SKU: HL.49046479
ISBN 9783795703899. UPC: 840126931709. 9.0x12.0x0.318 inches. German - English.
Easy repertoire suitable for beginners of all ages, these pieces represent a wide variety of styles and can be used in concerts and performances in both sacred and secular settings. Including some original works for string quartet as well as the editor's arrangements for quartet of piano works, sticking as closely to the original as possible.
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: PR.114410380
UPC: 680160015160. 9.5 x 13 inches.
My second String Quartet was written twenty years after the first, Opus 4 from 1978. The First Quartet is an obsessively contrapuntal work in one movement, which was no doubt influenced by my studies with David Diamond. I had always intended to return to the medium once I left the astringency of my earlier style, but it was only when the National Federation of Music Clubs commissioned a major chamber work, with unspecified instrumentation, to celebrate their 100th Anniversary that I was enabled to do so. The Second Quartet is in four movements: Moderato, Allegro isterico, an Andante theme with 11 variations, and the closing Allegro, which then returns to the tempo of the first movement. An audience member at the premiere told me that she heard echoes of recent tragic events such as the Oklahoma bombing in this work. While I had no such programmatic intent while writing the quartet, it was not an entirely incorrect assessment of the work's intended emotional impact. The quartet is pervaded by a sense of seriousness, even mournfulness. The second movement's scherzo is an aggressively animated piece of musical machinery. The third movement's Variations unfold into a greater variety of moods than the others - but the moments of lyricism are countered by aggressive or ironic outbursts. The final movement's attempt at triumph quickly subsides into a return of the first movement, before being transformed onto a sense of resignation and acceptance as the chromaticism of the opening theme is transformed into a pure and diatonic C-Major. The work received its world premiere by the Shanghai Quartet at the 100th Anniversary Congress of the National Federation of Music Clubs at the Congress Hotel in Chicago on August 19th 1998.My second String Quartet was written twenty years after the first, Opus 4 from 1978. The First Quartet is an obsessively contrapuntal work in one movement, which was no doubt influenced by my studies with David Diamond. I had always intended to return to the medium once I left the astringency of my earlier style, but it was only when the National Federation of Music Clubs commissioned a major chamber work, with unspecified instrumentation, to celebrate their 100th Anniversary that I was enabled to do so.The Second Quartet is in four movements: Moderato, Allegro isterico, an Andante theme with 11 variations, and the closing Allegro, which then returns to the tempo of the first movement.An audience member at the premiere told me that she heard echoes of recent tragic events such as the Oklahoma bombing in this work. While I had no such programmatic intent while writing the quartet, it was not an entirely incorrect assessment of the work’s intended emotional impact. The quartet is pervaded by a sense of seriousness, even mournfulness. The second movement’s scherzo is an aggressively animated piece of musical machinery. The third movement’s Variations unfold into a greater variety of moods than the others – but the moments of lyricism are countered by aggressive or ironic outbursts. The final movement’s attempt at triumph quickly subsides into a return of the first movement, before being transformed onto a sense of resignation and acceptance as the chromaticism of the opening theme is transformed into a pure and diatonic C-Major.The work received its world premiere by the Shanghai Quartet at the 100th Anniversary Congress of the National Federation of Music Clubs at the Congress Hotel in Chicago on August 19th 1998.
SKU: HL.14043527
9.25x12.0x0.091 inches. English.
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 familiarto millions as the lead singer of rock band Arcade Fire, yet his foray into classical music is equally worthy of attention. Quartet For Heart And Breath 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 complete breath 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 occurring dynamism 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 a superbly 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 music and the body.
SKU: ET.QC17
ISBN 9790207024671.
The Quatuor No. 1 op. 60, of limited duration, as well as the short piece Alligun, are perhaps the inspirational source that motivated me, late in life, to undertake the composition of an important string quartet, requiring that I once again confront the perennial challenge of that instrumental setting. The 25 minute work consists of four very diverse and contrasting movements. The first – Lento - Allegro - opens with a slow and mysterious introduction followed by a joyful rhythmic episode, while the second – Scherzando molto vivo – is simply virtuosic game-playing, with the four bows flying around freely. The third – Adagio – is very dramatic, slowly evolving into a mood of meditation and tenderness. The last movement – Allegrissimo – is an homage to contrapuntal style and requires great virtuosity on the part of the performers. The first performance was given March 6 2012 by the string quartet, Sine Nomine (the dedicacee), at the Théâtre de l’Octogone in Pully (Lausanne), Switzerland. Julien-François Zbinden, august 2011, Lausanne, Switzerland.
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