Richard Reed Parry's Quartet For Heart And Breath is an innovative and original piece based on the performers' own bodily rhythms. This sheet music is for String Quartet(Violin/Violin/Viola/Cello).Richard Reed Parry is familiar to millions as the lead singer of rock band Arcade Fire yet his foray into classical music is equally worthy of attention. Quartet For Heart AndBreath is an experiment into using the performers' heartbeats and breathing to dictate the tempo. The performers are instructed to wear stethoscopes in order to listen to their heartbeats closely while one completebreath corresponds to one bar and two heartbeats equal two crotchets.The result is a quiet and subtle piece as each instrument has to play softly so as to be able to keep in time. The piece also has a naturally occurringdynamism in that the players' heart rates constantly change as the performance goes on with each instrument falling in and out of sync sometimes culminating in a beautiful moment of all heartbeats matching each other.Interestingly this unique aspect means that no performance will ever be the same meaning to hear or play this composition will be a truly once in a lifetime experience.Quartet For Heart And Breath is asuperbly one-of-a-kind composition by Richard Reed Parry. Commissioned by the Kronos Quartet this piece makes for a wonderfully distinctive performance with fascinating implications for the connection between the musicand the body.

Commissioned by the Presteigne Festival of Music and the Arts Limited with funds provided by the Arts Council of Wales for premiere in August 2012 by the Carducci String Quartet in St. Andrew?s Church Presteigne.Composer's Note.'Some years ago I noted down the opening theme of what I anticipated would be a relatively Classical string quartet ?Classical? in the sense of the forms adopted plus perhaps a predominantly lyrical tone of voice. The commission for this work from the Presteigne Festival for their 30th anniversary in 2012 gave me the opportunity of putting into practice this long-held idea. It isdedicated to the Festival and to the Carducci Quartet whose career as much-admired friends and colleagues I have greatly enjoyed.The only break with ?classical? tradition is that there are five movements instead of four with two Scherzi as the second and third though both these are very short and contrasting. I found myself listening to Haydn?s string quartets a lot before and during the composition of this work and I hope the spirit of his delight in writing for this medium is echoed in my own music. The opening movement is in sonata form unusually for me and lyricism is I hope the basis of it though there is a good deal of activity at times. The Scherzo light and marked by frequently-changing rhythms is followed by an equally short but ferocious Perpetuum mobile marked Wild und rasch (one of my favourite German tempo markings). The fourth movement is an intense Adagio in which a single phrase uttered strongly in unison is gradually transformed into gentle diatonic chords before the close intermingled with cadenzas for cello for viola and for the two violins together. The finale (a Rondo) resumes the classical tone of the first movement but apart from one dance-like episode it builds up a fair head of steam towards a final Presto which however ascends slows and quietens towards a gentle summer sky at dusk.'

The six short movements of this quartet can be described as follows but are not necessarily played in this order:1) A fast scherzo-like mechanism of terraced accelerandos 2) Quiet heterophony - col legno vertical spiccato 3)Alla chitarra 4) Al tamburo 5) Static harmony with microtonal inflexions 6) A second scherzo with changing metre.Benedict Mason's close association with the Arditti Quartet stems from the 1989 Huddersfield Festival whenthey gave the premiere of his first quartet. They subsequently recorded this work for Bridge Records.Duration 20'

The Full Score for Peter Maxwell Davies’ fourth in a series of ten string quartets commissioned by the Naxos Recording company first performed by the Maggini Quartet on 20th August 2004 at the Chapel of the Royal Palace Oslo Norway as part of the Olso Chamber Music Festival. Composer Note: The fourth Naxos quartet was written in January and February of 2004 with the intention of producing something lighter and much less fierce than itspredecessor an unpremeditated and spontaneous reaction to the illegal invasion of Iraq.I returned to the well-known Brueghel picture of children's games (1560 now in Vienna) which had been the inspiration for my sixthStrathclyde Concerto for flute and orchestra. These illustrations liberated my musical imagination but I feel it would limit the listener's perception to be too specific about which game relates to exactly which section of thework. Suffice it to say that there is vigorous play - leap-frog bind the devil with a cord truss wrestling - alongside quieter pastimes - masks guess whom I shall choose courting odds and evens. The single movementjuxtaposes these activities as abruptly and intimately as they occur in Brueghel. Rather as the eye is taken into different perspectives and proportions of scale within the picture taking liberties which would never be presentin for instance Brunelleschi architectural drawings so here with a constant sequence of transformation processes I have distorted the neat precise implications of modal progression expressed in the unison opening phrase(from F to B through A sharp/B flat) so that the ear is led en route into the sound equivalents of strange passageways and closed rooms: sicut exposition ludus. As work on the quartet progressed I became aware that Iwas reading into and behind the games adult motives and implications concerning aggression and war with their consequences. It was impossible to escape into innocent childhood fantasy. The nature of the F to B

Irish Music for Strings Score + Parties. Par AUTEURS DIVERS. The cheerful and often melancholic melodies of Ireland lend themselves well for easy string quartet or ensemble repertoire. Wonderful tunes such as 'A Lovely Lass” and 'The Foggy Dew” have been arranged by Speckert for two violins, viola and cello. In all pieces the viola can be replaced by a third violin. 'Fiddle Tunes” forms part of the 'Easy String Ensemble” series./ Répertoire / Ensemble à Cordes