Arrangeur: F. Lucato_J. B. Plays. Par LAMPE JOHN FREDERICK. Arr. : F. Lucato_J. B. Plays / Niveau : 2ème Cycle / Répertoire / 2 Violons, Alto et Violoncelle

Version for String Quartet.Score available: KP00510The composer writes: 'In February 1987 I saw in the Tate Gallery in London a painting by the Victorian English painter John William Waterhouse. The painting kept haunting my memory and as I at the same time planned to write a piece for solo viola my ideas for the music and the memory of the painting fused more and more. I decided then to let my piece borrow the title of Waterhouse’s paint-ing: 'The Lady of Shalott'. The picture of a mad-like pale and perhaps singing woman alone in a boat without sculls which calmly slips out from the rush growth of the river is an illustration for the ending of Alfred Tennyson’s poemby the same title which again plaits into the old English legends about King Arthur. My piece tries to meander - like the river at Camelot - among these sources. As suggested above the piece was originally written for viola solo. The version for string quartet is from 1993.'

The Composer writes: 'In February 1987 I saw in the Tate Gallery in London a painting by the Victorian English painter John William Waterhouse. The painting kept haunting my memory and as I at the same time planned to write a piece for solo Viola my ideas for the music and the memory of the painting fused more and more. I decided then to let my piece borrow the title of Waterhouse’s painting: The Lady Of Shalott. The picture of a mad-like pale and perhaps singing woman alone in a boat without sculls which calmly slips out from the rush growth of the river is an illustration for the ending of Alfred Tennyson’s poem by the same title which again plaits into theold English legends about King Arthur. My piece tries to meander - like the river at Camelot - among these sources.' As suggested above the piece was originally written for Viola solo. This version for String Quartet is from 1993.

Dedicated to Thurston Dart Michael Nyman?s professor at King?s College London much of String Quartet No. 1 borrows and is inspired by the works of seventeenth century composer John Bull whosecomplete keyboard works Dart gave Nyman as a birthday present. The other main source of inspiration was Schöneberg?s Second String Quartet from the early 20th century.In his introduction to the piece Nymandescribes his two background ideas when composing the work: first to make an almost ?orchestral? chamber music and second to exorcise the impressive and oppressive history of the String quartet by making his work a compendium ofquotations from the quartet repertoire. Commissioned by the Arditti Quartet and first performed by them in 1985 String Quartet No. 1 has a duration of 25:44 minutes.Michael Nyman is an Englishcomposer of minimalist music pianist librettist and musicologist known for numerous film and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to ?The Piano?. He has additionally written a number of operas six concerti four stringquartets and many other chamber works.

Quoting Saxton: My Fantazia for String Quartet was complete in December 1993 in response to a commission from the London International String Quartet Competition for a test piece for the 1994 competition. Funds were provided bythe John S Cohen Foundation.The title gives the clue to the nature of the music: the viol fantasia was the chosen form of composition for the greatest English composers of the mid-seventeenth century Lawes Jenkins Ferraboscoin particular. They inherited the techniques of vocal polyphony from Byrd and Gibbons and forged a new instrumental polyphonic style. The culmination of this genre was reached in the magnificent works of Henry Purcell around1680 and it was Purcell who adopted the spelling ‘Fantazia’.I have always loved this music and when asked to write a short piece for strings I decided to pay tribute to this under-rated tradition. Most fantazias consistedof short joined sections and I have expanded this to create and eight-minute piece in three larger sections the essence being contrapuntal interplay and equality of part-writing. (Any idea of stylistic reference would be absurdion the late twentieth century). The first section is a lyrical allegro moderato which leads into a sustained and intense slow movement; this in turn gives way to a final quick section of a dancing character a featurefrequently encountered in Purcell’s own consort pieces.