SKU: HL.49045639

ISBN 9781540004796. UPC: 888680710774. 9.5x12.0x0.37 inches.

Chaconne (2016), for string quartet, was commissioned by the Daedalus Quartet to celebrate its 15th anniversary. The commission was supported by New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Helen F. Whitaker Fund, and Aaron Copland Fund for Music.My music has a substantial history with Daedalus. I composed the Third String Quartet (2008) for them, and subsequently they performed my three string quartets on several occasions and recorded them brilliantly on Bridge Records (Bridge 9352: Music of Fred Lerdahl, vol. 3). Chaconne is in one movement lasting 19 minutes. It is effectively my fourth string quartet. Quartets 1-3 form a unified cycle lasting 70 minutes. When I finished the cycle, I thought I would never write again for the medium; yet I could not resist the opportunity of working again with Daedalus. The issue was how to compose another string quartet unrelated to the earlier cycle. The solution came from my solo cello piece There and Back Again (2010), which was based on a four-bar variation pattern from a 17th-century chaconne. Unlike the asymmetrical phrases and expanding variations of much of my music, the chaconne form requires symmetrical phrases and strictly periodic variations. I wished to work again with these symmetries but on a larger scale. Chaconne also differs in character and expression from the three-quartet cycle. The cycle is inward and intense, a kind of psychological excavation. Chaconne is, for the most part, transparent and playful. Many of its textures emerge from little canons, not completely unlike the rounds that children sing. Any composer who writes in chaconne form (one thinks above all of the last movement of Bach's D minor violin partita and the finale of Brahms's Fourth Symphony) is confronted with the challenge of how to create a larger form out of a constantly repeating pattern.My Chaconne grows from paired antecedent-consequent phrases, each variation lasting eight bars. The 50 variations group into three large rotations, forming three arcs of tension and relaxation, with subtle parallel connections across the rotations. Notwithstanding my attraction to chaconne form, I purposefully disguised its symmetries and periodicities in order to build an overall dramatic shape. Fred Lerdahl.

SKU: HH.HH361-FSP

ISBN 9790708092094.

This set of four works, all in minor keys, is unique for the energy of the fugal writing, the passionate chromaticism of the slow movements and the playful, asymmetrical phrasing of the final Minuets. The scoring leaves open a range of performance possibilities, from one to a part with or without continuo (following the varying density of figured bass and the instruction senza cembalo) to orchestral performance as suggested by the English Concerto arrangements.

SKU: BR.EB-9244

ISBN 9790004185445. 9 x 12 inches.

It was the practice of Khoomii (throat singing) - following several workshops with Michael Ormiston - that first attracted me to Tuvan music. Composing this Songbook, the first in a series commissioned by the Ligeti Quartet, I took the chance to reflect on compositional questions around transcription and arrangement of existing music, and frequently found myself asking: where is the boundary between the source material and the new substance? Of course the relationship varies from piece to piece, and moment to moment: sometimes we seem to glimpse the pure source, but most of the time there are differing degrees of distance, working towards or away from it. This new version for string orchestra corresponds closely to the original quartet version, with an additional part for double basses.The traditional Tuvan songs that I have transcribed and recomposed are all known to me from the Ay Kherel CD The Music of Tuva: Throat Singing and Instruments from Central Asia (2004, Arc Music). According to the notes from that CD, this is what the songs are about:1. Dyngylday: If you have come on a horse in blue, it doesn't mean that you are the best. My heart tells me something else: my sweetheart doesn't have such a beautiful horse, but he is my darling.An alternative interpretation from Alash Ensemble (alashensemble.com): The word dyngylday is a nonsense term with no translation. The song makes good-humored fun of somebody for being a good-for-nothing.2. Eki Attar (The Best Steeds): The horse is the basis of our life. It is a magic creature. Even its step is full of music and rhythm. You may not be a horse rider, but when you hear this song you will always remember horses.3. Kuda Yry: This wedding song glorifies the strength of the groom and the beauty of his Horse.4. Ezir-Kara ('Black Eagle'): This was the name of a horse, who became a legend through his remarkable strength and speed.It is not just overtones that abound here: there are galloping rhythms aplenty, and though I am no horse rider I tried to keep the horses galloping in my imagination while composing these pieces.Christian Mason (with quotes from Ay Kherel and Alash Ensemble)

World premiere of the original version: London/UK, May 10, 2016, World premiere of the string orchestra version: Clermont-Ferrand/France, October 8, 2020.

SKU: PR.14440218S

UPC: 680160027170. 9.5 x 13 inches.

The concerts and exhibits of the Cleveland Museum of Art were an important formative influence for me during my student days. So when the invitation came to create a new work celebrating this institution on its seventy-fifth anniversary, I was not only happy to accept, but knew immediately that I wanted to write a piece that would somehow relate specifically to the museum. I decided to make the work a reflection on a painting in the museum's collection: Zurbaran's The Holy House of Nazareth. My quartet is not program music in a narrative sense, but rather a kind of meditation that takes its tone from this painting's remarkable integration of intense affect, mysterious repose and secret geometry. Besides Zurbaran's painting, the piece is occupied with a purely musical object of contemplation: the hymn tune Picardy, best known with the text Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. This tune permeates the harmonic and melodic life of the quartet, sometimes appearing in a very simple, straightforward fashion, but often hidden amidst more complex structures. I was attracted to the melody for its musical qualities, but later realized that the hymn's text also resonates with the mood of the painting; the words speak of a reverent awe, of cherubim with sleepless eye, and of the mystery of the Incarnate Word who must suffer: King of kings, yet born of Mary...

SKU: HL.132739

UPC: 884088975739.