Four Double Basses. Eight well-known Christmas carols in a new guise. Score and parts.The Programme of Christmas Carols was first performed in New Orleans in 1976. In its original version the players were required to wear Dickensian costume and a seasonal narrative preceded each of the carol arrangements. The texts appear below.Duration without text: c.20 minutesDuration with text: c.45 minutesIntroduction by Robert RoheThe introductory text assembled with the kind assistance of Father Peacock of Loyola University of New Orleans was designed for use where the receptivity of the audience warrants. So little is known about thebeloved Christmas carols it is fitting that a brief sketch of the carols' past be used to enhance the familiar music.If desired the introductory text may be omitted at the discretion of the performers.The brief text preceding each carol should be used to acquaint the audience with what to expect from a quartet that will be playing the unexpected. The text also will pace the program and will extend performance time to around 45 minutes.In performance the bass viol quartet of New Orleans wore peaked caps and turtle necked sweaters to simulate the street performers of Dickens' time. The choice of four string basses for this program was to bring the closest relatives of the true viol into play.History and development of the Christmas CarolThe celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ has been observed for nearly 2 000 years through the ritual of the Christian Church with part of that ritual being devoted to celebration in song. In those early days church music was sung only no musical instruments taking part in the service.The type of song used by the church had the name 'plain-song'. It was a single line of melody plain and unadorned sung by one or more voices. By the year 1660 A.D. it had developed a second name 'The Gregorian Chant' after Pope Gregory who encouraged the use

32 Quartets That Can Be Played by Any Combination of String Instruments-Chamber music is an essential part of learning to play an instrument and these versatile quartets are written so that they can be performed by any combination of four string instruments. Arranged by prominent string pedagogue Doris Gazda these pieces will sound full and satisfying with only four players all the way up to a full string orchestra. The selection of music in this collection covers a wide variety of musical styles that will provide hours of enjoyment and performance options. Progressively organized by level of difficulty as the performers advance in their skills these quartets are a welcome addition to the repertoire of all string players.

Par LERDAHL FRED. Waltzes, a cycle of twelve virtuoso waltzes for violin, viola, cello, and double bass, was commissioned by the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, where the first nine waltzes were premiered in 1981. Soon thereafter I composed the final three waltzes. The violinist Rolf Schulte led the first performance of the complete work in New York City in 1983. Waltzes lasts about 22 minutes and is dedicated to the violist Scott Nickrenz, who directed the chamber music series at Spoleto. In arranging the commission, Mr. Nickrenz made three stipulations: make my modernist idiom accessible for summer-festival listening, provide a challenge for brilliant string players accustomed to 19th-century repertory, and give the piece a loud ending. The idea of composing a set of waltzes came from the pleasure I took in playing waltzes by Schubert and Chopin at the piano. Waltzes incorporates occasional references to the music of past composers, but always in ways that fit within my own musical language. Its instrumentation for “low” string quartet is reminiscent of Schubert’s Vienna./ Répertoire / Violon, Alto, Violoncelle et Contrebasse

Written for piano two violins viola and cello.First performed at the Petworth Festival June 1984 by the Delmé String Quartet and John McCabe (piano).

This Simple Symphony is entirely based on material from works which the composer wrote between the ages of nine and twelve. (The actual sources are given in footnotes to each movement.) Although the development of these themes is in many places quite new, there are large stretches of the work which are taken bodily from the early pieces - save for the re-scoring for strings. It is suitable for string quartets or string orchestras, being scored for Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.

SSA [TB ad lib.] and String Quartet [Double Bass ad lib.]-Missa Popularis for Choir [SSA (TB ad lib.)] (Lat.) and String Quartet (Double Bass ad lib.)As the name suggests the Missa Popularis has its musical roots in folk music.This becomes clear in the very first bars of the Kyrie where the Violin plays a melody in the style of a Swedish folk tune above a Bass Ostinato. The musical charm of the Mass derives from the combination of Choir [SSA(TB)] and String Quartet.The choral parts enable performances by female choir or mixed choir. In the latter case the String Quartet is reinforced by a Double Bass.The version for Female Choir was premièred in Poznan on 25 April 2015 with Alicja Szeluga conducting the Skowroniki Girls Choir. Full score (BA7420) set of parts (BA7420-22)

für zwei Hörner zwei Violinen Viola und Bass-It is hardly surprising that Beethoven did not write any more chamber music for winds after 1800. Following the change to middle-class musical culture demand declined for buoyant serenades and divertimenti intended for courtcircles – a genre that Beethoven had reservations about as it was. Composed in 1795 with no known occasion in mind his Sextet op. 81b is thus all the more remarkable standing out on account of the unusual virtuosity of thehorn parts. This edition is the first to provide the bass part as originally intended by Beethoven: for violoncello supported by a double bass. In addition to the original horn parts in E flat it also contains transposed parts inF.

Richard Reed Parry's Quartet For Heart And Breath for mixed Ensemble.Quartet for Heart And Breath was commissioned for Kronos Quartet by the 2009 MusicNOW Festival. The mixedEnsemble arrangement was premiered by yMusic.Instrumentation: Flute Clarinet in Bb Trumpet in Bb Violin Viola Violoncello and Double Bass (optional).'This piece is based around the idea of using the widelyvarying internal rhythms of the performers? bodies as performance parameters. There is no actual tempo or meter built into the piece. The breathing rates of the players are used in alternation with the individual performers? heartrates to determine the pace at which all of the musical material is played. This requires that the performers generally play quietly and delicately with little or no vibrato so as to be able to hear their heartbeats adequately.This in combination with thenatural variance between the different heart rates results in a kind of delicate musical ?pointillism?: starts and stops which are somewhat staggered parts which repeatedly line up and fall out ofsync with each other different individuals? pulses rising and falling. The piece is never performed exactly the same way twice.The performers wear stethoscopes positioned over their hearts so that each can follow his orher own heart rate. Two eighth notes/quavers correspond to the two sounds of a normal heartbeat and performers should match as closely as possible the staccato and irregular rhythm they hear. When instructed to ?play to breath? the natural cycle of one inhalation and one exhalation or vice versa will determine the length of the bar (two quarter notes/crotchets) without any attempt to make it metronomic. For wind players this means that the phrase isextended to encompass the whole of their natural breath without straining to hold for as long as possible. When one instrument is designated the leader their breath will determine the starts of phrases and the procession from

Par RHEINBERGER JOSEF GABRIEL. Rheinberger’s string quartets, his string quintet and his nonet for winds and strings were often performed and were very successful works during his lifetime. Their density, but also the delicateness of the scherzo movements are in the tradition of Schumann and Mendelssohn and these traits are combined with Rheinberger’s sense for the clear, defined structure of the movements and solid contrapuntal writing. The octet for winds and strings is published here for the first time and the nonet, which is actually a reworking of this octet that Rheinberger undertook some twenty years later, is also published in this volume. Rheinberger made major changes from the original octet and headded two new movements to the nonet. Both works show especially the interest and pleasure which he derived from the variety in the differentiation of colors in ensemble playing. The Thema mit Veränderungen op. 93, which until now has been known as a work for string quartet, is published here with the double bass part which Rheinberger later added./ Répertoire / Ensemble de Chambre