(Over 850 Classical Themes and Melodies in the Original Keys) For C instrument. Format: fakebook (spiral bound). With vocal melody (excerpts) and chord names. Lassical. Series: Hal Leonard Fake Books. 646 pages. 9x12 inches. Published by Hal Leonard.

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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String Quartet (Parts)

SKU: HL.14037707

Parts. Composed by Kevin Volans. Music Sales America. Contemporary. Softcover. Composed 2010. 80 pages. Chester Music #CH7452501. Published by Chester Music (HL.14037707).

ISBN 9781849385916. UPC: 884088578626. 8.25x11.75x0.262 inches.

Kevin Volans' String Quartet No. 9: Shiva Dances was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and first performed by the Smith Quartet at the 2004 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

Kevin Volans (the composer) notes on the piece:
In the past I have been interested in trying to go beyond historicism (1970s), beyond style(1980s) and beyond form (1990s) in my work. Looking back over the music of the twentiethcentury I was struck by the fact the nearlyall of it is extremely 'busy', almost cluttered. Italmost seemed that composers felt compelled to look industrious. In the new millennium Ithought it would be interesting to try and eliminate content. I also aspired to movingfrommusic (sound as art) to art (art as sound). This, of course, has already been done by a numberof composers (many from New York - Phil Niblock and La Monte Young, to name but two), butit was something I had never tried.AlthoughI found it annoying that the label 'minimalist' was given to my African-based work,and fearing this would make the label stick, I set out to write a piece which reflected my loveof minimal painting and architecture. The Japanesehave a term 'wabi' meaning 'voluntarypoverty' or 'emptiness' to describe their restrained minimal aesthetic, an aesthetic which,however, pays greatest attention to the quality of material and fine detail. I like to think thatthelack of excessive pitch material in this piece reflects a kind of voluntary poverty.When Shiva is portrayed dancing (as Nataraj) He is depicted in a circle of flames crushing asmall figure - the ego - underfoot.You get theimpression He dances on the spot, not movingaround at all. I like that.
The piece is dedicated to Pablo Pascual Cilleruelo.

String Quartet (Score)

SKU: HL.370494

Critical Edition Hardcover. Composed by Karol Szymanowski. PWM. Classical. Hardcover. 60 pages. Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne #9267030. Published by Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne (HL.370494).

ISBN 9781705147009. UPC: 840126994025.

The First String Quartet in C major, Op. 37, was written in the autumn of 1917 and earned Szymanowski the first prize in a competition organized by the Ministry of Religious and in a competition organized by the Ministry of Religious and Educational Affairs in January 1922. The First String Quartet is notable for its clar and simple construction. The first movement is in the formof a sonata allegro; the Andantino semplice (in modo iuna canzone) in the middle is a cross between ternary and variation form. The final Scherzando alla burlesca also keeps to the form of a sonata allegro. The combinations and proportions of formal factors and the treatment of thematic material betray a fairly conventional adoption of classical models. Similarly, the expressive and structural use of melodic material shows a respect for traditional norms. Szymanowski created, in other works from the same period, his own individual type of melodic line, which was strongly expressive and achieved its effect chiefly by its tonal qualieties; nevertheless in this Quartet he returns to a fluid, cantilena-like, symmetrically shaped melodic line, which runs along in broad phrases of a concentrated, reflective character. Melody becomes the chief factor in the development of the form, both in thematic usage and in the application of a more polyphonic texture. Harmonic and tonal means are considerably simplified in the Quartet []. Most of the writing is linear, or horizontal, with individual treatment of each part, the parallel continuation of the four sound planes, almost a matter of principle. The functions of the particular instruments in realizing these planes are constantly changing,which accounts for the even greater variedy of tone-colour. The decision to forego experiment with forms and sonorities is reflectedin the overall approach to musical expression. The predominant atmosphere of restrained emotion, quiet lyricism and serenity is strongly suggestive of classical aestetic models. (Based on Zofia Helman Commentary on Szymanowski Complete Edition, Vol. B6) (II) The ''Second String Quartet'' represents an interesting attempt to revert to classical form coupled with the new harmonic and tonal vocabulary worked out previously in the ''Slopiewnie'', ''Stabat Mater'' and ''Mazurkas''. It was also the first time the composer had used folk elements in the framework of a major classical form. The ''Second String Quartet'' is in a special category among Szymanowski's works. Though it dates from the composer was still occupied with folk music, it nevertheless shows him returning to classical models, but at the same time using an aesthetic of subjective expression, which gives the work its own individual stamp. The ''Second String Quartet'' synthesis of the various directions in which Szymanowski was attempting to develop. The sonority and texture used in the first.

String Quartet No.4 was composed by Hans Abrahamsen in 2012. Commissioned by Westdeutscher Rundfunk and Wigmore Hall For the ArdittiQuartet. Programme note: The basic idea for my Fourth String Quartet was very clear to me: It should be quiet and soft music or to put it in a german term: hoch im Himmel gesungen ... (High singing in heaven). Each of the four movements has a different scordatura/pitch. The first movement begins - like my work 'Schnee' - sky-high with an airy and soft melody by the first violin. The second movement is fast and movement and joy-like. It consists of two duets and a reverse style counterpoint. While the sections were progressively longer in the first movement they are getting shorter and shorter in the second. Dark, heavy and earthy is the third movement and its pizzicato recalls big black raindrops falling to the ground. It is the dark and grainy counterpart to the first movement whereas the fourth movement corresponds to the second. The fourth movement was planned as a dark and heavy counterpart but it turned out to be like babbling music of a child. My Fourth String Quartet has become in its way a serene and cool piece. So the Quartet has been finished luckiyly after twenty years - it was already in 1990 that I was commissioned by Wittener Tage fur Neue Musik to write the piece for Arditti Quartet. Hans Abrahamsen

Chamber Music Violin, Viola, cello, Piano

SKU: PR.14440587S

Composed by Steven Stucky. Premiered by Opus One, Music from Angel Fire, NM. Contemporary. Score. With Standard notation. Composed 2012. 44 pages. Duration 12 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #144-40587S. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.14440587S).

UPC: 680160616497. 9x12 inches.

As composer-in-residence at the Music from Angel Fire festival in New Mexico, Stucky was commissioned for a new chamber work, Rain Shadow, written for Opus One. For inspiration, Stucky looked to the incredible works of Scottish sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. Much of the piece underscores contrasts between the piano and the violin, viola, and cello, with the strings working largely as a unit, frequently intoning their unpredictable harmonies in homophonic rhythms... Rain Shadow is big on clarity, easy to follow, and attractive to the ear, even letting loose (near the end) a big ol' Romantic theme that wouldn't be out of place in a cinematic epic set in outer space. (James M. Keller, Listen Up, Santa Fe New Mexican).

Chamber Music String Quartet

SKU: PR.114423270

Composed by Nkeiru Okoye. Set of Score and Parts. 20+4+4+4+8 pages. Duration 8 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #114-42327. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.114423270).

UPC: 680160687374.