Par BACEWICZ GRAZYNA. Studying the sketches for works which a composer considers to be finished, perfected, is a fascinating activity. It enables one to penetrate the secrets of creative work, to compare the initial outline of a composition with its final version. A sketch is generally left untitled, but it does occur that a composer enhances the status of such a draft by giving it a title, before creating an improved version of that title on the basis of the finished work. The list of compositions by Grazyna Bacewicz, the full catalogue of which is held in the National Library in Warsaw, includes a work for string quartet entitled Quatuor. The manuscript was left undated, but analysis of the music allows us to date this work to the mid-1960s. In the composer?s output from that period, the instrumental tone colouring, often an element that helps to forge a work, takes on particular significance. The first movement of the Quatuor [à cordes] opens with three fifth-tritone chords ?cast forth?, in succession, in saltando-gettato technique by the cello, second violin and first violin. When we look at the beginning of the Seventh String Quartet, from 1965, such a chord appears in the second bar of the cello part. Further comparisons lead to interesting conclusions. The two opening movements are almost identical, built from the same elements, only spatially arranged in a different way. In the structure of the first movement of the Seventh Quartet, one distinguishes two thematic planes, which shape the narrative after the fashion of a sonata allegro. The first theme is a series of episodes of changing texture ? from passagework to chords and short glissandos repeated with varying intensity. The second theme (Meno mosso) displays an imitative form. Both works feature an inverted reprise. For the first 25 bars of the second movement, a nostalgic Grave, the two works sound identical. The continuation of this movement in the Quatuor [à cordes] is more modest than in the analogous segments of the Seventh Quartet, in terms of both changing textures and the use of differentiated means of articulation. Towards the end, a motif from the beginning of this movement returns in modified form. Both the third movements (Capriccioso in the Quatuor [à cordes], Con vivezza in the Seventh Quartet) take the form of a rondo, and appearing in each of them is the same ?warbling? theme, based on scattered notes with grace notes. The Seventh String Quartet is in three movements. The presumed prototype consists of four movements. The last movement of the Quatuor [à cordes] is a Maestoso resembling a mine of textural ideas for other works of a sonoristic provenance from this period. The introduction, constituting a closed narrative whole and a reference point for the rest of the movement, is followed by segments that are dominated by ostinatos of various kinds, including with the use of harmonics, passages built on the progressive shifting of short motifs, and unevenly spread chords. Grazyna Bacewicz used material from earlier works more than once in her compositions. Her oeuvre also includes ?twin? pieces merely scored for a different set of instruments. Yet the self-quotation that occurs in the case of the Quatuor [à cordes] and the Seventh String Quartet ? lengthy passages from another of her works reused with minor modifications ? is an unusual situation. It undermines the former?s status as an independent work. Malgorzata Gasiorowska/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

This eclectic collection for solo Flute will delight film fans of all ages! 101 Movie Hits contains a dazzling selection of favourites from the silver screen, including Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), Eye Of The Tiger (Rocky III), Hallelujah (Shrek), Happy (Despicable Me 2), Mrs. Robinson (The Graduate), The Dreame (Sense And Sensibility), Let It Go (Frozen), Summer Nights (Grease), The Music Of Goodbye (Out Of Africa) and more. / Alto

40 Of His Greatest Hits. Par LLOYD WEBBER ANDREW. 40 of the most memorable songs composed by the inimitable Andrew Lloyd Webber are gathered in this value-packed instrumental solo collection. Songs include: Amigos Para Siempre (Friends for Life) - Any Dream Will Do - Don't Cry for Me Argentina - I Believe My Heart - I Don't Know How to Love Him - Learn to Be Lonely - Love Changes Everything - Memory - No Matter What - The Phantom of the Opera - Pie Jesu - Starlight Express - Stick It to the Man - Tell Me on a Sunday - 'Til I Hear You Sing - Whistle Down the Wind - With One Look - You Must Love Me - and many more./ Recueil / Alto

