Chamber Music String Quartet

SKU: PR.11440505S

Composed by John Downey. Full score. With Standard notation. 53 pages. Duration 25 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #114-40505S. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.11440505S).

UPC: 680160008391. 11 x 14 inches.

Although structurally it subdivides into five movements, the entire quartet emerges as one vast continuum. There are no formal breaks between movements. However, certain musical signposts can be discerned, associated with each of the movements' terminations and new beginnings. The opening movement, The Nostalgia of Clanging Bell Sonorities, begins floating on recurrent Bbs whose soft rhythmic flow slowly puts into motion strong undercurrents suggestive of the latent power of water... After several suggestions of tolling bells, the movement gradually fades into hushed tones of veiled and very distant sonorities. It uses a unique effect, for the first time in a musical context, conveyed through the use of extra heavy practice mutes. The second movement, The Spill of Water, disengages itself from the first through its distinct contrast in tempo. Water moves fast, and when it splashes, it tends to run wildly. In this case, it happens to be bubbly water that gushes forth bodly... smashing across rocky shorelines. So, too, the music attempts to conjure such moods. At the end of this movement, a cello cadenza emerges, introducing an introspective type of melodicism. The third movement, The Poignancy of Memory, contains many silences as it tries to convey memory through fragmented remembrances much like often occur in our dream state. Progressing through several slowly building images, it gradually works itself into juxtaposition of musical images. Towards the movement's end, high harmonics are sounding in all four instruments while left hand pizzicato notes in the cello pluck the last remembrances of this central core. Almost imperceptibly, the viola assumes leadership as it dissolves into: The fourth movement, The Fluidity of Motion, which has mostly the viola, but also the cello, articulating lyrical statements against sheets of sound conjured up by the two violins playing a flood of swirling figures, evokes a kind of static motion in space. Here , the virtually imperceptible manner in which this hushed whisper continues incessantly, can suggest the potential fluidity with which movement may inch forward... Later into the fourth movement, two fairly extended solos by the second and then the first violins, lead to a kind of spontaneous dialogue amont the four instrumentalists. Eventually, this musical conversation gets caught up in: The fifth movement's The Rush of Time, which opens with a hushed flurry of speed, precipitates the Finale. It generates, at first slowly, but then very swiftly, whole shifts of rhythmic fields that initially seem to conflict with one another. Ultimately, this use of psycho-rhythmics contributes to an on-rush seem of motion and time. Rhythmic changes are, at times, abruptly precipitated with but little or no preparation creating a kind of inevitability in forward thrust, while the movement rushes forward with a feeling of gradual and continuous acceleration. It gathers density as more and more notes are piled progressively upon successive beats. The attempt is to spark tension and ignite excitement by means of frenetic confrontations of dissimilitudes. Ultimately - with the help of time - these polarities centrifically spin out their own destinies with their accompanying fall-out and own inevitable resolutions.

Concert Band/Harmonie and Opt. Choir - Grade 2

SKU: BT.DHP-1033337-015

Composed by Jacob De Haan. Musica Sacra. Hymns & Chorals. Set (Score & Parts). Composed 2003. De Haske Publications #DHP 1033337-015. Published by De Haske Publications (BT.DHP-1033337-015).

9x12 inches.

