Cassatt. Composed
by Dan Welcher. Premiere:
Cassatt Quartet,
Northeastern Illinois
University, Chicago, IL.
Contemporary. Full score.
With Standard notation.
Composed 2007. WRT11142.
52 pages. Duration 24
minutes. Theodore Presser
Company #164-00272S.
Published by Theodore
Presser Company
(PR.16400272S).
UPC:
680160588442. 8.5 x 11
inches.
My third
quartet is laid out in a
three-movement structure,
with each movement based
on an early, middle, and
late work of the great
American impressionist
painter Mary Cassatt.
Although the movements
are separate, with
full-stop endings, the
music is connected by a
common scale-form,
derived from the name
MARY CASSATT, and by a
recurring theme that
introduces all three
movements. I see this
theme as Mary's Theme, a
personality that stays
intact while undergoing
gradual change. I
The Bacchante (1876)
[Pennsylvania Academy of
Fine Arts, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania] The
painting shows a young
girl of Italian or
Spanish origin, playing a
small pair of cymbals.
Since Cassatt was trying
very hard to fit in at
the French Academy at the
time, she painted a lot
of these subjects, which
were considered typical
and universal. The style
of the painting doesn't
yet show Cassatt's
originality, except
perhaps for certain
details in the face.
Accordingly the music for
this movement is
Spanish/Italian, in a
similar period-style but
using the musical
signature described
above. The music begins
with Mary's Theme,
ruminative and slow, then
abruptly changes to an
alla Spagnola-type fast
3/4 - 6/8 meter. It
evokes the
Spanish-influenced music
of Ravel and Falla.
Midway through,
there's an accompanied
recitative for the viola,
which figures large in
this particular movement,
then back to a truncated
recapitulation of the
fast music. The overall
feeling is of a
well-made, rather
conventional movement in
a contemporary
Spanish/Italian style.
Cassatt's painting, too,
is rather conventional.
II At the Opera
(1880) [Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston,
Massachusetts]
This painting is one of
Cassatt's most well known
works, and it hangs in
the Museum of Fine Arts
in Boston. The painting
shows a woman alone in a
box at the opera house,
completely dressed
(including gloves) and
looking through opera
glasses at someone or
something that is NOT on
the stage. Across the
auditorium from her, but
exactly at eye level, is
a gentleman with opera
glasses intently watching
her - though it is not
him that she's looking
at. It's an intriguing
picture. This
movement is far less
conventional than the
first movement, as the
painting is far less
conventional. The music
begins with a rapid,
Shostakovich-type
mini-overture lasting
less than a minute, based
on Mary's Theme. My
conjecture is that the
woman in the painting has
arrived late to the
opera, busily stumbling
into her box. What
happens next is a kind of
collage, a kind of
surrealistic overlaying
of two different
elements: the foreground
music, at first is a
direct quotation of
Soldier's Chorus from
Gounod's FAUST (an opera
Cassatt would certainly
have heard in the
brand-new Paris Opera
House at that time),
played by Violin II,
Viola, and Cello. This
music is played sul
ponticello in the melody
and col legno in the
marching accompaniment.
On top of this, the first
violin hovers at first on
a high harmonic, then
descends into a slow
melody, completely
separate from the Gounod.
It's as if the woman in
the painting is hearing
the opera onstage but is
not really interested in
it. Then the cello joins
the first violin in a
kind of love-duet (just
the two of them, at
first). This music isn't
at all Gounod-derived;
it's entirely from the
same scale patterns as
the first movement and
derives from Mary's Theme
and its scale. The music
stays in a kind of
dichotomy feeling,
usually
three-against-one, until
the end of the movement,
when another Gounod
melody, Valentin's aria
Avant de quitter ce lieux
reappears in a kind of
coda for all four
players. It ends
atmospherically and
emotionally disconnected,
however. The overall
feeling is a kind of
schizophrenic,
opera-inspired dream.
III Young Woman in
Green, Outdoors in the
Sun (1909) [Worcester Art
Museum, Massachusetts]
The painting, one
of Cassatt's last, is
very simple: just a
figure, looking sideways
out of the picture. The
colors are pastel and yet
bold - and the woman is
likewise very
self-assured and not in
the least demure. It is
eight minutes long, and
is all about melody -
three melodies, to be
exact (Young Woman,
Green, and Sunlight). No
angst, no choppy rhythms,
just ever-unfolding
melody and lush
harmonies. I quote one
other French composer
here, too: Debussy's song
Green, from Ariettes
Oubliees. 1909 would have
been Debussy's heyday in
Paris, and it makes
perfect sense musically
as well as visually to do
this. Mary Cassatt
lived her last several
years in near-total
blindness, and as she
lost visual acuity, her
work became less sharply
defined - something akin
to late water lilies of
Monet, who suffered
similar vision loss. My
idea of making this
movement entirely melodic
was compounded by having
each of the three
melodies appear twice,
once in a pure form, and
the second time in a more
diffuse setting. This
makes an interesting two
ways form:
A-B-C-A1-B1-C1.
