SKU: FG.55011-775-4

ISBN 9790550117754.

Alex Freeman found initial inspiration for his string quartet (2015) in a series of photographs a geologist friend showed him of en échelon veins in rock formations. The open strings punctuated with pizzicato unisons that begin the single-movement work call to mind something crystalline and shimmering, which is immediately infused with tumbling lyrical lines in something of a rapid caccia technique throughout. The middle of the work becomes more suspended in slower material loosely based on a technique of prolation canon, comprises layers of free, expressive, lyrical, and even elegiac music moving at different speeds. As the work concludes, the materials converge in a rhythmically pulsating stasis and an almost chorale-like statement.

Duration: c. 13'

This product includes the score and the parts (A4 sized).


American-Finnish composer Alex Freeman (b.1972) has established himself among the foremost composers of choral music in Finland. A dedicated citizen of his musical community, a teacher, and a choral singer himself, he composes music that reflects an appreciation for a wide range of aesthetics and a passion for communicating with listeners and performers. In his choral works, in particular, we find music that aims to be sonorous, melodic, and resonant, but is always crafted to carefully avoid the cliches that can burden conventional tonality.

His instrumental works run the gamut: a cantata with orchestra based on poetry of Whitman; a significant body of solo piano works that reveal deep roots in everything from austere absolute music to soaring elegaic rhetoric (see Albany Records, Inner Voice); his chamber work Blueshift (Navona Records), which is a kind of paean to Reich and Adams in miniature; open-ended modular works, like various iterations of his Slow All Clocks for electronic media, solo clarinet, and mixed choirs of kanteles; and, recently, some new directions in microtonal music.

SKU: HL.14028046

ISBN 9788759859377. 9.5x14.25x0.12 inches. International (more than one language).

Score available: KP00247 Ruders writes: Quartet No. 3 Motet was written in 1979, commissioned by the Lerchenborg music-week of 1979 during which it was first performed by Quatuor Bernede. This short one-movement quartet is a kind of modernization of the 14th century French motets, a cadeau to this weird and fantastic music whose abstract and almost deprecatory, introvert expression appears unaccountably modern and incredibly ancient at the same time. Motet is a sober, cool treatise on rhythm and statics, depicted in a Gothic, crypt-like atmosphere. The almost completely non-vibrato movement is suggestive of boys' choir, monks' processions, and the piercing sound of musical glasses. An ancient world is reborn and becomes the world of today.

SKU: PR.154400180

UPC: 680160642465. 9 x 12 inches.

Andrea Gabrieli was a major force in moving the classical music world toward the more modern Venetian school of the Renaissance. Called by Alfred Einstein One of the greatest and most influential masters of the Renaissance period, Gabrieli fully developed the use of choirs of voices and instruments, often in opposition to each other. David has selected three examples from a posthumous 1589 collection, advising that the four-part pieces were originally scored for viols but are here arranged for modern instruments. And while the arrangement will accommodate a number of players per part, single players would be more historically correct. As important as Andrea was to the Venetian School, his fame would be eclipsed by his nephew and student, Giovanni Gabrieli.