Missa Brevis, written for choir and wind band, was commissioned by the Conseil Départemental pour la Musique et la Culture de Haute-Alsace (Dir.: Philippe Pfisterer) in Guebwiller (France), in celebration of the millennium of Pope Leon IX’sbirth in Éguisheim (France). The composer conducted the first performance on June 23, 2002. It was performed live for the French television channel France 2. The mass movements Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Deiare very suitable for the Catholic as well as the Protestant liturgy. For this mass, various ways for performing in diverse variable strengths are possible. An instrumental performance is possible if the brass represents the choir parts. In thisoption, it is desirable for the brass to be positioned separately from the rest of the band (on a gallery, for example), so that the idea of two choirs is approached. In a performance with a large choir, the brass can work very well as a support. Inthat case, the dynamics of the brass should be adapted somewhat, since these are actually intended for an instrumental performance. You can also leave out the brass entirely for the benefit of the choir. For the accompaniment of smaller choirs, youcan opt for a small ensemble from the band. This can also be a quartet, put together as desired. For the performance of this mass, the obvious choice is one of the above options. However, as an alternative, a performance with a combination of theseoptions (vocally/instrumentally) is also possible not just from an artistic point of view (variation), but also from a practical starting point for example in the case that the choir has rehearsed only two movements. With a full strength, theconductor can vary the instrumentation to his or her liking. Then the brass can also play a role in the accompaniment (instead of supporting the choir). The following combinations are possible:
1. clarinet choir (from Eb Clarinet to BassClarinet)
2. clarinet choir + saxophones
3. brass (flugelhorns, horns, euphoniums, bass section)
4. brass (2 trumpets / 2 trombones)
5. double reeds (optional + flute, optional + string bass)
6. tutti
7. all winds
8. allbrass
In a performance by brass band and choir, it is usually advisable to leave out option 1 (choir + brass + band). The choir sings self-reliantly, accompanied by a full brass band. In an instrumental performance, you can consider a combinedquartet (two cornets and two trombones) + brass band.
Choral parts available separately.

Missa Brevis, geschreven voor koor en blaasorkest, werd gecomponeerd in opdracht van de Conseil Départemental pour la Musique et la Culture de Haute-Alsace (dir. Philippe Pfisterer) in Guebwiller (Frankrijk), ter gelegenheid van het duizendstegeboortejaar van paus Leo IX. In zijn geboorteplaats, Éguisheim (Elzas, Frankrijk), vond op 23 juni 2002 de première van deze mis plaats onder leiding van de componist. Het betrof een live-registratie voor de Franse televisiezender France 2. Demisdelen Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus en Agnus Dei lenen zich uitstekend voor zowel de katholieke als de protestantse liturgie. Er zijn voor deze mis diverse uitvoeringsmogelijkheden mogelijk, aangezien er sprake is van eenvariabele bezetting. Een instrumentale uitvoering behoort uitdrukkelijk tot de mogelijkheden, indien het scherp koper de koorpartijen vertegenwoordigt. In deze optie is het wenselijk dat het scherp koper zich separaat opstelt van de rest van hetorkest (bijvoorbeeld op een galerij), zodat het idee van dubbelkorigheid wordt benaderd. Bij een uitvoering voor groot koor werkt het scherp koper zeer goed als ondersteuning. In dat geval kan de dynamiek van het koper iets worden aangepast,aangezien deze in eerste instantie bedoeld is voor een instrumentale versie. Ook kan men ervoor kiezen het scherp koper helemaal weg te laten ten gunste van het koor. Bij begeleiding van kleinere koren kan men kiezen voor een klein ensemble uit hetorkest. Dit kan ook een naar wens samengesteld kwartet zijn. Voor de uitvoering van deze mis ligt het voor de hand een van deze opties te kiezen. Als alternatief is echter ook een uitvoering mogelijk met een combinatie van deze opties (vocaal/instrumentaal) niet slechts vanuit een artistiek motief (afwisseling), maar ook vanuit een praktisch motief, voor het geval dat het koor bijvoorbeeld slechts twee delen heeft ingestudeerd. Bij een volledige bezetting kan de dirigent deinstrumentatie naar believen afwisselen. Hierbij kan ook het scherp koper in de begeleiding een rol krijgen (in plaats van ondersteuning van het koor). Zo zijn de volgende combinaties mogelijk:

1. clarinet choir (van Es-klarinet tot basklarinet)

2. clarinet choir + saxofoons

3. zacht koper (bugels, hoorns, euphoniums, bassen)

4. scherp koper (2 trompetten / 2 trombones)

5. dubbelrieten (eventueel + fluit, eventueel + contrabas)

6. tutti

7. alle hout

8. alle koper

In een uitvoering voor brassband en koor is het in de meeste gevallen aan te bevelen de optie voor scherp koper weg te laten. Het koor zingt zelfstandig, begeleid door een volledige brassband. In een instrumentale uitvoering kunt u denken aan eencombinatiekwartet (twee cornetten en twee trombones) + brassband.Koorpartijen apart verkrijgbaar.