String Quartet No.3
(Cassatt) is dedicated,
with great affection and
respect, to the Cassatt
String Quartet, whose
members have dedicated
themselves in large
measure to the furthering
of the contemporary
repertoire for
quartet.
Chamber Music String Quartet SKU: PR.164002720 Cassatt. Composed b...(+)
Chamber Music String
Quartet
SKU:
PR.164002720
Cassatt. Composed
by Dan Welcher. Spiral
and Saddle. Premiere:
Cassatt Quartet,
Northeastern Illinois
University, Chicago, IL.
Contemporary. Set of
Score and Parts. With
Standard notation.
Composed 2007. WRT11142.
52+16+16+16+16 pages.
Duration 24 minutes.
Theodore Presser Company
#164-00272. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.164002720).
UPC:
680160573042. 8.5 x 11
inches.
My third
quartet is laid out in a
three-movement structure,
with each movement based
on an early, middle, and
late work of the great
American impressionist
painter Mary Cassatt.
Although the movements
are separate, with
full-stop endings, the
music is connected by a
common scale-form,
derived from the name
MARY CASSATT, and by a
recurring theme that
introduces all three
movements. I see this
theme as Mary's Theme, a
personality that stays
intact while undergoing
gradual change. I
The Bacchante (1876)
[Pennsylvania Academy of
Fine Arts, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania] The
painting shows a young
girl of Italian or
Spanish origin, playing a
small pair of cymbals.
Since Cassatt was trying
very hard to fit in at
the French Academy at the
time, she painted a lot
of these subjects, which
were considered typical
and universal. The style
of the painting doesn't
yet show Cassatt's
originality, except
perhaps for certain
details in the face.
Accordingly the music for
this movement is
Spanish/Italian, in a
similar period-style but
using the musical
signature described
above. The music begins
with Mary's Theme,
ruminative and slow, then
abruptly changes to an
alla Spagnola-type fast
3/4 - 6/8 meter. It
evokes the
Spanish-influenced music
of Ravel and Falla.
Midway through,
there's an accompanied
recitative for the viola,
which figures large in
this particular movement,
then back to a truncated
recapitulation of the
fast music. The overall
feeling is of a
well-made, rather
conventional movement in
a contemporary
Spanish/Italian style.
Cassatt's painting, too,
is rather conventional.
II At the Opera
(1880) [Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston,
Massachusetts]
This painting is one of
Cassatt's most well known
works, and it hangs in
the Museum of Fine Arts
in Boston. The painting
shows a woman alone in a
box at the opera house,
completely dressed
(including gloves) and
looking through opera
glasses at someone or
something that is NOT on
the stage. Across the
auditorium from her, but
exactly at eye level, is
a gentleman with opera
glasses intently watching
her - though it is not
him that she's looking
at. It's an intriguing
picture. This
movement is far less
conventional than the
first movement, as the
painting is far less
conventional. The music
begins with a rapid,
Shostakovich-type
mini-overture lasting
less than a minute, based
on Mary's Theme. My
conjecture is that the
woman in the painting has
arrived late to the
opera, busily stumbling
into her box. What
happens next is a kind of
collage, a kind of
surrealistic overlaying
of two different
elements: the foreground
music, at first is a
direct quotation of
Soldier's Chorus from
Gounod's FAUST (an opera
Cassatt would certainly
have heard in the
brand-new Paris Opera
House at that time),
played by Violin II,
Viola, and Cello. This
music is played sul
ponticello in the melody
and col legno in the
marching accompaniment.
On top of this, the first
violin hovers at first on
a high harmonic, then
descends into a slow
melody, completely
separate from the Gounod.
It's as if the woman in
the painting is hearing
the opera onstage but is
not really interested in
it. Then the cello joins
the first violin in a
kind of love-duet (just
the two of them, at
first). This music isn't
at all Gounod-derived;
it's entirely from the
same scale patterns as
the first movement and
derives from Mary's Theme
and its scale. The music
stays in a kind of
dichotomy feeling,
usually
three-against-one, until
the end of the movement,
when another Gounod
melody, Valentin's aria
Avant de quitter ce lieux
reappears in a kind of
coda for all four
players. It ends
atmospherically and
emotionally disconnected,
however. The overall
feeling is a kind of
schizophrenic,
opera-inspired dream.
