SKU: SU.29120070
String Quartet No. 3 is in one continuous movement and represents some harmonic and structural experimentation by the composer. The work plays out a bit like a tone poem for string quartet. Mason says This work blends tonal, polytonal and atonal material. My goal was to create new sounds but with a driving suspense and energy from the very first chords to the very end to take the listener on a kind of cosmic tour to different worlds of mystery, longing, warmth, and even triumph. This piece is suggested for advanced level players. YouTube link with the Lyris Quartet performing this work:: 2 vn, vla, vcl Duration: 14' Composed: 2021 Published by: Todd Mason.
SKU: BR.EB-9255
World premiere: Paris (Festival ,,Presences), February 13, 2017 (Quatuor Diotima)Commissioned by Radio France
ISBN 9790004185551. 9 x 12 inches.
C'est apres un entretien avec le Professeur Yuji Ikegaya concernant ses recherches en neurologie que j'ai voulu travailler sur quelques particularites fonctionnelles du cerveau humain. Quatre de ces specificites ont retenu mon attention. La premiere est ce qui est de l'ordre de l'autonomie ou de l'independance. En effet, alors qu'aucune stimulation exterieure n'ait lieu, le cerveau humain montre des activites spontanees qui s'expriment sous forme de patterns fixes. La seconde est le principe d'<> des gestes ou des phrases avec le fonctionnement des neurones miroirs : l'homme apprend en imitant les gestes des autres, c'est la source d'emotions comme la compassion ou la sympathie. La troisieme est liee a l'apprentissage spontane et l'auto-renouvellement du cerveau, faculte qui le differencie singulierement de l'ordinateur. Enfin la conscience du <>, qui est ce qui le differencie du cerveau de l'animal. J'ai trouve dans la forme classique et austere du quatuor un terrain d'exploration ideal pour elaborer ce projet musical. Le quatuor est en effet compose des quatre cerveaux des musiciens, mais il est egalement une entite a part entiere, un centre nevralgique unitaire. L'ecriture musicale procede ainsi par imitation, sur une base de patterns qui varie constamment dans une quete identitaire et dans son rapport a l'autre et aux autres (musiciens). L'autre, c'est egalement l'autiste, celui qui n'arrive pas bien a imiter et a comprendre les expressions, emotions et gestes exterieurs. La question des rapports devient alors celle de la dependance, de l'independance et/ou de l'interdependance. Elle est au centre de mon processus compositionnel qui, par l'organisation et la sonification des comportements aux differentes voix du quatuor, est egalement un moyen de me questionner en tant que compositrice, sur mon identite et sur mon propre rapport au monde. (Misato Mochizuki)World premiere: Paris (Festival ,,Presences), February 13, 2017 (Quatuor Diotima) Commissioned by Radio France.
SKU: BR.EB-9243
ISBN 9790004185438. 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: BR.EB-9244
ISBN 9790004185445. 9 x 12 inches.
SKU: BR.EB-9259
World premiere: Stockholm (Festival O/MODERNT), June 19, 2017
ISBN 9790004185599. 9 x 12 inches.
When Hugo Ticciati asked me to write a new piece for his quartet, I was immediately enthusiastic about this project. I love how Hugo and his O/MODERNT String Quartet unite old and new music in a completely natural way. So, I was absolutely excited about Hugo`s idea of having my piece based on two of my idols, Bach and Beethoven, deconstructing the one and constructing the other. With all my respect for these great composers I gave to the piece a very personal inner part consisting of my own music that influenced and inspired the other parts. For the whole piece I felt very close to Beethoven, who said: To make a fugue is not art, which [is something] I have made dozens of times in my study. But the imagination will assert its rights and must come today, in light of the old traditional form, to another truly poetic element. De/Con is a travel into different centuries with different sound-languages. For me, it was like having a wonderful constructive discussion with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven, each of us trying to speak our own language, approaching the others step by step. The piece could be defined as a Love Letter to two of the greatest composers ever. De/Con could be preceded by (parts of) Johann Sebastian Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of the Fugue) and succeeded by Ludwig van Beethoven's Grosse Fuge (Great Fugue). Ideally, then, all parts should be played attacca. It could, but it hasn't to be played with these two pieces. (Manuela Kerer)World premiere: Stockholm (Festival O/MODERNT), June 19, 2017.
SKU: BR.EB-9260
ISBN 9790004185605. 9 x 12 inches.
SKU: BR.EB-9402
ISBN 9790004188767. 0 x 0 inches.
