SKU: HL.49047454

UPC: 842819101086. 9.0x12.0x0.358 inches.

My 3rd String Quartet is in six contrasted movements. Certain musical figures recur across the work, but there are few themes as such. The main emphasis is on contrast of mood, texture, harmony, pacing and timing. Unlike many of my works this quartet had no extra-musical inspiration, and in principle should have no subtitle. Certain features already present in my music became more prominent in this new work: modes (limited collections of pitches) have always helped me to focus musical character, but here a sense of key note for each mode became much more pronounced, as did the difference between modes for each section of the work. A sort of hybrid key-system emerged (even with equivalents of major and minor) which is not normal tonality, nor does it aim to imitate it. Unlike tonality this key-system includes noises, extended performance techniques and intervals outside Western tuning as available resources. What I hope it does is to focus the listening experience onto different musical areas, to encourage a sense of both modulation from one area to another and to give the music a sense of goal. No conscious knowledge of this is needed when listening: the music should communicate directly on its own. Here, then, is this collection of six musical colours, related and unrelated, different yet belonging together, variable yet in a set order. Hence the subtitle, chosen both for both its sound and its sense: 'hana no hanataba' meaning, in Japanese, 'bouquet of flowers'. A brief description: 1) Moderately fast. Short droplets of sounds gather increasing momentum. 2) Very fast. Canons and bells at different speeds. 3) Very slow - fast - very slow - very fast - very slow. The main slow movement and its main scherzo. An emphasis on non-tempered tunings and on inhaling and exhaling waves of sound. The slow sections feature florid melodic writing. In the exuberant scherzo competing duos and trios create imaginary folk music. 4) Extremely fast/extremely slow. Open strings and harmonics fuse into a single string instrument - like a sort of large resonating Medieval tromba marina. 5) Very fast. A variation on movement 2). Variation, Schoenberg told Cage, is just a sort of repetition 'with some things changed and others not.' 6) Slow - Very Fast - Fast - Slow. The opening calm harmonies and florid melodies evoke movement 3) in different music. The fast part features one overt theme: a fanfare-like call to attention which is subject to extensive development. There is much use of non-Western tuning. At its climax the music freezes into a frieze - a wall of sound standing in front of the audience with increasing obstinacy and certainty as the work grinds towards its cadence.

SKU: BR.EB-8939

ISBN 9790004186084.

With his first String Quartet in D minor, op. 77, composed in 1855, the native Swiss composer Joachim Raff bid a brilliant farewell to Weimar. He had been there as Franz Liszt's assistant since 1850 and had made a name for himself in the city's art scene - now he embarked on new paths. He composed his second Quartet in A major, op. 90, already in 1857 in Wiesbaden, the spa town that was to become his home for 21 years. The two quartets are unequivocal works: orchestrally-conceived, full of energetic vigor, and at times uncompromisingly modern. They confidently continue the Beethoven tradition and attest at the same time to Raff's intensive confrontation with Richard Wagner's music during the Weimar years. In his chamber music, the composer wanted to achieve progress in an inherently historical way and to ground the individual substance in existing forms, as he told the Viennese violinist Josef Hellmesberger, who launched opus 77. The quartets, first published in 1860/62, found illustrious interpreters, among them, the Muller brothers' renowned ensemble, to which opus 90 was also dedicated, and Joseph Joachim.In collaboration with the Joachim-Raff-Archiv Lachen (CH)

Some eighteen years elapsed between Raff's first counted String Quartet op. 77 and his Quartets Nos. 6-8 op. 192, combined as one work. As such, Raff parted with the weighty single opus in quartet composition - without, however, sacrificing musical quality.

SKU: FG.55011-574-3

ISBN 9790550115743.

Kalevi Aho (b.1949) was only 18 years old when he completed his String Quartet no. 1 in g minor (1967). Nonetheless it was already the second one of its kind: the earlier string quartet in a minor got christened String Quartet No. 0 and banned from performing. The g minor quartet was heard the first time only 50 years after it was born, when the Kamus Quartet premiered it at the Musica Kalevi Aho Festival in Forssa on June 28, 2019. In Aho's home town, Forssa, it was not possible to study composition with a teacher: My model in this and the other works I composed while I was at school was all the mostly tonal music I had personally played on the violin or heard on the radio. The first movement, Moderato, begins in variation form, until followed by a fugue based on the variation theme. The initially lyrical second movement has a quick, virtuosic and light middle section. The third movement is a very quick scherzo that becomes dramatic, and the work ends with a chorale-like finale. The composer tells: When I got to study composition at the Sibelius Academy in autumn 1968 and showed the quartet to my teacher, Einojuhani Rautavaara, he said there was no point my studying tonal harmony and tonal formal constructions any longer; that I could do the exams in them straight away and start the courses in modern music resources there and then..

SKU: AP.36-M199201

ISBN 9781638873228. UPC: 735816135492. English.

A wonderful and practical collection of wedding music arranged for string quartet. Contains the standard wedding favorites such as Wagner's "Bridal Chorus" and Purcell's "Trumpet Tune."  Titles included: 1. Bridal Chorus (Wagner)  2. Trumpet Tune (Purcell)  3. Allelujah (Mozart)  4. Where'er You Walk (Handel)  5. Adagio (Mendelssohn)  6. Meditation (Massenet)  7. The Ring on my Finger (Schumann)  8. Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod).

These products are currently being prepared by a new publisher. While many items are ready and will ship on time, some others may see delays of several months.