String Quartet

SKU: PR.16400222S

Composed by Dan Welcher. Full score (study). With Standard notation. Duration 11 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #164-00222S. Published by Theodore Presser Company (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.

String quartet String Quartet

SKU: PR.16400272S

Cassatt. Composed by Dan Welcher. Premiere: Cassatt Quartet, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL. Contemporary. Full score. With Standard notation. Composed 2007. WRT11142. 52 pages. Duration 24 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #164-00272S. Published by Theodore Presser Company (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.

String Quartet (2vl,va,vc)

SKU: BR.KM-2456

Composed by Isabel Mundry. Chamber music. Kammermusik-Bibliothek (Chamber Music Library).

World premiere: Graz (Steirischer Herbst), October 4, 1995

Music post-1945; New music (post-2000). Full score. Composed 1994/95. 24 pages. Duration 13'. Breitkopf and Haertel #KM 2456. Published by Breitkopf and Haertel (BR.KM-2456).

ISBN 9790004502228. 15 x 11.5 inches.

No one ist das kompositorische Resultat der einjahrigen Studien am IRCAM, wobei sich die Anwendung des Computers lediglich auf die Kalkulation formaler und harmonischer Prozesse konzentrierte, auf die Erstellung von ,,Spielregeln, denen die Handschrift folgte. Grundgedanke war es, alle Momente der Komposition - und diese sind grundsatzlich welche der Bewegung bzw. Veranderung - in je vier verschiedenen Formungen zu reprasentieren, entsprechend der vier beteiligten Instrumente. So kommt jedem der Interpreten die Rolle eines Solisten zu, bei gleichzeitiger Einbindung in eine ubergreifende Ordnung, welche selbst wiederum in sich die Idee der polyphonen Aufspaltung tragt. Diese Polyphonie vollzieht sich auch auf der zeitlichen Ebene; der uberwiegende Verzicht auf einheitliche Taktierung intendiert ein streckenweise asynchrones Spiel, bei dem die individuelle Auslegung des Zeitverlaufes vorrangig ist, nicht die gemeinsame Fixierung durch ein ubergeordnetes metrisches Raster. So entsteht vielleicht ein Bild - von vier Reisenden, die zwar die gleichen Orte ansteuern, jedoch verschiedene Wege und Tempi wahlen, sich gelegentlich treffen, einige Schritte gemeinsam gehen, dann wieder trennen... (Isabel Mundry)CDs:Arditti String QuartetCD MP 30 / 4 (30 Jahre Musikprotokoll ,,Moderne in Osterreich 1968-1997 (ORF)) Klangforum WienCD Wergo WER 6542-2Bibliography:Mundry, Isabel: Regelmassig unregelmassig - zur Fluchtigkeit von Mustern in der zeitgenossischen Musik, in: Muster. Ornament, Struktur und Verhalten (= Kontext Architektur), hrsg. von Andrea Gleiniger und Georg Vrachliotis, pp. 85-96.Mundry, Isabel: Reflexion und Sehnsucht, in: Isabel Mundry, hrsg. von Ulrich Tadday (= Musik-Konzepte. Neue Folge, Sonderband), Munchen: edition text+kritik 2011, pp. 157-177.

World premiere: Graz (Steirischer Herbst), October 4, 1995.

String Quartet (clar,vl,vc,pno)

SKU: BR.KM-2516

Composed by Isabel Mundry. Chamber music; stapled. Kammermusik-Bibliothek (Chamber Music Library). World premiere of the 1st version: Dresden, Semperoper, June 6, 2008. Music post-1945; New music (post-2000). Score and parts. Composed 2007/09. 60 pages. Duration 15'. Breitkopf and Haertel #KM 2516. Published by Breitkopf and Haertel (BR.KM-2516).

ISBN 9790004502938. 11.5 x 16 inches.

Der Komposition gehen keine aussermusikalischen Eindrucke voraus, sondern sie konzentriert sich auf innermusikalische Uberlegungen, weshalb es nicht leicht ist, uberhaupt Worte fur sie zu finden. In einem losen Zyklus, den ich in den nachsten Jahren fortsetzen mochte, will ich mich auf das Phanomen der innermusikalischen Bindungen konzentrieren sowie auf ihr Gegenuber, die Einschnitte, Trennlinien oder Kontraste. Jenseits der Tonalitat stellt sich mit jeder neuen Komposition auch die Frage erneut, was zwei Klange zusammenhalten kann, was Ferne und Nahe bedeuten, was das Lose ist und was das Gebundene. Stehen solche Uberlegungen in meinen anderen Kompositionen im Dienste anderer Visionen, so will ich ihnen hier wie ein Geologe auf den Grund gehen.Immer wieder ziehen sich Linien durch die Musik, im konkreten Sinne melodischer Phrasen, aber auch im allgemeinen Sinne der Weiterfuhrung von Klangcharakteren. So unterliegt die Musik permanenten Wandlungen, gehalten von imaginaren Faden, die sich auch verknoten, vernetzen oder vervielfaltigen konnen. Gleichzeitig gibt es auch Einschnitte, scheinbar losgeloste Geschehnisse, die wie unbegrundet hineinplatzen, und dennoch vergleichbar mit einem Stein in einem Fluss ihren Einfluss auf den Verlauf des Ganzen nehmen.Liaison - der Titel beschreibt zwei Seiten dieses Projektes, namlich einerseits die Bindung als innermusikalisch fokussiertes Thema, andererseits den Antrieb, sich mit einem solch basalen Phanomen der Musik erneut zu beschaftigen: die Liaison als Liebesbeziehung, in der die einfachsten Dinge doch wieder zu einem Ratsel werden konnen.(Isabel Mundry).