Missa Brevis, geschrieben für Chor und Blasorchester entstand im Auftrag des Conseil Départemental pour la Musique et la Culture de Haute-Alsace (Dir.: Philippe Pfisterer) in Guebwiller (Frankreich), anlässlich des tausendjährigen Jubiläumsder Geburt von Papst Leo IX in Éguisheim. Der Komponist dirigierte die Uraufführung am 23. Juni 2002. Sie wurde live vom französischen Fernsehen France 2 übertragen. Die Messesätze Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus und Agnus Deieignen sich ausgezeichnet sowohl für die katholische als auch die protestantische Liturgie. Diese Messe kann in diversen variablen Spielstärken aufgeführt werden. Eine Instrumentalaufführung ist möglich, wenn das Blech die Chorstimme übernimmt.Um der Idee von zwei Chören in dieser Variante möglichst gerecht zu werden, empfiehlt es sich, das Blechregister getrennt vom Rest des Blasorchesters aufzustellen (beispielsweise auf einer Galerie). In einer Aufführung mit einem großen Chor kann dasBlechregister sehr gut als Unterstützung dienen. In diesem Fall sollten die Dynamikangaben der Blechbläser etwas angepasst werden, da sie ja eigentlich für eine Instrumentalaufführung gedacht sind. Man kann zugunsten des Chors auch völlig auf dasBlech verzichten. Zur Begleitung kleinerer Chöre können Sie ein kleines Ensemble aus dem Blasorchester wählen. Dies könnte auch ein Quartett in beliebiger Zusammensetzung sein. Für die Aufführung dieser Messe bietet sich eine der oben genanntenVarianten an. Eine Kombination dieser Wahlmöglichkeiten (vokal/instrumental) ist jedoch auch möglich und das nicht nur vom künstlerischen Standpunkt aus betrachtet (zur Abwechslung), sondern auch aus praktischen Erwägungen beispielsweise, wennder Chor nur zwei Sätze einstudiert hat. In voller Besetzung kann der Dirigent die Instrumentierung nach Belieben variieren. Dann können die Blechbläser auch eine Rolle in der Begleitung übernehmen (anstatt den Chor zu unterstützen). Die folgendenKombinationen sind möglich:

1. Klarinettenchor (von Klarinette in Es bis Bassklarinette)

2. Klarinettenchor + Saxophone

3. Blech (Flügelhorn, Horn, Euphonium, Bassregister)

4. Blech (2 Trompeten / 2 Posaunen)

5. Doppelrohrblattinstrumente (wahlweise + Flöte, wahlweise + Kontrabass)

6. Tutti

7. Alle Holzbläser

8. Alle Blechbläser

In einer Aufführung mit Brass Band und Chor ist es gewöhnlich ratsam, nicht die erste Option (Chor + Blech + Blasorchester) zu wählen. Der Chor singt unabhängig, begleitet von einer vollständigen Brass Band. In einer Instrumentalaufführung könnenSie sich für ein kombiniertes Quartett (zwei Kornette und zwei Posaunen) + Brass Band entscheiden. Chorstimmen separat erhältlich.

