By Johannes Brahms. Piano duet (One piano, four hands). Published by International Music Co.

String quartet

SKU: HL.49045639

Chaconne. Composed by Fred Lerdahl. This edition: Saddle stitching. Sheet music. String Ensemble. Softcover. Composed 2016. 108 pages. Duration 990 seconds. Schott Music #ED 30174. Published by Schott Music (HL.49045639).

ISBN 9781540004796. UPC: 888680710774. 9.5x12.0x0.37 inches.

Chaconne (2016), for string quartet, was commissioned by the Daedalus Quartet to celebrate its 15th anniversary. The commission was supported by New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Helen F. Whitaker Fund, and Aaron Copland Fund for Music.My music has a substantial history with Daedalus. I composed the Third String Quartet (2008) for them, and subsequently they performed my three string quartets on several occasions and recorded them brilliantly on Bridge Records (Bridge 9352: Music of Fred Lerdahl, vol. 3). Chaconne is in one movement lasting 19 minutes. It is effectively my fourth string quartet. Quartets 1-3 form a unified cycle lasting 70 minutes. When I finished the cycle, I thought I would never write again for the medium; yet I could not resist the opportunity of working again with Daedalus. The issue was how to compose another string quartet unrelated to the earlier cycle. The solution came from my solo cello piece There and Back Again (2010), which was based on a four-bar variation pattern from a 17th-century chaconne. Unlike the asymmetrical phrases and expanding variations of much of my music, the chaconne form requires symmetrical phrases and strictly periodic variations. I wished to work again with these symmetries but on a larger scale. Chaconne also differs in character and expression from the three-quartet cycle. The cycle is inward and intense, a kind of psychological excavation. Chaconne is, for the most part, transparent and playful. Many of its textures emerge from little canons, not completely unlike the rounds that children sing. Any composer who writes in chaconne form (one thinks above all of the last movement of Bach's D minor violin partita and the finale of Brahms's Fourth Symphony) is confronted with the challenge of how to create a larger form out of a constantly repeating pattern.My Chaconne grows from paired antecedent-consequent phrases, each variation lasting eight bars. The 50 variations group into three large rotations, forming three arcs of tension and relaxation, with subtle parallel connections across the rotations. Notwithstanding my attraction to chaconne form, I purposefully disguised its symmetries and periodicities in order to build an overall dramatic shape. Fred Lerdahl.

Score and Parts. Composed by Franz Schubert (1797-1828). Edited by Egon Voss. Henle Music Folios. Classical. Softcover. G. Henle #HN1317. Published by G. Henle

Chamber Music Viola 1, Viola 2, Violin 1, Violin 2, Violoncello 1, Violoncello 2

SKU: PR.11442131S

Composed by Peter Schickele. Full score. Duration 26 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #114-42131S. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.11442131S).

UPC: 680160681006.

A lot of chamber music playing went on in Fargo, North Dakota during my teenage years. The participants included both high school friend - my brother, who plays viola, was an is an inveterate chamber music player - and members of parents' generation. The latter included not only professional musicians (the conductor of the Fargo-Moorhead Community Orchestra, who also played cello and was my first composition teacher, his wife, who was the orchestra's concert mistress, and others) but also people from various other walks of life. Although I don't play a string instrument, I was almost always in attendance, with score in hand. (One summer, all the young cellists we played with went to the Interlochen Music Camp, so I got to play the cello parts on the bassoon.) Mostly it was string quartets that were played, but one of the larger pieces I remember being done more than once was the Brahms Sextet in G Major, and I think that the idea for utilizing that combination had been lurking in the back of my mind since then. In the middle 1980's, ideas for a string sextet began appearing in my sketchbooks; one movement (the fourth) was actually completed in one of the sketchbooks. But without a deadline, it's hard for me to finish a major work, since there are always other pieces (with deadlines) waiting to be completed. So when the Composers Showcase at Lincoln Center asked me to put together a retrospective of my work, I knew I wanted to have a premiere on the program, and May 7, 1990 became the deadline that I got the piece done. The work is in six movements, with a symmetrical key pattern; the movements range from the very dramatic to the very easy-going. I had contacted the Lark Quartet, who had commissioned my String Quartet No.2, about forming the core of the sextet. Unfortunately, one of the Larks had a scheduling conflict, but the other three rounded up three more players, and the six of them gave the piece a rousing performance, in spite of the limited rehearsal time. The players were Eva Gruesser, Genovia Cummins, Anna Kruger, Mary Hamman, Astrid Schween and Julia Lichten.
A lot of chamber music playing went on in Fargo, North Dakota during my teenage years. The participants included both high school friend – my brother, who plays viola, was an is an inveterate chamber music player – and members of parents’ generation. The latter included not only professional musicians (the conductor of the Fargo-Moorhead Community Orchestra, who also played cello and was my first composition teacher, his wife, who was the orchestra’s concert mistress, and others) but also people from various other walks of life. Although I don’t play a string instrument, I was almost always in attendance, with score in hand. (One summer, all the young cellists we played with went to the Interlochen Music Camp, so I got to play the cello parts on the bassoon.)Mostly it was string quartets that were played, but one of the larger pieces I remember being done more than once was the Brahms Sextet in G Major, and I think that the idea for utilizing that combination had been lurking in the back of my mind since then. In the middle 1980’s, ideas for a string sextet began appearing in my sketchbooks; one movement (the fourth) was actually completed in one of the sketchbooks. But without a deadline, it’s hard for me to finish a major work, since there are always other pieces (with deadlines) waiting to be completed. So when the Composers Showcase at Lincoln Center asked me to put together a retrospective of my work, I knew I wanted to have a premiere on the program, and May 7, 1990 became the deadline that I got the piece done.The work is in six movements, with a symmetrical key pattern; the movements range from the very dramatic to the very easy-going.I had contacted the Lark Quartet, who had commissioned my String Quartet No.2, about forming the core of the sextet. Unfortunately, one of the Larks had a scheduling conflict, but the other three rounded up three more players, and the six of them gave the piece a rousing performance, in spite of the limited rehearsal time. The players were Eva Gruesser, Genovia Cummins, Anna Kruger, Mary Hamman, Astrid Schween and Julia Lichten.

(Over 850 Classical Themes and Melodies in the Original Keys) For C instrument. Format: fakebook (spiral bound). With vocal melody (excerpts) and chord names. Lassical. Series: Hal Leonard Fake Books. 646 pages. 9x12 inches. Published by Hal Leonard.

Piano Solo. By Various. Piano Collection. Size 9x12 inches. 128 pages. Published by G. Schirmer, Inc.