(Rhymes) by Evis Sammoutis was first performed 15 July 2012 at International Music Institute Darmstadt (IMD) (Darmstadt Germany) by the Arditti Quartet.8'; for string quartet

Par HYUNG-KI JOO RICHARD. Hyung-ki Joo composed his first string quartet for the graduation concert during his last term at the Yehudi Menuhin School in 1990. In it, he pays tribute to six different artists from music, painting and literature: Henry Purcell, Samuel Beckett, Ludwig van Beethoven, Edvard Munch, Johann Sebastian Bach and Arnold Schönberg. This edition is the study score. For the set of parts please click here: UE36967/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Demanding salon music for string quartet (with double-bass ad libitum) is provided by Wolfgang Birtel in his 'Latin Dances' with four titles which can be played individually or as a little suite. The first dance is the chorinho 'Não me toques' by Zequinha de Abreu (1880-1935) who not only wrote 'Tico Tico' but also other rousing pieces of music. Ernesto Nazareth (1863-1934) is considered to be the 'inventor' of the Brazilian tango and waltz: He titled the waltz, which follows as second title, 'Ingenious'. These rather unknown titles are followed by two absolute worldwide hits: 'Bolada de Aficionado' by A.G. Villoldo and then the everlasting beguine 'Bésame Mucho' by the Mexican composer Consuelo Velázques (1916-2005). Whether individually or as a 'four-pack' - the fingers will be twitching and the toes will be tingling for this music carries away musicians and audience alike. / Quatuor A Cordes

Par SIGHICELLI SAMUEL. J'ai écrit cette pièce pour le quatuor Arditti. J'avais en tête un son plutôt 'brut' du quatuor à cordes, à la fois percussif et soufflant. Plus proche du bois que de l'eau. Je voulais une musique presque comme une parole énoncée, faite de phrases 'logiques', comme dans une tradition où il serait incongru d'énoncer telle ou telle chose avant une autre. Après coup j'ai pris conscience qu'à mon insu j'avais fait appel à un principe typiquement beethovénien dans la structure de la pièce: une exposition où sont posés des éléments apparemment hétérogènes, puis l'un d'eux, pas forcément le plus attendu, devient le point de départ d'un 'développement' (plutôt une démultiplication), puis on revient à la source et l'attention se porte sur un nouvel élément qui, suite au développement précédent, a gagné en intérêt... C'est aussi un jeu sur la mémoire, les petites choses qui, l'air de rien, restent dans un coin de notre tête. Un lent balancement perpétuel traverse toute la pièce - sans doute les berceuses que je chante à ma fille y sont pour quelque chose - et le reste fait son chemin entre figures évanescentes, gestes brutaux et joie des quintes superposées. Jusqu'à ce désir d'entendre une réelle prise de parole: un musicien pose son instrument et lit dans sa langue un passage de la Bible. Pas un psaume, pas une prière, pas une parabole, mais quelques-unes de ces phrases posées comme des blocs de pierre, au début de l'Ecclésiaste. Samuel Sighicelli / contemporain / Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Holmboe's last quartet work which is unoffi­cially also String Quartet No. 21 was the last work he ever composed and was unfinished on his death in 1996. His pupil Per Nørgård has finished the quartet and himself characterizes his contribution by saying that the score existed “in an only partly completed form which could however be written out with only a few cases of doubt”. With only two movements and a play­ing time of about nine minutes it is at its exist­ing length the shortest of Holmboe's string quar­tets. The first movement takes the form of one long arch in a rocking triple time which constantly shiftsamong different tempo and pulse sensations. At the same time the rhythmic en­ergy increases until the movement in a faster Con moto tempo accelerates to a more flowing 12/8 time coloured both rhythmically by cross-­rhythms in duple time and timbrally by harmon­ics in the viola. In its middle section Con fuoco the movement culminates in both tempo and expression until it falls calm in brief recapitula­tions in reverse order of the first two sections. The rocking feeling continues in the second movement but now at a more extroverted level from the outset Allegro and pizzicato. The en­ergy builds up further as the mood intensifies to Con fuoco while all instruments go over to bowed playing but like the first movement this movement ends Adagio here however not as a gradual attenuation but through a sudden shift in tempo to a calm imitative passage before the movement slowly thins out to the almost inaudible through a last dense open sounding chord with a brief violin solo above it. The quartet is dedicated to Holmboe's wife MeLa May Holmboe and was given its first performance by the Kontra Quartet on 22nd March 1997 at the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music in Odense Denmark.