Missa Brevis est une messe pour Orchestre d’Harmonie et Choeur composée la demande du Conseil Départemental pour la Musique et la Culture de Haute-Alsace (Dir. : Philippe Pfisterer) de Guebwiller en France, l’occasion des célébrations dumillénaire de la naissance du Pape Léon IX Éguisheim. La création mondiale a eu lieu le 23 juin 2002 sous la direction du compositeur, et a été diffusée en direct sur la chaîne de télévision nationale France 2. Les différentes parties de cettemesse (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus et Agnus Dei) conviennent autant la liturgie catholique qu’ la liturgie protestante. Missa Brevis peut être interprétée dans différentes combinaisons instrumentales. Ellepeut être jouée dans une version purement instrumentale, où les cuivres prennent en charge la partie vocale. En tel cas, il est conseillé de placer les cuivres l’écart de la formation (sur une estrade, par exemple) de façon reproduire l’idée dedeux groupes indépendants. Dans le cadre d’une interprétation avec un grand Choeur, les cuivres jouent un rôle de soutien. Leurs nuances doivent alors être adaptées dans la mesure où elles ont été écrites, l’origine, pour une version instrumentale.Il est également possible de ne pas faire intervenir les cuivres et de privilégier le Choeur. Pour accompagner de petits ensembles vocaux, il faut opter pour une formation instrumentale réduite voire même un Quatuor (instrumentation au choix). Pourl’interprétation de cette messe l’un des choix proposés ci-dessus s’impose. Il existe néanmoins une alternative qui consiste interpréter cette oeuvre en combinant ces options (vocales / instrumentales). Cela peut être bénéfique tant d’un point devue artistique (variante) que pratique dans le cas où le Choeur n’a travaillé que deux mouvements de la messe. Si le chef dispose de deux formations complètes (Choeur et Orchestre d’Harmonie), il peut varier l’instrumentation selon ses préférences. ce moment-l , il peut confier un rôle d’accompagnement et non de soutien aux cuivres de sa formation. Les combinaisons suivantes peuvent être formées :

1. Choeur de Clarinettes (de la Clarinette Mib la Clarinette Basse)

2. Choeur de Clarinettes + Saxophones

3. Cuivres (Bugles, Cors, Barytons / Euphoniums, Basses)

4. Cuivres (2 Trompettes / 2 Trombones)

5. Instruments anches doubles (Fl te et Contrebasse cordes optionnelles)

6. Tutti

7. Tous les Bois

8. Tous les Cuivres

Dans le cadre d’une interprétation par un Brass Band accompagné d’un Choeur, il est préférable de supprimer l’option 1 (Choeur + Cuivres + Orchestre d’Harmonie) car le Choeur étant autonome. Dans une version instrumentale pour Cuivres, il estpossible de former la combinaison suivante : Quatuor (2 Cornets / 2 Trombones) et Brass Band.Partitions pour chœur disponibles séparément.

Parti per coro disponibili a parte.

Dan Welcher’s most enduringly and frequently played orchestral work, Prairie Light is a fascinating musical companion to three of Georgia O’Keeffe’s most unusual paintings, Light Coming on the Plains, Canyon with Crows, and Starlight Night. This work is ideal for performances using visual projections of the paintings, and is frequently programmed for subscription concerts as well as those for educational settings. Duration: 14’ Parts available on rental.
This work for full orchestra was inspired by three paintings of the noted Americanartist Georgia O’Keeffe. These three watercolors were done in 1917 while the artist was living in Canyon, Texas (near Amarillo), and deal primarily with color and shape. Consequently, the music is primarily concerned with broad lines and shapes rather than rhythms, with subtle washes of color rather than constant harmonic movement, and with arching melody instead of linear counterpoint.The first movement, Light Coming on the Plains, is an elliptical-shaped painting, deep blue to indigo with a “horizon” at the bottom that seems flat and unchanging. The sun hasn’t risen yet, although it does in the course of this movement, but it seems instead to be providing light from behind the canvas. The music is unmoving in terms of rhythm or harmony (although there is a modulation midway through), a color-infused mantra of sound that is almost Eastern.At the height of the sun, we proceed to the second movement, entitled Canyon with Crows. The canyon is red-orange, with black crows circling above friendly unfolding hills. The music is gentle but lively and more rhythmic, with the birds represented by solo oboe, clarinet, and sometimes flute. Halfway through, the brass have a chorale version of the opening motive, played very slowly, over the unending triplets of woodwinds and strings. At the end of the movement, the birds return for a duo-cadenza, accompanied by the dying rays of the sun in muted strings and the ongoing triplets of the solo quartet.The stage is set for the final movement, Starlight Night. In O’Keeffe’s painting, the stars are represented by regularly-spaced rectangles of bright pale yellow on a blue-black sky, with the same shape to the field of vision and the horizon that is found in Light Coming on the Plains. The stars become audible: harp, celesta, glockenspiel, and string pizzicati all lend a sparkle while a solo flute introduces a slowly unfolding theme. After this theme has been heard twice and the sky has begun to really brighten, there is a sudden interruption: a xylophone and a piano begin another “mantra” in brittle staccato chords. This is the same mechanical eternity as O’Keeffe’s regularly-spaced square stars, and it continues on its own as the night progresses. The music builds and grows as the moon rises and arcs, then falls as the pre-dawn light that opened the work returns to bring it to a close. Acycle of light, changing with the movements of sun, moon, and stars, appearing differently from various points of view