Par BARGIELSKI ZBIGNIEW . After the first performance of my Fourth Quartet, in Salzburg in 1997, the artists of the excellent Hugo Wolf Quartett approached me with the appealing proposition that I write a new quartet. Rather problematic, however, proved to be the musicians’ delicate suggestion that I invest the work with elements of a more pungent expression and elements of folklore – ideally Polish. That suggestion meant that I did not immediately come to a decision, since folklore had not been (with the exception of a few works for accordion) the object of my interest. However, in defiance of my aesthetic outlook at that time, I decided to take up this interesting invitation and tackle what was for me a difficult problem. Ultimately, I found a way out of this rather ambiguous situation by employing a sort of dodge: I gave the new work a title. In a way, ‘The time that has passed’ substantiates the current to which I referred while writing this composition. The title and the subtitles of the work’s movements, which sound quite exotic in our day and age (there are as many as nine movements), justify the curious marriage between the somewhat nostalgic past and a present that has not yet been particularly well ‘assimilated’. I hope that these feuilles d’album will discharge their ‘toning’ function well. - Zbigniew Bargielski/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Par KREISLER FRITZ. Apart from the collection of Classical Manuscripts composed by the violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) which he had passed off as transcriptions of settings of old masters, the violinist published original works early on as well. Kreisler himself liked to play them as encore pieces, thus sweetening many a concert with this 'musical confectionery'. Famous tunes are, for example, Liebesfreud, Liebesleid and Schön Rosmarin, his old Viennese dance tunes, in which Kreisler evoked the coffee-house atmosphere of his home town with beautiful melodies and mellifluous harmonies. Another wonderful example is his Marche miniature viennoise, with its humorous theme and a rather march-like middle section - and everywhere, Kreisler takes the audience by surprise with a little Viennese snide humour. Kreisler's original compositions are lovely miniatures, lively and catchy, even with a touch of melancholy - yet full of charm and elegance. Arranged for string trio, they are enjoyable to play and worth listening to and a valuable addition to the repertoire - ideal for sociable music-making or as pieces to end a 'serious' concert./ Répertoire / Trio à Cordes

Une série de musique populaire pour quatuors à cordes de travail. La lumière des pièces de répertoire agréable et divertissants encores. Chaque folio contient cinq pièces. Table des matières : 'Chelsea Bridge', 'Fly Me To The Moon', 'Satin Doll', 'Prendre le Train de ' A'', ' The Girl From Ipanema '. / Scores

Par HINDSON MATTHEW. Matthew Hindson's Rush for guitar and string quartet takes its influence from the music of Felix Mendelssohn. The fast and technically challenging passages found in the final movement of the Mendelssohn String Octet influenced Hindson's decision to compose a work for the Goldner String Quartet that is highly virtuosic in nature. Hindson remarks, 'it is much more the spirit of Mendelssohn's string writing that was influential, particularly the last movements of his string quartets and the String Octet, rather than any sort of harmony or melodic invention.' This nine minute piece also features the playful, up-beat and repetitive rhythms found in popular music. The fast and mostly accelerating tempo of Rush reinforces both the title of the piece and the influence of 'techno' music. Rush also features a series of catchy and vibrant melodies, making the work accessible to a wide audience. Although the piece is scored for guitar and string quartet, it is regarded by Hindson as a guitar quintet, where the guitarist and the string quartet are treated not as soloists performing with accompaniment, but as integral and equally important entities in the work as a whole. The guitarist and the instruments comprising the quartet each have the opportunity to assume the playful motifs and feature as virtuosic soloists. / Ensemble Music, Instrumental Music / Répertoire / Guitare et Quatuor à Cordes

When kids learn to play an instrument, they want to play the songs they know and love! This collection of 50 songs alongs them to do just that! It includes 50 contemporary favorites, including: Believer · Don't Stop Believin' · Happy · High Hopes · Let's Get It Started · Ocean Eyes · Perfect · Rewrite the Stars · A Thousand Miles · You Will Be Found · and more./ Répertoire / Alto

Score = Piano Part. Par THEODORAKIS MIKIS. Theodorakis composed the 'Trio for violin, violoncello and piano' in Athens during 1946-47. He had just completed his studies in composition at the Athens Conservatory and was preparing himself for his Diploma. However, he was overtaken by the Civil War. Thus, one part of the Trio was written in circumstances of persecution (underground) and another in exile (in the island of Ikaria). It is a work in which - as in the remaining works of that period - the influence of his classical music studies become apparent. Especially in the area of form, as opposed to the selection of the melodic material and the harmonic language, which bring out an authentic and original musical personality that often surprises us for its boldness./ Répertoire / Violon, Violoncelle et Piano

Chaconne. Par LERDAHL FRED. Chaconne (2016), for string quartet, was commissioned by the Daedalus Quartet to celebrate its 15th anniversary. The commission was supported by New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Helen F. Whitaker Fund, and Aaron Copland Fund for Music. My music has a substantial history with Daedalus. I composed the Third String Quartet (2008) for them, and subsequently they performed my three string quartets on several occasions and recorded them brilliantly on Bridge Records (Bridge 9352: Music of Fred Lerdahl, vol. 3). Chaconne is in one movement lasting 19 minutes. It is effectively my fourth string quartet. Quartets 1-3 form a unified cycle lasting 70 minutes. When I finished the cycle, I thought I would never write again for the medium; yet I could not resist the opportunity of working again with Daedalus. The issue was how to compose another string quartet unrelated to the earlier cycle. The solution came from my solo cello piece There and Back Again (2010), which was based on a four-bar variation pattern from a 17th-century chaconne. Unlike the asymmetrical phrases and expanding variations of much of my music, the chaconne form requires symmetrical phrases and strictly periodic variations. I wished to work again with these symmetries but on a larger scale. Chaconne also differs in character and expression from the three-quartet cycle. The cycle is inward and intense, a kind of psychological excavation. Chaconne is, for the most part, transparent and playful. Many of its textures emerge from little canons, not completely unlike the rounds that children sing. Any composer who writes in chaconne form (one thinks above all of the last movement of Bach’s D minor violin partita and the finale of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony) is confronted with the challenge of how to create a larger form out of a constantly repeating pattern. My Chaconne grows from paired antecedent-consequent phrases, each variation lasting eight bars. The 50 variations group into three large rotations, forming three arcs of tension and relaxation, with subtle parallel connections across the rotations. Notwithstanding my attraction to chaconne form, I purposefully disguised its symmetries and periodicities in order to build an overall dramatic shape. Fred Lerdahl/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Par HILLBORG ANDERS. In his Kongsgaard Variations (2006), Swedish composer Anders Hillborg takes the Arietta-theme from Beethoven’s last piano-sonata, No. 32 in C minor Op. 111 as the basis for an evocative 16-minute string quartet. Beethoven’s sublime music drifts strangely through the centuries and is warped, vaporised, and refashioned as if, in the words of Hillborg, the Arietta ‘is dreaming yet another variation on itself’. / Ensemble Music, Instrumental Music / Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Par PAREDES HILDA. When Paris abducted Helen and provoked the Trojan War, Agamemnon and Menelaus were absent from home for ten years. Agamemnon's wife Clytaemnestra had small cause to love him: he had married her by force after killing her former husband Tantalus, and then gone away to war. On his way he sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia at Aulis in order to be able to go ahead with his enterprise in Troy. He brought back with him King Priam's daughter Cassandra, as his lover. Clytaemnestra greeted her travel-worn husband, unrolling a purple carpet for him, and led him to the bathhouse. / Date parution : 2022-07-20/ Répertoire / Baryton, Trombone et Piano

for Ensemble. Par BERNHARD GANDER. take nine by Bernhard Gander is a 12-minute work for a 12-part ensemble scored for: BCl(Cl), CbCl, Cbsn(Bsn) – Hn, Tpt, Tba – Perc – Pf – Vln, Vla, Vlc, DB. The work is based on rhythms in 9/16 and 9/8 time, but also 8/16, 8/8, 10/16 and 10/8 beats, which may seem complex at first, but sounds transparent to the audience. The main musical inspirations of Bernhard Gander are rock and heavy metal along with the jazz classics Take Five and Blue Rondo a la Turk by Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond. take nine was commissioned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain and premiered on 23 March 2012 at the Centre Pompidou, Paris conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado. The full score (EP 125569) is available for sale as part of the Peters Contemporary Library. The performance material can be hired. / Date parution : 2022-09-07/ Répertoire / Ensemble de Chambre

'What's important in music that's based on a poem - on the emotion inspired by a poem - is the music and power of emotion it harbours within itself?. These words, written in 1949 by poet Pierre Reverdy, would make a deep impression on composer Betsy Jolas. She'd just sent the writer her Six mélodies for mezzo-soprano and piano composed on poems from his masterwork Plupart du temps. The songs were accompanied by a letter that betrayed her fear of distorting his ideas. In creative terms, there was no need to worry - Betsy Jolas must have placed this conviction at the heart of her reflection on the relation between text and music. Nearly sixty years later, the musician decided to take several fragments of these beloved poems of Reverdy and place them, in the form of quotations, into new musical and theatrical perspectives. The exalted memory of the words led to D'Un Journal D'Amour, a mini-cantata for Voice and Alto offered as a wedding gift to soprano Eliette Prévôt and violist Antoine Tamestit, who premiered it together in Montreuil in 2010. / Voix Et Piano