A selection of folk ballads from England Ireland Scotland and Wales.A ballad is the blending of words the beauty of melody tone rhythm and expression. They reflect the history of a people their legends religion love and work. British ballads are renouned for their verse melodic construction and for the enormous range of expression.1 The Lass of Richmond Hill is a poem by Leonard McNally a barrister about a lass who became his wife in 1787. The music is by James Hook (1746 1827).2 Sally in our Alley. The words are by Henry Carey who also wrote the original music but this was replaced by the tune we now know an English traditionalmelody in 1790.3 Caller Herrin'. The poem is by Lady Nairne (1766 1845). Nathaniel Gow the famous Scottish violinist wrote the music in 1798 as a harpsichord piece combining the traditional Edinburgh fish wives cry Caller Herrin' with the bells of St Andrew's Church Edinburgh.4 Men of Harlech. The music is traditionally Welsh and the ballad probably originated from North Wales where the native princes had ruled the longest.5 David of the White Rock (Dafydd y Garres Wen). Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) wrote the words to this ballad The Dying Bard. David Owen the Welsh bard of the ballad composed the tune on his death-bed on awakening from a trance in which be believed himself to have heard the tune in heaven.6 Oft in the Stilly Night. The words describe an old man's memories of the smiles the tears of boyhood years. The eyes that shone now dimmed and gone and how oft in the stilly night he remembers other days. The ballad is by the Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779 1852) who set the words to a traditional air.7- The Meeting of the Waters. Written by Thomas Moore music Irish traditional.The Meeting of the Waters is the confluence of the rivers Avonmore and Avonberg in a beautiful valley near Avoca County Wicklow.8 Oh! Charlie is my Darlin'. The

Janácek's 2nd String Quartet Intimate Letters is regarded as a highlight of the modern string quartet literature. It was written during the composer?s last year of life between 29 January and 19 February 1928 inspired by the ageing Janáèek's exceptional love for Kamila Stösslová. The Moravian Quartet devoted themselves to this impressive work; Janácek attended a total of three of their rehearsals in May and June 1928. This had several consequences including his abandoning his original idea of using a viola d'amore. After Janácek's unexpected death (12 August 1928) the uncertain genesis of the work became the greatest problem of the IntimateLetters : the surviving copies were not definitively authorised. The editors of this new edition have reverted to Janácek's autograph sketches as the main most reliable source and using these as a basis have reconstructed the work as it stood at the point of Janácek's death. The musical text taken from the Critical Complete Edition of the Works of Leo? Janácek (Vol. E/4) therefore contains clear differences in comparison with older editions.

Born in South Africa but now an Irish citizen Kevin Volans? musical idiom has been shaped by an unusually diverse range of experiences including studies with Stockhausen in Cologne field trips to South Africa tostudy traditional music his own involvement with the New Simplicity movement his collection of contemporary art and African textiles friendships with composers like Morton Feldman and Gerald Barry as well as a love of virtuosopiano music which he performs broadcasts and records. While having an easily recognised unique voice Volans? music resists compartmentalisation. He is as comfortable working in conventional genres as embarking oninnovative collaborations with artists of other disciplines. String Quartet No.1 (White Man Sleeps) was written for the Kronos Quartet and was first performed by them in July 1986 London.The title?White Man Sleeps? comes from a moment in nyanga Panpipe music where the performers leave off playing their loud pipes for a few cycles and dance only to the sound of their ankle rattles to let the whitelandowner sleep for a minute or two.'In composing this piece I drew from the following sources: the first movement owes something to the style of Basotho concertina music; the second and fourth movements are drawnfrom traditional Nyungwe music played by Makina Chirenje and his Nyanga panpipe group at Nsava Tete Mozambique recorded and transcribed by Andrew Tracey (to be found in an article entitled ?The nyanga Panpipe dance? in AfricanMusic Vol.5 No.1 (1971); the third movement derives from the San bow music (recorded by Tony Traill of the University of Witwatersrand) and from Basotho lesiba music transcribed by myself; in the fifth movement I added my owninvented folklore. My approach to the original music was anything but purist it is played in Western tuning filtered slowed down by a few ?time-octaves? cast into non-African metres (like the 13-beat pattern of the first

Par BARTOK BELA. Béla Bartók?s six string quartets, composed between 1908 and 1940, are 20th-century milestones of the genre. His First String Quartet is closely linked to his unhappy love for the violinist Stefi Geyer, to whom he sent the initial measures of its first movement in early 1908 with the remark: ?My song of death?. When he completed all three movements of the work a year later, he had, according to his friend and colleague Zoltán Kodály, written himself ?back into life?. In this First Quartet, Bartók combines late-Romantic sounds with elements of the folk music that had since 1905 been a source of increasing interest to him. This definitive edition, supervised by Bartók scholar László Somfai, is the first-ever Urtext edition of this work. It takes into account both manuscript and printed sources, as well as letters and notes by the composer in which he recorded matters such as modifications to tempo markings. The Henle edition thus offers a musical text edited to the highest scholarly standards, with fascinating information on the work?s compositional history and performance practice. Sensible page turns and cue notes help to make this edition a real ?must have?. / Date parution : 2023-05-06/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Henry Mancini's most recognized theme is a jazz classic that string players will love with this new arrangement from Robert Longfield. Great riffs cool harmonies and a spot for a jazz violin solo (written version included) make it a super chart for string quartet.