III Young Woman in
Green, Outdoors in the
Sun (1909) [Worcester Art
Museum, Massachusetts]
The painting, one
of Cassatt's last, is
very simple: just a
figure, looking sideways
out of the picture. The
colors are pastel and yet
bold - and the woman is
likewise very
self-assured and not in
the least demure. It is
eight minutes long, and
is all about melody -
three melodies, to be
exact (Young Woman,
Green, and Sunlight). No
angst, no choppy rhythms,
just ever-unfolding
melody and lush
harmonies. I quote one
other French composer
here, too: Debussy's song
Green, from Ariettes
Oubliees. 1909 would have
been Debussy's heyday in
Paris, and it makes
perfect sense musically
as well as visually to do
this. Mary Cassatt
lived her last several
years in near-total
blindness, and as she
lost visual acuity, her
work became less sharply
defined - something akin
to late water lilies of
Monet, who suffered
similar vision loss. My
idea of making this
movement entirely melodic
was compounded by having
each of the three
melodies appear twice,
once in a pure form, and
the second time in a more
diffuse setting. This
makes an interesting two
ways form:
A-B-C-A1-B1-C1.
String Quartet No.3
(Cassatt) is dedicated,
with great affection and
respect, to the Cassatt
String Quartet, whose
members have dedicated
themselves in large
measure to the furthering
of the contemporary
repertoire for
quartet.
Memento mori - Phase 1 Quatuor à cordes: 2 violons, alto, violoncelle Peermusic Classical
String Quartet SKU: BT.PMC4409 String quaret. Composed by Nina C. ...(+)
String Quartet
SKU:
BT.PMC4409
String
quaret. Composed by
Nina C. Young. Set (Score
& Parts). Composed 2017.
Peermusic Classical
#PMC4409. Published by
Peermusic Classical
(BT.PMC4409).
Chamber Music String Quartet SKU: PR.14440505S Composed by Sydney F. Hodk...(+)
Chamber Music String
Quartet
SKU:
PR.14440505S
Composed
by Sydney F. Hodkinson.
Full score. With Standard
notation. 37 pages.
Duration 17 minutes.
Theodore Presser Company
#144-40505S. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.14440505S).
UPC:
680160594603.
The
most straightforward and
shortest of any of my
string quartets to date,
the sixth employs only
two thematic gestures
which are used, perhaps
obsessively, throughout:
(a) brief melodic lines
formed principally of
sevenths, and (b) an
ascending scale. The
formal design is born out
of the continual
combining, interweaving
and juxtaposition of
these two elements, which
collect themselves into
two movements played
without pause: the first
predominantly slow and
pensive, the second
rhythmic and driving.
Quartet No. 6 is
approximately 16 minutes
in duration. The score
was commissioned by the
Los Angeles-based Calder
Quartet, four extremely
talented young musicians
with whom I performed at
the Aspen, Colorado,
Music Festival, and is
dedicated to my wife,
Elizabeth on the occasion
of our fifty years
together. The first
movement is written in
memory of my
father-in-law Howard
Deischer (1907 - 2005),
who died during the
course of composing. The
work was completed in
April of 2005 in
Ormond-by-the-Sea,
Florida. -- Sydney
Hodkinson. The most
straightforward and
shortest of any of my
string quartets to date,
the sixth employs only
two thematic gestures
which are used, perhaps
obsessively, throughout:
(a) brief melodic lines
formed principally of
sevenths, and (b) an
ascending scale. The
formal design is born out
of the continual
combining, interweaving
and juxtaposition of
these two elements, which
collect themselves into
two movements played
without pause: the first
predominantly slow and
pensive, the second
rhythmic and
driving.Quartet No. 6 is
approximately 16 minutes
in duration. The
score was commissioned by
the Los Angeles-based
Calder Quartet, four
extremely talented young
musicians with whom I
performed at the Aspen,
Colorado, Music Festival,
and is dedicated to my
wife, Elizabeth on the
occasion of our fifty
years together. The
first movement is written
in memory of my
father-in-law Howard
Deischer (1907 –
2005), who died during
the course of
composing. The work
was completed in April of
2005 in
Ormond-by-the-Sea,
Florida.— Sydney
Hodkinson.
Composed by
Rhian Samuel. Chamber
music. Score and Parts.
Score and parts. Stainer
& Bell Ltd. #Y279.
