String quartet - Moderately Difficult

SKU: OU.9780193513228

Composed by Howard Skempton. String Quartets. Set of parts. 20 pages. Duration 9'. Oxford University Press #9780193513228. Published by Oxford University Press (OU.9780193513228).

ISBN 9780193513228. 12 x 8 inches.

Moving On is a single movement work for string quartet. Skempton masterfully combines classical string quartet textures with luxuriant harmonies and a fluid approach to tonality, resulting in an appealing modern addition to the genre.

String quartet - Moderately Difficult

SKU: OU.9780193417175

Composed by Howard Skempton. String Quartets. Score. 12 pages. Duration 9'. Oxford University Press #9780193417175. Published by Oxford University Press (OU.9780193417175).

ISBN 9780193417175. 12 x 8 inches.

Moving On is a single movement work for string quartet. Skempton masterfully combines classical string quartet textures with luxuriant harmonies and a fluid approach to tonality, resulting in an appealing modern addition to the genre.

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.

By Bohuslav Martinu. Czech title: Smy covy kvartet 5. Published by Praha (Czech import).

Composed by Gwyneth W. Walker (1947-). Christmas, Christmas-Sacred, Christmas- Secular/Holiday. Galaxy Music Corporation #1.3616. Published by Galaxy Music Corporation

String quartet - Grade 2.75

SKU: DS.169423

Composed by Charles Wesley. Arranged by Dana F. Everson. Christmas. Sheet Music. Sacred instrumental music. Score and parts. David E. Smith #169423. Published by David E. Smith (DS.169423).

A string quartet with optional violin for viola. After a full ensemble introduction the piece gives way to a duet in the viola and cello. With the violins entering one at a time the piece now becomes full with all parts present gravitating to motivic development moving to a modulation. The next section gives the tune to the cello with the upper lines adding punctuated accompanied figures. The next section uses motivic patterns while passing portions of the tune to the various players. A modulation- then the parts become increasingly more active in a variation style. With a solid ensemble altering the melody; a brake; then, repose.

Key of G, C, D.

String Quartet (Score)

SKU: HL.14008409

Composed by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Music Sales America. 20th Century. Book Only. Composed 1999. Chester Music #CH55681. Published by Chester Music (HL.14008409).

This is - so far - the earliest composition by Davies to be available for performance, and mighty interesting it is. Written while he was still a young student, it provides a candid glimpse of the thing that concerned him: how music could be both forward-moving in the classical Western sense (this is, after all, a piece for a wholly conventional medium) and repetitive in the manner of the Indian and medieval music in which he was interested. What results is a singular machine geared to an intermittent ostinato in the first violin. This movement for string quartet was first performed by the Arditti Quartet in May 1983, as part of the 40th Anniversary Gala concert of the Society for the Promotion of New Music at the Barbican Hall, London. Score (miniature). Duration c. 5mins.

String quartet

SKU: LO.30-3583L

Composed by Mark Hayes. Choral. Sacred Anthem, Christmas. Score and parts. Lorenz Publishing Company #30/3583L. Published by Lorenz Publishing Company (LO.30-3583L).

UPC: 000308150209.

Strin g Quartet Score and Parts for A Christmas Lullaby (10/5139L) Mark Hayes seamlessly blends two timeless cradle songs to create the quintessential Christmas lullaby suitable for concert or worship venues. It is a tender and moving reminder of the beautiful Christmas story.

Chamber Music String Quartet

SKU: PR.11440902S

Composed by Behzad Ranjbaran. Full score. With Standard notation. Composed 1990. 44 pages. Duration 22 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #114-40902S. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.11440902S).

UPC: 680160013708.

The quartet begins with a 5-note motif, played in unison that permeates melodically and harmonically throughout the movement. The energetic and hard-driven character of the second musical idea propels the music forward with fast moving notes and greater urgency. It often alternates with the more lyrical rendition of the 5-note motif, yielding contrasting sections. After a brief coda, the 5-note motif concludes the movement much the same way it had begun but with greater intensity. The second movement explores the world of fantasy. To some extent the beginning and the ending of the movement function as the opening and closing doors that separate the reality from the dream and subconscious. It is one continuous movement in an arch form that gradually accelerates to an expansive emotional climax and returning steadily to the surface led by an ethereal solo cello. The transcendent ending is similar to the beginning, though half step higher. The third movement begins boldly with the 5-note motif transformed into a dance character in a compound meter. The asymmetrical meter of the Persian folk music influences much of the rhythmic character of the movement. The return of many materials from earlier movements interwoven into the fabric of this movement reinforces the cyclical and organic character of the quarter. Particularly, a mysterious passage, reminiscence of the second movement leading to a brief full-blown ballad is a favorite moment of Ranjbaran's in the quartet. A blazingly virtuosic viola leads the quartet to an uplifting conclusion.

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

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-Finn ish 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.

String Quartet; Voice (Score)

SKU: HL.14042074

Score. Composed by Pelle Gudmundsen-holmgreen. Music Sales America. Contemporary. Softcover. Composed 2012. Edition Wilhelm Hansen #WH31591. Published by Edition Wilhelm Hansen (HL.14042074).

ISBN 9788759825662. International (more than one language).

Parts also available: 14042073.