String Quartet #3 was written for, and first performed by the Balanescu Quartet, February 1990 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Duration 16 minutes. A score is available on sale.. Quoting composer: In the summer of 1989 I composed a choral work, Out of the Ruins , for Agnieszka Piotrowska's BBC2 documentary which dealt with the physical and emotional responses of some inhabitants of Leninakhan to the earthquake which devastated Armenia the previous December. When he heard the recording of the work that I made with the Holy Echmiadzin Chorus under the fervent conducting of Khoren Meykhanejian, Alex Balanescu suggested turning Out of the Ruins into a string quartet. There seemed no reason or opportunity to do this until I felt the need to add to the intensity of my experiences in Armenia the no less profound experience of witnessing the images of the Romanian revolution on television during the later part of December 1989. The compositional procedure was as follows: to take Out of the Ruins as a template on which the Romanian vocal or instrumental music would be superimposed, quite often stretched into new intervallic shapes though the demands of the completely performed harmonic structure. / Quatuor A Cordes

Par PART ARVO. Fratres (original setting for violin and piano) was commissioned by the Salzburg Festival and premiered on August 17th, 1980 at that very place (violin: Gidon Kremer, piano: Elena Kremer). Composed in Pärt's very own 'Tintinnabuli'-style, this piece allows many different settings because it is not bound to a specific tone color. 'The highest virtue of music, for me, lies outside of its mere sound. The particular timbre of an instrument is part of the music, but it is not the most important element. If it were, I would be surrendering to the essence of the music. Music must exist of itself … two, three notes … the essence must be there, independent of the instruments.' (Arvo Pärt)/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

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.

The composer made this arrangement of the Third String Quartet for string orchestra in March 2003. The first performance was given by the Eos Orchestra New York conducted by Ken Selden in the Concert Hall Ethical CulturalSociety New York City on 24 April 2003.Quoting composer: In the summer of 1989 I composed a choral work Out of the Ruins for Agnieszka Piotrowska’s BBC2 documentary which dealt with the physical and emotional responsesof some of the inhabitants of Leninakhan to the earthquake which devastated Armenia the previous December. When he heard the recording of the work that I made with the Holy Echmiadzin Chorus under the fervent conducting of KhorenMeykhanejian Alex Balanescu suggested turning Out of the Ruins into a string quartet. There seemed no reason or opportunity to do this until I felt the need to add to the intensity of my experiences in Armenia the no lessprofound experience of witnessing the images of the Romanian revolution on television during the latter part of December 1989.Just as the structure of my Third String Quartet (1990) may connect it with the First so they alsoshare a debt to Thurston Dart (my professor at King’s College London between 1961 and 1965). It was Dart who had the inspiration to send me to Romania in 1965 ostensibly to study folk music. The volumes of transcriptions that Ibrought back with me had remained unopened until with this proposed ‘celebratory’ string quartet (though at the time it was difficult to know quite what to celebrate in postrevolutionary Romania) an occasion arose where I coulduse this material in what seemed to me was a non-exploitative manner. The compositional procedure was as follows: to take Out of the Ruins as a template on which the Romanian vocal or instrumental music would besuperimposed quite often stretched into new intervallic shapes through the demands of the completely pre-formed harmonic structure.

String Quartet No.3 was written for and first performed by the Balanescu Quartet February 1990 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall London. Duration 16 minutes. Instrumental parts are available on sale.Quoting composer: In thesummer of 1989 I composed a choral work Out of the Ruins for Agnieszka Piotrowska’s BBC2 documentary which dealt with the physical and emotional responses of some inhabitants of Leninakhan to the earthquake whichdevastated Armenia the previous December. When he heard the recording of the work that I made with the Holy Echmiadzin Chorus under the fervent conducting of Khoren Meykhanejian Alex Balanescu suggested turning Out of the Ruinsinto a string quartet. There seemed no reason or opportunity to do this until I felt the need to add to the intensity of my experiences in Armenia the no less profound experience of witnessing the images of the Romanianrevolution on television during the later part of December 1989.The compositional procedure was as follows: to take Out of the Ruins as a template on which the Romanian vocal or instrumental music would be superimposed quite often stretched into new intervallic shapes though the demands of the completely performed harmonic structure.

Version for String Quartet.Score available: KP00510The composer writes: 'In February 1987 I saw in the Tate Gallery in London a painting by the Victorian English painter John William Waterhouse. The painting kept haunting my memory and as I at the same time planned to write a piece for solo viola my ideas for the music and the memory of the painting fused more and more. I decided then to let my piece borrow the title of Waterhouse’s paint-ing: 'The Lady of Shalott'. The picture of a mad-like pale and perhaps singing woman alone in a boat without sculls which calmly slips out from the rush growth of the river is an illustration for the ending of Alfred Tennyson’s poemby the same title which again plaits into the old English legends about King Arthur. My piece tries to meander - like the river at Camelot - among these sources. As suggested above the piece was originally written for viola solo. The version for string quartet is from 1993.'