Published by Stainer &
Bell Ltd. (ST.Y279).
ISBN
9790220223068.
Such
is the character of the
accordion that any work
featuring its distinctive
voice within an ensemble
is likely to be a
piece
d'occasion. Written
for the prizewinning
young soloist Milos
Milivojevic and performed
with the Juritz String
Quartet at the 2011
Machynlleth Festival in
Wales, Rhian Samuel's
Mist on the
Hills is no
exception. The composer
has used the rare
opportunity of writing
for the instrument in
combination with solo
strings to exploit its
illustrative powers and
create a fourteen-minute
score inspired by the
changing weather over the
hills around her Welsh
home on the Dyfi
Estuary.
In
particular, its three
movements are suggestive
of the appearance of mist
in the landscape,
'settling', 'lingering'
and 'swirling'. In the
first movement, which is
a gentle prelude, brief
accordion motifs break
through the timbre of
strings like glints of
sunshine through mist.
The second movement, more
song-like, presents three
verses of a lament; in
the first half of each
verse the accordion sings
as if from afar, while in
the second half (led by
the viola) the music
intensifies greatly. In
the dance-like and
virtuosic last movement a
short, constantly
changing refrain
alternates with two types
of material: 'swirling'
music and lighter, more
rhythmical ideas.
Finally, scale passages
invade the texture,
ceasing only as the
accordion ascends to the
top of its range in the
closing bars.
String Quartet No. 1 Quatuor à cordes: 2 violons, alto, violoncelle Subito Music
String Quartet SKU: SU.29120020 For String Quartet. Composed by To...(+)
String Quartet
SKU:
SU.29120020
For
String Quartet.
Composed by Todd Mason.
Score & Parts. Subito
Music Corporation
#29120020. Published by
Subito Music Corporation
(SU.29120020).
String Quartet
No. 1 is a powerful
and harmonically dynamic
string quartet in four
movements. It mixes both
tonal and dissonant
musical landscapes in an
elegant way. The quartet
may also be experienced
as a kind of
coming-of-age story.
After the calm first
movement’s
confident simplicity of
youth, the second
movement reflects the
increasing complications
and conflicts of young
adulthood, with fraught
exploration, the
discovery of possible
romance, and new tensions
now replacing the
youthful calm. The third
movement reflects on
maturity and the
experiences of love and
loss, before the
finale—a set of
complex chromatic
fugues—evokes the
fight against fate and
time to achieve
one’s goals in
life. The
movement’s end
briefly recapitulates the
first movement,
suggesting that
ultimately life comes
full circle as we see the
totality of our
experience. As LA Opus
music critic, John
Stodder, said about this
work, The protagonist
discovers the presence of
life's purpose. String
Quartet Duration: 19'
Composed: 2019 Published
by: Todd Mason.
Chamber Music String Quartet SKU: PR.UE036967 Tributes. Composed b...(+)
Chamber Music String
Quartet
SKU:
PR.UE036967
Tributes. Composed
by Hyung-ki Joo. Set of
parts. With Standard
notation. 32 pages.
Universal Edition
#UE036967. Published by
Universal Edition
(PR.UE036967).
ISBN
9783702473518. UPC:
803452070634.
Half
of the performing duo
with Aleksey Igudesman,
Hyung-ki Joo wrote his
first string quartet in
his final term at the
Yehudi Menuhin School for
a graduation concert. At
the time, the young
composer was intrigued by
various talents in the
arts, and chose six to
whom he would pay musical
tribute. The score
includes his notes on his
tributes to Purcell,
Beckett, Beethoven,
Munch, Bach, and
Schoenberg, all of which
are inventive
encapsulations of his
impressions. For advanced
performers.
Chamber Music String Quartet SKU: PR.UE036966 Tributes. Composed b...(+)
Chamber Music String
Quartet
SKU:
PR.UE036966
Tributes. Composed
by Hyung-ki Joo. Full
score. With Standard
notation. 20 pages.
Universal Edition
#UE036966. Published by
Universal Edition
(PR.UE036966).
ISBN
9783702473501. UPC:
803452070627.
Half
of the performing duo
with Aleksey Igudesman,
Hyung-ki Joo wrote his
first string quartet in
his final term at the
Yehudi Menuhin School for
a graduation concert. At
the time, the young
composer was intrigued by
various talents in the
arts, and chose six to
whom he would pay musical
tribute. The score
includes his notes on his
tributes to Purcell,
Beckett, Beethoven,
Munch, Bach, and
Schoenberg, all of which
are inventive
encapsulations of his
impressions. For advanced
performers.