Call 800-543-5429 VIV 935

Blessings: Gift of Blood • Charity – Caress • Grace: Pleasure Heart

The first movement features flowing melodies, pulses of rhythm and energy, and alternating currents of intensity and release. Charity – Caress is an idyll, a tender evocation that began life as a work for cello and voice. The fugal and imitative elements reflect those intertwined voices in a dialogue both intimate and playful. Grace: Pleasure Heart is a rondo for orchestra, beginning with a yearning theme reminiscent of the first movement and a relentlessly driving undercurrent and percussive piano part. The next section features contrapuntal interplay based on an expansive rising melody. After a brief return of the opening material, these elements are combined in a spirited frolic.
VIV 935, full score, 68 pages, $26.95
VIV 935B, set of parts, $52.00, string set A (8,8,5,5,5)

Dr. Barbara Harbach, Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, has toured extensively as both concert organist and harpsichordist. She holds academic degrees from Pennsylvania State University (B.A.), Yale University (M.M.A.), Musikhochschule (Konzertdiplom) in Frankfurt, Germany, and the Eastman School of Music (D.M.A.). In 2002, Harbach received an honorary doctorate in music, honoris causa, from Wilmington College, Ohio for her lifetime achievement as a composer, performer, editor, and publisher.

Her lively performances and recordings have captured the imagination of many American composers, and the body of work written for and dedicated to Harbach is substantial. Musical America has called her "nothing short of brilliant" and Gramophone has cited her as an "acknowledged interpreter -- and, indeed, muse -- of modern harpsichord music."

She was host of the weekly television music series Palouse Performance seen throughout the Inland Northwest.

As a composer, Harbach has written symphonies, works for chamber ensemble, string orchestra, organ, harpsichord; musicals, choral anthems, film scores, modern ballets, and many arrangements for brass and organ of various Baroque works. She is also involved in the research, editing and publication of manuscripts of eighteenth-century keyboard composers as well as historical and contemporary women composers. Her work is available in both recorded and published form through Naxos Records, Gasparo Records, Kingdom Records, Albany Records, Northeastern Records, Hester Park, Robert King Music, Elkan-Vogel, Augsburg Publishing, Agape Music and Vivace Press. In addition, Harbach is the editor of Women of Note Quarterly.

Harbach initiated Women in the Arts-St. Louis, a celebration featuring over 800 events with various cultural organizations in the St. Louis region. This initiative heightened the awareness and understanding of the achievements of women creators while providing audiences with new and historical examples of the work of women writers, composers and artists.