Richard Reed Parry's Quartet For Heart And Breath is an innovative and original piece based on the performers' own bodily rhythms. This sheet music is for String Quartet(Violin/Violin/Viola/Cello).Richard Reed Parry is familiar to millions as the lead singer of rock band Arcade Fire yet his foray into classical music is equally worthy of attention. Quartet For Heart AndBreath is an experiment into using the performers' heartbeats and breathing to dictate the tempo. The performers are instructed to wear stethoscopes in order to listen to their heartbeats closely while one completebreath corresponds to one bar and two heartbeats equal two crotchets.The result is a quiet and subtle piece as each instrument has to play softly so as to be able to keep in time. The piece also has a naturally occurringdynamism in that the players' heart rates constantly change as the performance goes on with each instrument falling in and out of sync sometimes culminating in a beautiful moment of all heartbeats matching each other.Interestingly this unique aspect means that no performance will ever be the same meaning to hear or play this composition will be a truly once in a lifetime experience.Quartet For Heart And Breath is asuperbly one-of-a-kind composition by Richard Reed Parry. Commissioned by the Kronos Quartet this piece makes for a wonderfully distinctive performance with fascinating implications for the connection between the musicand the body.

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

String Quartets Book X op. 76 Nr. 1-6-?Masterly and full of new ideas?: thus the Swedish ambassadorial secretary Silverstolpe when he first heard these pieces in 1797. Haydn?s friend the music historian Charles Burney reported in 1799 that he had ?nevertaken greater pleasure in instrumental music?. Our new edition of these six works including the famous ?Emperor Quartet? follows the text of the complete edition prepared by the Haydn Institute in Cologne. Boththe study edition (HN 9214) and the set of parts (HN 214) have highly informative notes on the source materials and alternative readings. Fold-out pages in the parts allow for optimum page turns.

Into the faded air was commissioned by Britten Sinfonia for first performance at Filharmonic Hall Krakow Poland on Sunday 13th January 2008 with Jacqueline Shave (Violin) Miranda Dale (Violin) Clare Finnimore(Viola) Catherine Musker (Viola) Caroline Dearnley (Cello) and Banjamin Chappell (Cello).Scoring: String Sextet (2 Violins 2 Violas and 2 Cellos)Duration: 10 minutes Composer'sNotes 'Into The Faded Air is cast in four movements although the last three movements are played without a break.In the first movement the sextet is divided into twogroups. The first group consisting of violin viola and cello plays a sustained melody while the second group (also violin viola and cello) contributes more jagged and intricate material. The second movement is an extended duetfor two violas accompanied by the other instruments. As the movement progresses the accompanying instruments become more prominent. The third movement is the only fast movement in the piece with rapid semiquavers and much useof pizzicato throughout. This leads into a serene chorale where the three upper instruments (two violins and first viola) are set against the second viola and two cellos.' - HelenGrime

This work was a test piece for the International string Quartet competition in 2005 Premio Paulo Borciani It was inspired by a keyboard piece of the same name A Sad Paven for these Distracted Tymes by Thomas Tomkins(1572-1656). Tomkins had a long association with Worcester Cathedral where he was organist - appointed magister choristarum in 1596 - and lived within the precincts until shortly before his death. At the same time he wasorganist of the Chapel Royal. When the city of Worcester surrendered to Cromwell's parliamentary forces in 1646 Tomkins had to watch the hasty dismantling of his cathedral organ and the abolition of all choral services. Thesewere the 'distracted tymes' of the 'sad paven' which he wrote in enforced retirement at Worcester.