Madrigals are vocal compositions and can be traced back to 13th Century Italy. During the latter part of the 16th Century Nicholas Yonge of St. Paul's Cathedral in London published a collection of Italian Madrigals and translated the words into English. Thomas Morley organist of St. Pauls and around the same time as nicholas Yonge wrote many of the finest madrigals of this the greatest madrigal period. It was a very rich period of English musical compoosition made so by such illustrious names as Byrd Gibbons Tallis and Weelkes. Madrigal societies are still active and date from 1741 when the first was formed in the City of London. America also has participated in therevival of singing madrigals and has activated madrigal singing in universities and high schools.

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.

Programme Note During the composition of my tenth string quartet a flower-name høst-tidløs came to my mind - and it would not me leave again. [høsttidløs is actually autumn crocus in English but the composer prefers harvest-timeless to maintain some of the associations of the Danish flower-name red.] The paradoxical union of a seasonal time (harvest) and no-time-at-all was a good fit to the sections of the work that I had composed at that time and I decided to tentatively stick to that title for the work-in-progress and now having finished the piece I can say that is is still a fitting title - and it stands. Enough about the title I will go onto describe the music a somewhat more precarious project. My tenth string quartet is probably the most basic string quartet that I have composed; melodically - and in sound - it employs the naturally based overtones and undertones* (perceived at major and minor respectively) and rhythmically it is based on growth on the principles of the Golden Section and the structure itself contrasts abundance and exuberance with sections of immobility and contemplation. However Melos melody is definitely the dominating aspect of my STRING QUARTET NO. 10; behind even the most rhythmically complex or pure sonoric sections lies a firm - if hidden - basis of melodic or polyphonic ideas. The work was composed in 2004-2005 for the Kroger Quartet.

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.