By Josef Suk (1874-1935). Edited by Zdenek Nouza. For string quartet. This edition: Urtext edition. Set of parts. Published by Baerenreiter Verlag

String Quartet - difficult

SKU: HL.49008206

Score and Parts. Composed by Peteris Vasks. This edition: Saddle stitching. Sheet music. Edition Schott. Classical. Score and Parts. Composed 1977/1997. 86 pages. Duration 15'. Schott Music #ED 8899. Published by Schott Music (HL.49008206).

ISBN 9790001124003. UPC: 073999655742. 9.0x12.0x0.34 inches.

With serious string players this Latvian composer has long been recognized because of his sonorous tonal concepts and his modal, occasionally aleatoric idiom. Works like 'Cantabile per Archi' or 'Musica dolorosa' are already quite well-known, but newer pieces like the violin concerto with string orchestra 'Fernes Licht', commissioned by Gidon Kremer for his Kremerata Baltica, are also gaining wide international exposure. The genre of the string quartet is well represented in Vasks' output. The 2nd string quartet 'Summer Tunes' (ED 8512) has been published for some time and the 3rd was premiered by the Kronos Quartet who were so enthused that they commissioned a 4th quartet. In 1996, prompted by a complete recording of all his string quartets by the Miami String Quartet for Conifer Records Vasks totally revised his early 1st string quartet 1996, it is here presented for the first time in a printed edition.

String Quartet - difficult

SKU: HL.49008109

Score and Parts. Composed by Peteris Vasks. This edition: Saddle stitching. Sheet music. Edition Schott. Classical. Score and Parts. Composed 1995. 96 pages. Duration 27'. Schott Music #ED8640. Published by Schott Music (HL.49008109).

ISBN 9790001120678. UPC: 073999881493. 9.0x12.0x0.268 inches.

'Christmas * Peace on Earth' is the leading motive of the String Quartet, a tenet of faith as well as an expression of hope. In the first part of the work Vasks uses themes from a well-known Christmas carol, while the second part is strongly influenced by Latvian folksongs and dances. The third section, with a chromaticiscm strongly reminiscent of Shostakovitch, investigates and questions the feasibility of any peace in our society. The final, calm and slightly melancholy section symbolizes 'Peace on Earth' by means of sonorous sustained choirs.

Chamber Music String Quartet

SKU: PR.164002720

Cassatt. Composed by Dan Welcher. Spiral and Saddle. Premiere: Cassatt Quartet, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL. Contemporary. Set of Score and Parts. With Standard notation. Composed 2007. WRT11142. 52+16+16+16+16 pages. Duration 24 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #164-00272. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.164002720).

UPC: 680160573042. 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.

Trombone, String Quartet

SKU: HL.14033404

Composed by Bent Sorensen. Music Sales America. Classical. Score. Music Sales #KP00662. Published by Music Sales (HL.14033404).

ISBN 9788759874769. Danish.

The Wings Of Night for Trombone and String Quartet was composed by Bent Sorensen in 1998, as a commission from the Warsaw Autumn for Christian Lindberg and the Silesian String Quartet. Programme note: I do not yet know what to write about this short piece which I have just finished. But like my Piano Concerto LA NOTTE, it seems to take place at night-time - or perhaps it is only because I wrote the piece by night. In short, the title is from Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'.Juliet sings to the night - the night of love: 'Come, night, come Romeo, come, thou day in night, For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night, Whither than new snow upon a raven's back.THE WINGS OFNIGHT was composed as a commission from the Warsaw Autumn for Christian Lindberg and the Silesian String Quartet. (Bent Sorensen).