Lake - 494-03140.) The finale ("allegro energetico") is a dynamic and punchy romp to a satisfying conclusion. It was premiered by Janet and pianist Michiko Otaki at a party celebrating Jan's and Paul's 70th birthdays. | $30.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
| Dark Lake | A 70th birthday present for his wife Janet, Somers' Flute Sonata is a three-movement work in A-B-A fashion. The second movement, originally scored for bass flute, was recast for C flute to retain cohesion of the Sonata as a whole. (The middle movement has also been extracted as a solo for bass flute and piano, Dark Lake - 494-03140.) The finale ("allegro energetico") is a dynamic and punchy romp to a satisfying conclusion. It was premiered by Janet and pianist Michiko Otaki at a party celebrating Jan's and Paul's 70th birthdays. | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. | $30.00 |
| New Jersey Campmeeting: A Bloomfield Sabbath | Somers has crafted this work with inspiration from two composers with New Jersey connections. Fragments of familiar hymn tunes of William Bradbury, often sung at camp meetings, can be heard above a “sound wash” not unlike that used by Charles Ives. Bradbury is buried in Bloomfield, while Ives was an organist in Bloomfield Presbyterian Church. The work was written for and premiered by the composer's wife, Janet. | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. | $26.00 |
| Sonata for B♭ Clarinet and PianoPaul Mack Somers (composer) | The harmony uses doubly inflected thirds, which come off like blue notes. At the time of its composition I was both a traditional jazz pianist and a non-jazz composer, so I suppose it should be no surprise that the two worlds crossed paths in this piece. However, I find far more F. J. Haydn than W. C. Handy in the music. | $30.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Three Pieces for Viola and Piano.Paul Mack Somers (composer) | "Song", "Pastorale", "Prelude, Meditation, and Fugue" The prominent violist Brett Deubner, asked me for some short program fillers for an upcoming recital in 2010. Otherwise engaged at the time, I quickly arranged two earlier pieces. About a year after doing the arrangements, Brett requested a more substantial original piece. I hadn't composed a fugue in years, so decided to conclude the new piece with one. | $43.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
| Sonata for Violoncello and PianoPaul Mack Somers (composer) | Commissioned by Ellen Zoe Hassman in 2008. I had long known that her long soaring lines were rightly her pride and joy, so I made sure to give her passages where she could show off that special attribute. Other ’cellists have since taken up the piece, one even excerpting the lyric slow movement as a standalone solo. | $45.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | An Arch of Miniatures | The first and fifth movements use the same melodic material using very different speeds and rhythms. The second and fourth movements also use their own set of like material, first appearing as a horizontal two part invention like a conversation for the woodwinds, and then stacked in vertical harmonies as a piano solo. In the third movement, the keystone of the arch, the challenge was to compose a single-line work with no harmony stated, only perhaps implied. Thus the variety is gained by changing the colorations and registers within a single long line. The motivic material is drawn from within the other movements. | $43.50 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Meditation on Jacob Wrestling | The Clarinet, March 2020, p. 6: "Grounded in tonality, Somers achieves stunning harmonic effects by horizontal layering, but also by willingness to employ vertical sonorities that are chosen for being the desired sound at that moment, without regard for others’ established rules. This is a singular work of both rhythmic and expressive vitality. Highly recommended." – Gregory Barrett | $33.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
Chamber Music Without Piano
 | Clarinet Quartet | A three-movement work which is clearly influenced by elements of American popular music, particularly big-band swing, but nevertheless keeps itself well within the “classical” camp. It is a delightful piece which requires excellent performers. It is filled with close harmonies and has many technical passages which challenge each of the four players. Bennett's evocation of fife and drum in the final march is both inventive and witty, a description which fits the entire work. | $45.95 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | String Quartet.Robert Russell Bennett (composer) | The work was premiered by the Guilet String Quartet on 13 December 1956 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The members of the Quartet – all-stars of their time – were Daniel Guilet, violin 1, who already was a founding member of the famed Beaux Arts Trio; David Sackson, violin 2, who became an advocate of Henry Cowell’s violin music; Emanuel Vardi, viola, who, simply put, is considered to be one of the greatest violists of the 20th century; and Benar Heifetz, violoncello, principal with the Philadelphia Orchestra and a member of the highly regarded Coolidge String | $49.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Water Music | Bennett said that he wrote it one day when he “stayed home from a ball game.” The music is based on the famous Sailors’ Hornpipe, but soon becomes a witty compendium of modernist techniques, though omitting 12-tone. Not very far into the piece, for example, Bennett puts each player in a different key. He fragments and reassembles the tune to dramatic effect well beyond what one would expect from an essentially trivial folk melody. The first concert performance was by the Walden Quartet in 1945 at the Festival of Contemporary Music at Columbia University in New York. | $44.75 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |