SKU: BR.KM-266
The Breitkopf Originals series opens up a fascinating view into the Breitkopf & Hartel publishing-house archives. The focus is on its rarities and treasures, together with milestones in the history of interpretation for works of the. Classical; Romantic. Score. 224 pages. Breitkopf and Haertel #KM 266. Published by Breitkopf and Haertel (BR.KM-266).
ISBN 9790004504901. 10 x 12.5 inches.
The editor, Engelbert Rontgen, writes in his foreword:Following a commission by the gentlemen Breitkopf & Hartel in Leipzig to produce a complete edition of Beethoven's string quartets supplied with bowing marks and fingerings, I undertook this task on the basis of the critical complete edition of these quartets, published in 1862. First of all, it seemed necessary to change the original slurring in some places to suit the bowing technique, with regard to performing and expression.In the quartets from Beethoven's early period, the performing marks often lack the accuracy and completeness that is required for an exact interplay, whereas they are given in the quartets of his later period almost everywhere with the greatest detail and precision, . Furthermore, the before mentioned scores contain a number of mistakes, which in all likelihood may have crept into the manuscripts as writing mistakes.I have therefore endeavored to carefully add the missing performing marks, as well as to correct the incorrect notes, without, however, claiming to have done everything that is questionable.Breitkopf Originals invite you to take a fresh look at 19th-century reception history.The music is printed clearly and in a larger than usual size.(Rebekah Smith, AUSTA Stringendo)The Breitkopf Originals series opens up a fascinating view into the Breitkopf & Hartel publishing-house archives. The focus is on its rarities and treasures, together with milestones in the history of interpretation for works of the Classical and Romantic repertoire, presented by the most prominent artists of their time.
SKU: PR.16400272S
UPC: 680160588442. 8.5 x 11 inches.
My third quartet is laid out in a three-movement structure, with each movement based on an early, middle, and late work of the great American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. Although the movements are separate, with full-stop endings, the music is connected by a common scale-form, derived from the name MARY CASSATT, and by a recurring theme that introduces all three movements. I see this theme as Mary's Theme, a personality that stays intact while undergoing gradual change. I The Bacchante (1876) [Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] The painting shows a young girl of Italian or Spanish origin, playing a small pair of cymbals. Since Cassatt was trying very hard to fit in at the French Academy at the time, she painted a lot of these subjects, which were considered typical and universal. The style of the painting doesn't yet show Cassatt's originality, except perhaps for certain details in the face. Accordingly the music for this movement is Spanish/Italian, in a similar period-style but using the musical signature described above. The music begins with Mary's Theme, ruminative and slow, then abruptly changes to an alla Spagnola-type fast 3/4 - 6/8 meter. It evokes the Spanish-influenced music of Ravel and Falla. Midway through, there's an accompanied recitative for the viola, which figures large in this particular movement, then back to a truncated recapitulation of the fast music. The overall feeling is of a well-made, rather conventional movement in a contemporary Spanish/Italian style. Cassatt's painting, too, is rather conventional. II At the Opera (1880) [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts] This painting is one of Cassatt's most well known works, and it hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The painting shows a woman alone in a box at the opera house, completely dressed (including gloves) and looking through opera glasses at someone or something that is NOT on the stage. Across the auditorium from her, but exactly at eye level, is a gentleman with opera glasses intently watching her - though it is not him that she's looking at. It's an intriguing picture. This movement is far less conventional than the first movement, as the painting is far less conventional. The music begins with a rapid, Shostakovich-type mini-overture lasting less than a minute, based on Mary's Theme. My conjecture is that the woman in the painting has arrived late to the opera, busily stumbling into her box. What happens next is a kind of collage, a kind of surrealistic overlaying of two different elements: the foreground music, at first is a direct quotation of Soldier's Chorus from Gounod's FAUST (an opera Cassatt would certainly have heard in the brand-new Paris Opera House at that time), played by Violin II, Viola, and Cello. This music is played sul ponticello in the melody and col legno in the marching accompaniment. On top of this, the first violin hovers at first on a high harmonic, then descends into a slow melody, completely separate from the Gounod. It's as if the woman in the painting is hearing the opera onstage but is not really interested in it. Then the cello joins the first violin in a kind of love-duet (just the two of them, at first). This music isn't at all Gounod-derived; it's entirely from the same scale patterns as the first movement and derives from Mary's Theme and its scale. The music stays in a kind of dichotomy feeling, usually three-against-one, until the end of the movement, when another Gounod melody, Valentin's aria Avant de quitter ce lieux reappears in a kind of coda for all four players. It ends atmospherically and emotionally disconnected, however. The overall feeling is a kind of schizophrenic, opera-inspired dream. III Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun (1909) [Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts] The painting, one of Cassatt's last, is very simple: just a figure, looking sideways out of the picture. The colors are pastel and yet bold - and the woman is likewise very self-assured and not in the least demure. It is eight minutes long, and is all about melody - three melodies, to be exact (Young Woman, Green, and Sunlight). No angst, no choppy rhythms, just ever-unfolding melody and lush harmonies. I quote one other French composer here, too: Debussy's song Green, from Ariettes Oubliees. 1909 would have been Debussy's heyday in Paris, and it makes perfect sense musically as well as visually to do this. Mary Cassatt lived her last several years in near-total blindness, and as she lost visual acuity, her work became less sharply defined - something akin to late water lilies of Monet, who suffered similar vision loss. My idea of making this movement entirely melodic was compounded by having each of the three melodies appear twice, once in a pure form, and the second time in a more diffuse setting. This makes an interesting two ways form: A-B-C-A1-B1-C1. String Quartet No.3 (Cassatt) is dedicated, with great affection and respect, to the Cassatt String Quartet, whose members have dedicated themselves in large measure to the furthering of the contemporary repertoire for quartet.
SKU: PR.164002720
UPC: 680160573042. 8.5 x 11 inches.
SKU: FG.55011-510-1
ISBN 9790550115101.
Matthew Whittall's preface to Bright Ferment (2019): I have a complicated history with the string quartet. Actually, it's not that complicated. I spent months writing a huge one in my early twenties and hastily withdrew it after a long delayed premiere, vowing never to write another. In a typical case of karmic retribution, my fear of the form would eventually be overcome by the unrefusable offer to write the compulsory piece for the Banff International String Quartet Competition in my native Canada. The short duration requested, about nine minutes, also felt like a good way to wade gingerly back into the medium. The title was originally just a nice-sounding pair of words that surfaced in a brainstorming session with fellow composer Alex Freeman over an injudicious amount of fermented barley. When I looked it up later, I found that it was a phrase of older coinage, seemingly used more for poetic resonance than any fixed meaning. Ferment by itself denotes a state of confusion, change or lack of order. With bright, it takes on a more positive connotation with regard to society and creativity: a wild profusion of ideas barely checked by reason. (It may not actually mean that, but it describes this piece nicely, so let's go with it.) Fermentation in its trendy culinary usage is also hinted at via a recurrent percolating device of scattered pizzicati. As one may guess from the tone of this introduction, there is little attempt at gravity in Bright Ferment, the only means by which I felt I could sidestep the historical and expressive weight of the string quartet genre. Styles, gestures and moods are tossed around, cross-cut and abandoned in stream-of-consciousness fashion, connected by little except an intuitive sense of rightness in their juxtaposition. If the piece acquires depth in spite of me, it will only be because its disparate parts amplify and strengthen each other simply by being together - much like the ensemble itself. Bright Ferment was commissioned by the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with additional funding from the Americas Society (New York), for the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition. Duration: ca. 9 minutes.
SKU: PR.114406980
UPC: 680160010806.
Shulamit Ran’s second string quartet, subtitled “Vistas,†occupies a large canvas that is cast in a traditional fourmovement mold, where the outer movements present, explore, and later return to the work’s principal musical materials, surrounding a slow movement and scherzo-type third movement with a trio. In addition to tempo-based titles, the individual movements have subtitles that are evocative of each movement’s character, as follows: I. Concentric: from the inside out II. Stasis III. Flashes IV. Vistas.My second string quartet, “Vistasâ€, is a work cast in a traditional four-movement formal mold, with the outer movements, presenting and later returning to the work’s principal musical materials, surrounding a slow movement and a scherzo-type third movement.While the four movements’ “proper†names -- Maestoso con forza, Lento, Scherzo impetuoso, and Introduzione; Maestoso e grande – give some indication of the general character of the individual movements, I have also subtitled, less formally, each movement as follows: 1) Concentric: from the inside out 2) Stasis 3) Flashes 4) Vista. The images evoked by these titles tell one, I think, a bit more about the inner workings of the quartet.In the first movement, a prominently presented opening pitch (E) reveals itself, as the movement unfolds, to be a center of gravity from which ever-growing cycles of activity gradually evolve. While various important themes come into being as the movement progresses, their impact on the listener has, I believe, a great deal to do with their juxtaposition and relationship to the initial central point of gravity.Stasis is, as the name implies, a movement where activity seems, at times, almost suspended. Being also, as Webster’s Dictionary reminds us, “a state of static balance and equilibrium among opposing tendencies or forces,†it develops various materials, including ones from the first movement, without bringing them to points of resolution.Flashes is short and very fast, evoking in my mind the quick shimmer of fireflies, a “sudden burst of lightâ€, but also a “brief timeâ€. Perhaps, even, a “smileâ€?Finally, the last movement, Vista, is not only “a view or outlookâ€, but also “a comprehensive mental view of a series of remembered or anticipated events.â€Â After a brief recall of the opening of the second movement, this movement brings back all the important themes of the first movement in their original order. But just as going back can never really mean going back in time, the movement is much more than recapitulatory. By cutting through previously transitory passages and presenting the main ideas in a fashion more direct yet more evolved, it also sheds new light on earlier events, offering a retrospective, synoptic view of the first movement as it brings to culmination the work as a whole. “Vistas†was commissioned by C. Geraldine Freund for the Taneyev String Quartet of what was then Leningrad. It was the first commission given in this country to a Soviet chamber ensemble since the 1985 cultural exchange accord between the Soviet Union and the United States.
SKU: BR.KM-2261
ISBN 9790004501658. 16.5 x 11.5 inches.
Gran Torso, for string quartet, was composed in 1971 and revised in 1978. It belongs to a series of works, including Air, Kontrakadenz, Pression and Klangschatten, whose concept of material attempts to free itself from convention. That is, instead of using the sound itself as a point of departure, structural and formal hierarchies are derived from the mechanical and physical conditions present during the process of sound production. It is clear that such a radical break with tradition is not easily achieved: the instrument, the given means, the resonating body itself (as the embodiment of convention) all work against such attempts (with the extended performance techniques representing only the tip of the iceberg of deep-seated contradictions where the bourgeois artist is concerned). Implicit in such a challenge, however, is a claim to aesthetic pregnance: an offer, if one would have it, of uncomprosing beauty.(Helmut Lachenmann, 1978)CDs/LPs:Berner StreichquartettCD col legno 0647 277Berner StreichquartettLP col legno 5504Societa Cameristica ItalianaLP ABT ERZ 1003Arditti String QuartetCD KAIROS, 0012662KAIstadler quartettCD NEOS 10806The JACK QuartetCD mode 267Stadler Quartett, Rg. Caroline SiegersDVD NEOS 51001Bibliography:Alberman, David: Abnormal Playing Techniques in the String Quartets of Helmut Lachenmann, in: Helmut Lachenmann Music with matches, hrsg. von Dan Albertson, Contemporary Music Review 24 (2005), Vol. 1, pp. 39-51.Dulaney, Maxwell: Continuing the Tradition Untraditionally: Helmut Lachenmann's Restructuring of Musical Dialectic through an Analysis of his Three String Quartets, and an Original Composition, Harmonic Concerto, Diss. Brandeis University, MI 2013.Egger, Elisabeth: Kontinuitat, Verdichtung, Synchronizitat. Zu den grossformalen Funktionen des gepressten Bogenstrichs in Helmut Lachenmanns Streichquartetten, in: Musik als Wahrnehmungskunst. Untersuchungen zu Kompositionsmethodik und Horasthetik bei Helmut Lachenmann, hrsg. von Christian Utz und Clemens Gadenstatter (= musik.theorien der gegenwart 2), Saarbrucken: Pfau 2008, pp. 155-171.Hermann, Matthias: Helmut Lachenmann - Gran Torso, in: Analyse Musik XX. Jahrhundert (2). Postserielle Konzepte Klangflachen Aleatorik (= Materialien zur Musiktheorie 4), Saarbrucken: Pfau 2002, pp. 134-152.Hiekel, Jorn Peter: Die Streichquartett Gran Torso und Grido von Helmut Lachenmann, in: Lucerne Festival, Sommer 2005 Neuland, Konzertprogramm 6, pp. 65-69.Houben, Eva-Maria: Helmut Lachenmann: Gran Torso ..., in: dies., Musikalische Praxis als Lebensform (= Musik und Klangkultur 27), Bielefeld: Transcript 2018, S. 208-212Lehmann, Harry: Erhabenheit - Ereignis - Ambivalenz. Zur Asthetik der Neuen Musik, in: Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik 176 (2015), Heft 5, pp. 22-27.Mosch, Ulrich: Kunst als Medium der Ungeborgenheit. Streichquartette und soziale Funktion des Komponierens bei Helmut Lachenmann, in: Positionen 81 (November 2009), pp. 37-39.ders.: Was heisst Interpretation bei Helmut Lachenmanns Streichquartett ,,Gran Torso?, in: Wessen Klange? Uber Autorschaft in neue Musik, hrsg. Von Hermann Danuser und Matthias Kassel (= Veroffentlichungen der Paul Sacher Stiftung 12), Mainz u.a.: Schott 2017, S. 163-186Nonnenmann, Rainer: Werke als Schlussel zu Werken? Zur umstrittenen Kategorie ,,Schlusselwerke der neuen Musik, in: MusikTexte, Heft 147 (November 2015), pp. 35-46.Stork, Astrid: Materialbegriff und Strukturdenken. Untersuchungen zu den Streichquartetten von Helmut Lachenmann, Magisterarbeit Ruhr-Universitat Bochum 1992Tsao, Ming: Helmut Lachenmann's Sound Types, in: Perspectives of New Music 52 (2014), Heft 1, pp. 217-238.Velazquez, Rossana Lara: Composicion y escucha burguesa: Principios de continuidad y ruptura en el cuarteto Gran Torso de Helmut Lachenmann, Diss. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico 2011.Zenck, Martin: Die mehrfache Codierung der Figur: Ihr defigurativer und torsohafter Modus bei Johann Sebastian Bach, Helmut Lachenmann und Auguste Rodin, in: de figura. Rhetorik Bewegung Gestalt, Text und Bild, hrsg. von Gabriele Brandstetter und Sibylle Peters, Munchen 2003, pp. 265-288.World premiere: Bremen (pro musica nova), May 6, 1972.
SKU: PR.16400222S
UPC: 680160037841.
This work follows my Quartet No. 1 by five years. In terms of style and aesthetic aim, however, it seems light years away. Where the first work, a 28-minute, four-movement piece, took aim at cosmic conflicts and heroic resolutions, the present work is intended as a kind of divertissment. Harbor Music lasts a mere eleven minutes, is cast in a single movement with six sections, and should leave both performers and listeners with a feeling of good humor and affection. The title comes from my experience as a guest in the magnificent city of Sydney, Australia. One of its most attractive features is its unique system of ferry boats: the city is laid out around a large, multi-channeled harbor, with destinations more easily approached by water than by land. Consequently, inhabitants of Sydney get around on small, people-friendly boats that come and go from the central docks at Circular Quay. During a week's visit in 1991, I must have boarded these boats at least a dozen times, always bound for a new location - the resort town of Manley, or the Zoo at Taronga Park, or the shopping district at Darling Harbour. In casting about for a form for my second string quartet, a kind of loose rondo came to mind. Each new destination would be approached from the same starting-out point (although there are subtle variations in the repeating theme; it's always in a new key, and the texture is never the same). The result, I hope, is a sense of constant new information presented with introductory frames of a more familiar nature. The embarkation theme, which begins the piece, is a sort of bi-tonal fanfare in which the violins are in G major and the viola and cello are in B-flat major. It is bold, eager, and forward-looking. The first voyage maintains this bi-tonality, beginning as a 9/8 due for second violin and viola in a kind of rocking motion -much as a boat produces when reaching the deeper water in the harbor. A sweet, nostalgic theme emerges over this rocking accompaniment. This music is developed somewhat, then transforms quickly into a much faster and lighter episode, filled with rising and falling scales (again, in differing keys). A scherzando interlude in short notes and changing meters provides contrast, and the episode ends with a reprise of the scales. The second embarkation follows, this time in A major/C major. It leads quickly into a very warm and slow theme, in wide-leaping intervals for the viola. This section is interrupted twice by solo cadenzas for the cello, suggesting distant boat-horns in major thirds. The end of the episode becomes a transition, with boat-horns leading into the final appearance of the embarkation music, this time in trills and tremolos instead of sharply accented chords. The nostalgic theme of the first episode makes a final appearance, serving now as a coda. The rocking motion continues, in a lullaby fashion, leaving us drowsy and satisfied on our homeward journey. Harbor Music was written for the Cavani Quartet, and is dedicated to Richard J. Bogomolny. Commissioned by his employees at First National Supermarkets as a gift, it represents a thank you from many of the people (including this composer) who have benefitted from his vision and generosity. An ardent advocate of chamber music (and a cellist himself), Mr. Bogomolny has for many years been Chairman of the Board of Chamber Music America. -- Dan Welcher.
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