Par FREEMAN ALEX. 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-Finnish 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. / Date parution : 2022-05-31/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

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

Par BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN. Beethoven completed his String Quartet Op.135 at Wasserdorf Castle in Gneixenhof, where he sought to recuperate with his nephew Karl after the latter?s failed suicide attempt in summer 1826. It stands out among his late quartets owing to the often cheerful, almost pastoral character of its four movements. Since Beethoven?s death it has often been interpreted as an attempt to take wise and positive stock of the mishaps that had befallen him in the preceding years regarding his life situation, family and health. This interpretation is strongly suggested by the final movement, ?Der schwer gefasste Entschluss? (The Difficult Decision), with its motto ?Must it be' It must be! It must be!? The editing of this quartet proved especially complex, for the authentic sources were reworked at various stages by the composer. By judiciously assessing them, editor Jonathan Del Mar has managed to clarify many anomalies found in previous editions. - Beethoven?s final string quartet with many new readings - Introduction by Misha Donat (Eng/Ger), editor?s foreword by Jonathan Del Mar (Eng/Ger) and a scrupulous, separately published Critical Commentary (Eng) / Date parution : 2022-07-30/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Par ADES THOMAS. Composed in 1994 and now firmly established as part of the contemporary string quartet repertoire, Arcadiana is one of Thomas Adès’s early masterpieces. Six of its seven movements evoke various vanished or vanishing idylls. The odd-numbered movements are all aquatic. I might be the ballad of some lugubrious gondolier; III takes a title and a figuration from a Schubert Lied; in V a ship is seen swirling away to L’Isle Joyeuse; VII is the River of Oblivion. The second and sixth movements inhabit pastoral Arcadias, respectively: Mozart’s ‘Kingdom of Night’, and more local fields. The joker in this pack is the fourth movement, the literal dead centre: Poussin’s tomb bearing the inscription ‘Even in Arcady am I’. / Ensemble Music / Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes