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 VASKS PETERIS. The Latvian composer Peteris Vasks, who is known for his atmospheric pieces for string orchestra, “Cantabile”, “Musica dolorosa” and “Voices”, is concentrating increasingly on chamber music: his latest works are the “Partita” for cello and piano, the “Fifth String Quartet” and a piano quartet. Vasks has brought elements of ancient and folk traditions in Latvian music into his compositions. While most of his works have programmatic titles relating to natural processes, Vasks is not concerned with a poetic homage to Nature, nor with depiction of landscape as an aesthetic ideal. The main themes which Vasks explores in his most recent musical work are the reciprocal relationship between man and Nature, the beauty of life and the impending ecological and moral destruction of these values./ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Par CASABLANCAS BENET. The String Quartet no. 4, subtitled 'Dedication', was commissioned by the CNDM of Madrid to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of Beethoven and was written for, and dedicated to, the Cuarteto Casals (2017). This one-movement work,lasting some 11 minutes, is based on a small motif from the op quartet. 130 as a tribute to the German master. The work, that explores the full range of the technical, musical, and emotional scope of the quartet medium, has aternary arrangement, with a slow introduction and a conclusive stretta on the B-flat note (like the one that opens Op. 130). Its course includes marked contrasts between the contemplative, lyrical, static and suspensive sections -in the manner of stagnations - and those with a more lively tempo, playful and occasionally festive./ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Lubo? Fi?er (1935?1999) was one of the most distinctive figures of Czech music in the 20th century and composed the Variations on an Unknown Theme in 1976. The ?unknown theme? was a prankish eight-bar theme from Fi?er?s student days. In the elation following the home-team win over Canada on 15 March 1959, he made a bet with his colleague Kalach to compose a concert piece for violin and orchestra with the working title ?Canada-Rondo?. The whimsical contest was abandoned, but Fi?er did not forget the theme and he later created variations on it for his new composition for the Talich Quartet. The Variations on an Unknown Theme have now been published for the first time ever. This edition is based on the autograph of the score which is housed in the Czech Museum of Music in Prague.

Arrangeur: Jonathan Leshnoff. Par LESHNOFF JONATHAN. Having written four String Quartets in less than a decade, Leshnoff struck a lighter note with his fifth, titled Four Dances. The four dance movements are I Waltz, II Pavane, III Chas Tanz, IV Furlana. Written in 2014, Four Dances was premiered by Carpe Diem String Quartet the following year, and has just been recorded by the same on an album featuring Leshnoff's 3rd and 4th String Quartets, as well. Four Dances is also arranged for saxophone quartet (494-03141) and Baltimore Chamber Orchestra recently premiered a chamber orchestra arrangement, available on a rental basis. An arrangement for full orchestra is also available on rental.Having written four String Quartets in less than a decade, Leshnoff struck a lighter note with his fifth, titled Four Dances. The four dance movements are I Waltz, II Pavane, III Chas Tanz, IV Furlana. Written in 2014, Four Dances was premiered by Carpe Diem String Quartet the following year, and has just been recorded by the same on an album featuring Leshnoff's 3rd and 4th String Quartets, as well. Four Dances is also arranged for saxophone quartet (494-03141) and Baltimore Chamber Orchestra recently premiered a chamber orchestra arrangement, available on a rental basis. An arrangement for full orchestra is also available on rental./ Répertoire / 2 Violons, Alto et Violoncelle

20 Easy to Intermediate Pieces from four Centuries. Par NEUMANN EVA-MARIA (Arr.). Making music in a quartet uniquely nurtures young string players’ musical development, ensemble playing, listening to each other, and intonation. So, what could be more obvious than introducing the scoring of this genre, often referred to as chamber music’s supreme discipline, as early as possible. Indeed, composers have all along advised the classical string quartet’s outstanding compositions, but they are hardly easy to play for beginners. Here, with the present collection, is where Eva-Maria Neumann comes in. The two volumes include A total of 20 easy to intermediate arrangements of pieces from Bach to Bartók, together with specifically composed ones in string-quartet friendly keys - Reading scores and individual parts - additionally, individual part for violin III instead of viola - Tips on warming up, intonation, bowing, fingering, tempos, dynamics, and playing musically - Specific instructions for the individual pieces - Lists of supplementary original literature The pieces are also effective as scored for chorus./ Recueil / Quatuor à Cordes

The volume of trios for advanced players mainly offers a selection from works of the most prominent and most popular composers (Bach, Händel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven). Of special interest are extracts of Beethoven's variations composed on the famous theme of Mozart's Don Giovanni, Fughetta by Robert Schumann and Dream by the less well-known composer Benjamin Godard. / Quatuor A Cordes

Par SENFTER JOHANNA. The composer Johanna Senfter (1879 1961) from Oppenheim concerned herself with chamber music for strings all her life, even studied violin in Frankfurt herself. Max Reger then gave her lessons in Leipzig, first privately, then in his composition class at the conservatoire and valued her 'extraordinary compositional talent'. The strict teacher more and more became a committed promoter of the works by Johanna Senfter. For a period of 50 years, the composer concerned herself with the string quartet genre, from Quartet No. 1 in D minor Op. 4, composed shortly after the turn of the century, to the sixth and last Quartet in C minor Op. 115 which was performed for the first time in 1960, one year before her death. The Quartet in F sharp minor Op. 28 is her second quartet which was premiered in Darmstadt on 5 November 1922. In this work, as in later works, Senfter combined traditional form models – here Baroque movements like gavotte, saraband, gigue – with expressive, late Romantic musical language. The work, consisting of six short movements, may without doubt be regarded as a valuable addition to the quartet repertoire./ Répertoire / 2 Violons, Alto et Violoncelle

Par STRAVINSKY IGOR. String Quartet (Playing score). Strawinsky, I/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Par MANTOVANI BRUNO. La période de confinement qui a débuté en France en mars 2020 a été pour moi l'occasion de réfléchir aux directions que je désirais prendre dans les années à venir et de me lancer quelques petits défis d'écriture. Parmi eux, j'ai décidé de débuter la composition de deux pièces pour le même effectif, à savoir le quatuor à cordes, afin précisément de tester ma capacité à me renouveler. Si le Quatuor n°5 est une œuvre abstraite et continue (il s'agit en fait d'un canon rigoureux entre les quatre instruments), le Quatuor n°7 est une pièce moins linéaire, ou plutôt, une pièce où des linéarités se succèdent et s'entrechoquent. Il s'agit en effet d'une œuvre ou plusieurs processus de déformation d'une idée initiale rythment la forme. La notion de périodicité est omniprésente, dès le début de l'œuvre où un accord est répété à intervalle de plusieurs secondes, le silence étant progressivement investi par des textures de plus en plus continues. Au milieu de la pièce, les quatre instruments investissent une texture globale composée de périodicités superposées, comme si des métronomes à des tempi différents étaient déclenchés en même temps. Ce quatuor est une œuvre que je qualifierais de 'mécanique' et a été composé dans la perspective d'être augmenté par un orchestre dans une pièce concertante, Cadenza n°4, que j'ai déjà écrite. Il est dédié aux membres du Quatuor Diotima. Bruno Mantovani/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Arrgt: Eric Vireton. Par MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY FELIX. Formation : Musique de Chambre, Quatuor - Instrumentation :Quatuor à Cordes : 2 Violons 1 Alto 1 Violoncelle - Niveau de Difficulté : 4/6 - Intermédiaire/Avancé - Durée : 2 mn 05 s - Style Musical : Classique - Catégorie : Arrangement - Compositeur : Felix MENDELSSOHN - Arrangeur : Eric VIRETON / Niveau : Intermédiaire à Avancé / Classique / Répertoire / 2 Violons, Alto et Violoncelle

Altistes savent Garth Knox en tant qu'auteur de Viola Spaces (ED 20520), le recueil révolutionnaire des techniques modernes de lecture sur l'alto. Dans cette édition, il les applique à des variations sur le célèbre 'Folies Espagne' par les Français viole de gambe Marin Marais virtuose. Chaque variation est dédié à une certaine technique, telles que la génération d'harmoniques, quarts de tons, glissando, vibrato et d'autres.La pièce est parfaitement adapté à la fois pour les cours et pour les concerts. Interprètes et auditeurs vont en profiter.Garth Knox est l'un des altistes les plus distingués de sa génération. Pendant de nombreuses années, il a été membre du Quatuor Arditti. Aujourd'hui, il donne des concerts et des leçons partout dans le monde tout en étant toujours l'interprétation d'oeuvres de musique contemporaine. / 4 Altos

QUINTET in C Major for 2 Violins, Viola and 2 Violoncellos, Op. 163
QUARTETS for 2 Violins, Viola and Violoncello
N°1
N°2 in C Major
N°3 in B-flat Major
N°4 in C Major
N°5 in B-flat Major
N°6 in D Major
N°7 in D Major
N°8 in B-flat Major, Op. 168
N°9 in G Minor
N°10 in E-flat Major, Op. 125 No. 1
N°11 in E Major, Op. 125 No. 2
N°12 (Quartett-Satz) in C Minor
N°13 in A Minor, Op. 29
N°14 in D Minor ( Death and the Maiden )
N°15 in G Major, Op. 161
TRIOS for Violin, Viola and Violoncello
In B-flat Major
In B-flat Major