By Dvorak Antonin. Czech title: Smy covy kvartet 9 d moll op. 34. Published by Praha (Czech import).

String Quartet (str quar)

SKU: BR.MR-32027

Overture. Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Chamber music; stapled. Musica Rara.

Beyer schafft es, mit seinen Bearbeitungen die Moglichkeiten des Streichquartetts eindrucksvoll auszunutzen und dabei den Charakter der Werke Mozarts in einem stimmungsvollen Klangbild zu beschreiben, dass dem des Originals in jeder Weise gerecht wird. Classical period. Score and parts. 28 pages. Breitkopf and Haertel #MR 32027. Published by Breitkopf and Haertel (BR.MR-32027).

ISBN 9790004489475. 0 x 0 inches.

Christian Beyer (*1977), who is himself an active orchestra and chamber musician as well as a sought-after arranger and conductor, presents with this arrangement an edition that speaks from the heart of many musicians. Mozart's overtures, established as individual works in almost all concert halls worldwide, can now also be performed in programs of chamber music concerts.The difficulty level of these editions ranges from semi-professional to professional, but also ambitious amateur musicians will find the arrangements easy to master.

With his arrangements, Beyer succeeds in impressively exploiting the potentials of the string quartet and, at the same time, presenting the character of Mozart's works in an atmospheric sound image that does full justice to that of the original in all respects.

Tenor & String Quartet

SKU: PE.EP72822

Composed by Jonathan Dove. Voice(s) & Various Instruments. Edition Peters. Living Composer. Score and Part(s). 164 pages. Duration 00:30:00. Edition Peters #98-EP72822. Published by Edition Peters (PE.EP72822).

ISBN 9790577011769. 232 x 303mm inches. English.

I have only visited Damascus once, twenty years ago, on the way to Palmyra.  I had a purpose (I was writing music for a play about Palmyra’s Queen Zenobia) but essentially I was a tourist.  Like any visitor, I was thrilled to step out of the noisy modern city into the magical ancient world of the walled Old City, its vibrant souk leading to the magnificent mosque, and a labyrinth of winding, narrow streets filled with the smell of unleavened bread.

In Palmyra, I was met with extraordinary kindness everywhere.  On one occasion, a little Bedouin boy noticed that I was risking sunstroke wandering bare-headed among the spectacular ruins: he showed me how to tie a turban, then took me to have tea with his family in their tent.

Since then, I have watched helplessly as these places of wonder have been devastated and their inhabitants scattered and killed.  When the Sacconi Quartet suggested that I might choose a Syrian poet for our collaboration, I welcomed the idea.

I searched for a long time to find a contemporary poet whose work might gain from any music I could imagine.  I felt it was important to find first-hand accounts of the Syrian experience – but, of course, I was always reading them in translation.  In an anthology called Syria Speaks, I was astonished to read something that looked like prose, but was full of poetry.  It was Anne-Marie McManus’s fine translation of Ali Safar’s A Black Cloud in a Leaden White Sky – an eloquent, thoughtful, contained yet vivid account of life in a war-torn country, all the more moving for its restraint.

In setting these words, I have not attempted to imitate Syrian music.  However, there is what might be called a linguistic accommodation in my choice of scale, or mode.  Several movements are in a mode that I first discovered while writing a cantata commemorating the First World War: it has a tuning that I associate with war, its violence and desolation.  This eight-note mode is similar to scales found in Syrian music.  I did not choose it in the abstract: it emerged from the harmonies I was exploring in the earlier work, and emerged again as I was looking for the right musical colours to set Ali Safar’s words.  In this work, its Arabic aspect is more prominent. - Jonathan Dove

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