Accordian & String Quartet

SKU: ST.Y279

Composed by Rhian Samuel. Chamber music. Score and Parts. Score and parts. Stainer & Bell Ltd. #Y279. Published by Stainer & Bell Ltd. (ST.Y279).

ISBN 9790220223068.

Such is the character of the accordion that any work featuring its distinctive voice within an ensemble is likely to be a piece d'occasion. Written for the prizewinning young soloist Milos Milivojevic and performed with the Juritz String Quartet at the 2011 Machynlleth Festival in Wales, Rhian Samuel's Mist on the Hills is no exception. The composer has used the rare opportunity of writing for the instrument in combination with solo strings to exploit its illustrative powers and create a fourteen-minute score inspired by the changing weather over the hills around her Welsh home on the Dyfi Estuary.

In particular, its three movements are suggestive of the appearance of mist in the landscape, 'settling', 'lingering' and 'swirling'. In the first movement, which is a gentle prelude, brief accordion motifs break through the timbre of strings like glints of sunshine through mist. The second movement, more song-like, presents three verses of a lament; in the first half of each verse the accordion sings as if from afar, while in the second half (led by the viola) the music intensifies greatly. In the dance-like and virtuosic last movement a short, constantly changing refrain alternates with two types of material: 'swirling' music and lighter, more rhythmical ideas. Finally, scale passages invade the texture, ceasing only as the accordion ascends to the top of its range in the closing bars.

String quartet

SKU: FG.55011-775-4

Composed by Alex Freeman. Classical, contemporary. Score & parts. Fennica Gehrman #55011-775-4. Published by Fennica Gehrman (FG.55011-775-4).

ISBN 9790550117754.

Alex Freeman found initial inspiration for his string quartet (2015) in a series of photographs a geologist friend showed him of en échelon veins in rock formations. The open strings punctuated with pizzicato unisons that begin the single-movement work call to mind something crystalline and shimmering, which is immediately infused with tumbling lyrical lines in something of a rapid caccia technique throughout. The middle of the work becomes more suspended in slower material loosely based on a technique of prolation canon, comprises layers of free, expressive, lyrical, and even elegiac music moving at different speeds. As the work concludes, the materials converge in a rhythmically pulsating stasis and an almost chorale-like statement.

Duration: c. 13'

This product includes the score and the parts (A4 sized).


American-Finnish composer Alex Freeman (b.1972) has established himself among the foremost composers of choral music in Finland. A dedicated citizen of his musical community, a teacher, and a choral singer himself, he composes music that reflects an appreciation for a wide range of aesthetics and a passion for communicating with listeners and performers. In his choral works, in particular, we find music that aims to be sonorous, melodic, and resonant, but is always crafted to carefully avoid the cliches that can burden conventional tonality.

His instrumental works run the gamut: a cantata with orchestra based on poetry of Whitman; a significant body of solo piano works that reveal deep roots in everything from austere absolute music to soaring elegaic rhetoric (see Albany Records, Inner Voice); his chamber work Blueshift (Navona Records), which is a kind of paean to Reich and Adams in miniature; open-ended modular works, like various iterations of his Slow All Clocks for electronic media, solo clarinet, and mixed choirs of kanteles; and, recently, some new directions in microtonal music.

Chamber Music Viola 1, Viola 2, Violin 1, Violin 2, Violoncello

SKU: PR.11441690S

String Quartet No. 3. Composed by Shulamit Ran. Sws. Contemporary. Full score. With Standard notation. Composed March 9 2013. 32 pages. Duration 23 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #114-41690S. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.11441690S).

UPC: 680160626021. 9 x 12 inches.

Ran's third string quartet was written for the Pacifica Quartet, who are featuring it in numerous performances from May 2014 through February 2016, across the country and abroad. Their blog page dedicated to the work also features the composer's notes, for more indepth insight. ...impassioned solos emerge from ominous quiet, and high arpeggios in the violins quiver alongside the earthy cello. Ms. Ran skillfully deploys these extremes of color, volume and pitch, yet the overall somewhat chilly impression is one of poise. -- Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times.
My third string quartet was composed at the invitation of the Pacifica Quartet, whose music-making I have come to know closely and admire hugely as resident artists at the University of Chicago.  Already in our early conversations Pacifica proposed that this quartet might, in some manner, refer to the visual arts as a point of germination.  Probing further, I found out that the quartet members had special interest in art created during the earlier part of the 20th century, perhaps between the two world wars.  It was my good fortune to have met, a short while later, while in residence at the American Academy in Rome in the fall of 2011, art conservationist Albert Albano who steered me to the work of Felix Nussbaum (1904-1944), a German-Jewish painter who, like so many others, perished in the Holocaust at a young age, and who left some powerful, deeply moving art that spoke to the life that was unraveling around him. The title of my string quartet takes its inspiration from a major exhibit devoted to art by German artists of the period of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) titled “Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s”, first shown at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2006-07.  Nussbaum would have been a bit too young to be included in this exhibit.  His most noteworthy art was created in the last very few years of his short life.  The exhibit’s evocative title, however, suggested to me the idea of “Glitter, Doom, Shards, Memory” as a way of framing a possible musical composition that would be an homage to his life and art, and to that of so many others like him during that era.  Knowing that their days were numbered, yet intent on leaving a mark, a legacy, a memory, their art is triumph of the human spirit over annihilation. Parallel to my wish to compose a string quartet that, typically for this genre, would exist as “pure music”, independent of a narrative, was my desire to effect an awareness in my listener of matters which are, to me, of great human concern.  To my mind there is no contradiction between the two goals.  As in several other works composed since 1969, this is my way of saying ‘do not forget’, something that, I believe, can be done through music with special power and poignancy.    The individual titles of the quartet’s four movements give an indication of some of the emotional strands this work explores. 1) “That which happened” (das was geschah) – is how the poet Paul Celan referred to the Shoah – the Holocaust.  These simple words served for me, in the first movement, as a metaphor for the way in which an “ordinary” life, with its daily flow and its sense of sweet normalcy, was shockingly, inhumanely, inexplicably shattered. 2) “Menace” is a shorter movement, mimicking a Scherzo.  It is also machine-like, incessant, with an occasional, recurring, waltz-like little tune – perhaps the chilling grimace we recognize from the executioner’s guillotine mask.  Like the death machine it alludes to, it gathers momentum as it goes, and is unstoppable. 3) ”If I must perish - do not let my paintings die”; these words are by Felix Nussbaum who, knowing what was ahead, nonetheless continued painting till his death in Auschwitz in 1944.  If the heart of the first movement is the shuddering interruption of life as we know it, the third movement tries to capture something of what I can only imagine to be the conflicting states of mind that would have made it possible, and essential, to continue to live and practice one’s art – bearing witness to the events.  Creating must have been, for Nussbaum and for so many others, a way of maintaining sanity, both a struggle and a catharsis – an act of defiance and salvation all at the same time. 4) “Shards, Memory” is a direct reference to my quartet’s title.  Only shards are left.  And memory.  The memory is of things large and small, of unspeakable tragedy, but also of the song and the dance, the smile, the hopes.  All things human.  As we remember, in the face of death’s silence, we restore dignity to those who are gone.—Shulamit Ran .