<> est la quatrieme piece (ou le quatrieme mouvement) de mon cycle <> pour quatuor a cordes, base sur les recherches recentes concernant le fonctionnement du cerveau. La piece s'inspire egalement de l'interpretation de la genese du monde telle qu'abordee dans les anciens livres japonais, ou la premiere divinite creee une deuxieme entite pensee comme un <>. C'est a partir de l'harmonie de ces deux etres que naitront par la suite les nombreux esprits lies a la cosmogonie japonaise. J'ai repris cette image dans ma piece, ou une sorte de note contenue dans l'ostinato percussif du violoncelle (<>) sera revelee progressivement par une note tiree et vibree au second violon. Cette vibration, qui s'accentue dans le discours devient a la fois une <> reprise par l'alto et des glissandi joues au premier violon. D'apres certaines etudes, le rythme et la melodie ne stimulent pas les memes zones du cerveau, cette construction permet ainsi l'emergence d'une communaute de quatre differentes personnalites qui s'observent les unes les autres ; elles arrivent a imaginer, a anticiper et meme a participer a la realisation des comportements des autres, par un processus propre au fonctionnement du cerveau nomme <>. (Misato Mochizuki, 2000)World premiere: Luxembourg, Philharmonie, October 12, 2020 (Aris-Quartett) Commissioned by the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organisation) for the Rising Stars-Project.
SKU: BR.EB-9271
ISBN 9790004185711. 0 x 0 inches.
I fell in love with the remarkable singing of the Tenores di Bitti on hearing their recordings as a student. Their uniquely intense vocal timbre, their harmony, which seemed pure and rough at once, and the sense that this music was, at root, not so much about performance as simply being together in the world, in a community of spirit. At the time, I had no intention of using this music to my own creative ends, but now, here we are: Sardinian Songbook is the second in a cycle of works for the Ligeti Quartet, all based on transcriptions of music from different throat-singing traditions. Like string quartets, the tenores usually sing in groups of four voices, but being free from instruments they stand very close together enabling the resonances of their voices to blend and interact in a special way. The quartet, of course, can only sit so close before their bows clash, so I have chosen instead to reflect this physical closeness inversely, by getting the players to stand increasingly far from one another as the piece progresses. In so doing, the initial state of sonic blend gives way to hocketing lines, opening up the sense of space.Christian Mason, 2018 The four movements may be played separately or as a collection. If played together the following order should be observed (see table of contents).World premiere: Sheffield/UK, Firth Hall, April 14, 2018, Commissioned by Ligeti Quartet.
SKU: BR.EB-9270
ISBN 9790004185704. 9 x 12 inches.
SKU: PR.14440265S
UPC: 680160027910.
The Second and Third Quartets were conceived at the same time; indeed, their composition intermingled, over half of No. 3 being sketched before No. 2 was completed. Accordingly, they share similar material but, like the intertwining blood of cousins, their natures differ: No. 2 being somewhat acerbic and declamatory, No. 3 more lyric and gentler. An annunicatory 'leaping motive' (derived from a motto generated by my name) opens Quartet No. 2 and inhabits the course of the piece as a cyclical binding-force. A five-note motive, usually very deliberate, also keeps recurring like an insistent caller. All three movements are based on tonal centers (I on B and E, II on D, III on C) and the harmonic 'grammar' spoken tends to recall the jazz world of my youth. To hopefully achieve a certain classical ambience was one of the goals of this piece, and all three movements have traditional forms. The first movement is a modified Sonata-Allegro design, with a severely-truncated recapitulation balanced by a lengthy, and decaying Coda. The second movement is a set of strophic variants and an epilogue interspersed with both solo ritornelli and first-movement material (the motto and the five-note motive) in the nature of a fantasia-like 'call-and-response.' It is dedicated to the memory of the American mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani. The third movement is a modified Rondo (ABACBA) which evolves out of the opening motto. All three movements make much use of canonic stretti, similar gestures, and repetition. For example, the climax of movement III's Rondo throws the first movement back at us again, as if the players were reluctant to let it go, so that the entire piece could perhaps be viewed as a single large, extended, Sonata movement, with introduction and Coda.The Second and Third Quartets were conceived at the same time; indeed, their composition intermingled, over half of No. 3 being sketched before No. 2 was completed. Accordingly, they share similar material but, like the intertwining blood of cousins, their natures differ: No. 2 being somewhat acerbic and declamatory, No. 3 more lyric and gentler.An annunicatory ‘leaping motive’ (derived from a motto generated by my name) opens Quartet No. 2 and inhabits the course of the piece as a cyclical binding-force. A five-note motive, usually very deliberate, also keeps recurring like an insistent caller. All three movements are based on tonal centers (I on B and E, II on D, III on C) and the harmonic ‘grammar’ spoken tends to recall the jazz world of my youth.To hopefully achieve a certain classical ambience was one of the goals of this piece, and all three movements have traditional forms. The first movement is a modified Sonata-Allegro design, with a severely-truncated recapitulation balanced by a lengthy, and decaying Coda. The second movement is a set of strophic variants and an epilogue interspersed with both solo ritornelli and first-movement material (the motto and the five-note motive) in the nature of a fantasia-like ‘call-and-response.’ It is dedicated to the memory of the American mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani. The third movement is a modified Rondo (ABACBA) which evolves out of the opening motto.All three movements make much use of canonic stretti, similar gestures, and repetition. For example, the climax of movement III’s Rondo throws the first movement back at us again, as if the players were reluctant to let it go, so that the entire piece could perhaps be viewed as a single large, extended, Sonata movement, with introduction and Coda.
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