SKU: HL.49045762

ISBN 9784115902282. 8.25x11.75x0.1 inches.

This is the eleventh work in my chamber music series, STRATA, and my fourth string quartet following STRATA I, V, and IX. This series started in 1988 based on the idea of regarding registers as strata (the plural form of stratum), from which the title in derived. While I continue to write pieces, however, the initial concept changed in various aspects. This time, I returned to the original idea To put it simply, I restarted from STRATA I. I used the same instruments and stared at strara created by the four string parts. That became the act of composing STRATA XI. The work doesn't have 'development' in the general sense but represents a panorama of strata. It consists of four movements (fast-slow-fast-slow). In fact, before writing the STRATA series, I wrote a long string quartet when I was a student, but I didn't include it in my list of works. Anyway, the thought of writing string quartet has never disappeared from me. It alays weighs heavily on my mind. Shin-Ichiro Ikebe.

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SKU: BT.EMBZ14109

English-German-Hungarian.

In the string quartets published in the series 'Music for Beginners', every part can be played in the first position. When a viola is not available it may be replaced by a third violin: the part is provided in both alto and treble clef versions in this publication. The volume begins with the characteristic Viennese classical dances (contredanse, Ländler, minuet), which can be played even after just one or two years' of diligent instrumental study. These are followed by more extensive string quartets with several movements, which prepare students for playing more serious chamber music. The works are published in score form as well as parts, to make it easier to navigate among themusical material and to assist with the work of rehearsal.

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...