Par ADAMS JOHN LUTHER. John Luther Adams' Everything That Rises for String Quartet. John Luther Adams' Everything That Rises for String Quartet. Composers note: I never imagined I would write a string quartet. Then I heard the JACK Quartet, and I understood how Imight be able to make the medium my own. The result was The Wind in High Places - a twenty-minute work composed entirely on natural harmonics and open strings. Over the next few years, twomore quartets followed. The second quartet, untouched, is a further exploration of the aeolian sound world of the first. Then, in Canticles of the Sky, the musicians finally touch the fingerboards of theirinstruments. And now comes Everything That Rises . This fourth quartet is more expansive, both in time and in space. It grows out of Sila: The Breath of the World - aperformance-length choral/orchestral work composed on a rising series of sixteen harmonic clouds. Everything That Rises traverses this same territory, but in a much more melodic way. Each musician isa soloist, playing throughout. They surround the audience. Time floats. Over the course of an hour, the lines spin out - always rising - in acoustically perfect intervals that grow progressively smaller as they spiralupward... until the music dissolves into the soft noise of the bows, sighing. Duration: 60 minutes/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

String Quartet No.4 by Poul Ruders dating from 2012. Programme Note: It might be of interest for some to note that a gap of only six months separates the writing of my second and third quartets (1979) but a 33 year interval stands between the third and the present piece String Quartet No. 4.Which is in five movements and is about nothing but itself. The first movement 'Adagio - Presto alla breve - Adagio' is an overture of sorts lifting the lid as it were on the odd bit of what happens later on in the other movements.A portal into: The second movement 'Vivo scherzando' which is justthat: a short (2 minutes only) fast and jocular piece leading up to the next movement: 'Adagio sognante' a slow and hushed dream-world paving the way for the pièce de resistance of the entire quartet: 'Presto alla breve' a ferociously fast tour de force for the four players who with that one under their belts can lean back a little (but only a little) and put the whole thing gently to bed in the fifth and final movement: a simple 'Adagio'. Off the record: my first string quartet (1972) has been withdrawn and is no more a fact that renders the numbering of the subsequent quartets a matter of personal conviction. Poul Ruders November 2012

In the summer of 1893 Antonin Dvorak sat down and composed String Quartet In F Op.96. This beloved quartet was written whilst Dvorak was on vacation in rural Iowa. It is a slow movement for quartet and the finale sweeps along on a energetic syncopated rhythm in the second violin and viola that shortly transforms itself into a wonderful patchwork of shifting accents. The first violin sings first randomly and then voluptuously atop this motoric accompaniment. The quartet is written for 2 violins viola and cello.

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.'