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: AP.36-M216291

UPC: 660355117718. English.

While the song text remains in Italian, loving translations of these songs have been created by Giovanna Jackson to aid in a singers interpretation.Three songs are included in this second set: Il mio bel foco (Marcello); Se tu m'ami, se sospiri (Pergolesi); Come raggio di sol (Caldara). Each song has been arranged by Albert C. Vinci and edited by Mary Sue Hyatt to be performed with a string quartet or string orchestra. Both the string quartet and string orchestra versions are available from the publisher.

These products are currently being prepared by a new publisher. While many items are ready and will ship on time, some others may see delays of several months.

SKU: AP.36-M213491

UPC: 660355072758. English.

While the song text remains in Italian, loving translations of these songs have been created by Giovanna Jackson to aid in a signers interpretation. Three songs are included in this first set: Caro Mio Ben (Giordani); Cangia, Cangia Tue Voglie (Fasolo); Danza, Danza, Fanciulla Gentile (Durante). Each song has been arranged by Albert C. Vinci and edited by Mary Sue Hyatt to be performed with a string quartet or string orchestra. Both the string quartet and string orchestra versions are available from the publisher.

These products are currently being prepared by a new publisher. While many items are ready and will ship on time, some others may see delays of several months.

SKU: PR.11441387S

UPC: 680160585694.

Having performed Garrop's String Quartet No. 2: Demons and Angels with much success, it is only natural that the Biava Quartet would handle the premiere of String Quartet No.3: Gaia. In an email interview with Pittsburgh New Music Net, Biava violist Mary Persin says, in part, We received many very enthusiastic responses from audience members who were struck by the interesting form, as well as the sonorities created by using a good deal of dissonance as well as harmonics. Watch for a recording by the Biava Quartet to be made available soon. For advanced performers. Duration: 32' 30.

SKU: HL.14036341

ISBN 9780711955080.

Commissioned by the BBC and premiered by the Chilingirian String Quartet. Quoting Wood: In my Second and Third Quartets I attempted sectional, agglutinative forms: in my Fourth I return to the conventional four movement form of my First Quartet of 1962. Both works build up (as in the 19th century symphony) to the Finale, thus making it the most substantial movement, which provides a climax to the work. The First Movement has, in both works, only the status of an Introduction. But there the consciously willed resemblances end. This Introduction follows the Second Quartet to a certain extent, in that it provides a sort of 'cauldron', from which elements to be used later can all be plucked. Its opening will reappear at various points throughout the work, most completely at a climatic point of the Finale (bar 110). Subsequent material will be more fully worked out in the second movement, a large Scherzo. The Introduction concludes with an unusually placed violin cadenza (itself a rare feature in a string quartet, the idea lifted from Elliott Carter's First Quartet) of which the opening is to reappear halfway through the Finale. The Scherzo (which follows attacca) does not have at its centre a discretely characterized Trio: a figure in double-stops like a distant fanfare supplies the necessary contrast of a second idea. The Slow Movement has a secondary idea first heard on the cello and marked appassionato: an agitato middle section recalls the opening of the work, but in a formulation which will be found closely to anticipate its reappearance in the Finale. The Finale is planned on a broad scale. Only after a fully worked exposition of both primary and secondary material does the opening of the whole work return, now in a greatly extended form. Then, at bar 140, the tune of the violin cadenza is first harmonized in fanfare style on the upper instruments, then presented as a chorale on the lower ones, with a rushing semiquaver accompaniment above. This climatic activity mounts to the very end. The work is dedicated to the Chilingirian Quartet, old friends over many years. Score available separately: SOS04044.