Chamber Music String Quartet

SKU: PR.14440572S

Composed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Sws. Premiere: South Mountain Concerts, Pittsfield, MA; Saint Lawrence String Quartet. Contemporary. Full score. With Standard notation. Composed 2012. 16 pages. Duration 12 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #144-40572S. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.14440572S).

ISBN 9781598066029. UPC: 680160617685. 9x12 inches.

When the family heirs to the legendary Galimir String Quartet (three sisters and a brother) gathered to commemorate the centenary birth years of these famed performers, they chose Ellen Taaffe Zwilich to commission for this honor. The composer, who has also worked professionally as a violinist, responded with a one-movement odyssey entitled Voyage, cross-breeding her own characteristic style with glimpses of Viennese waltzes and other Galimir flavor. There is a sweet, sad lyricism to this work, a hectic discord..., some wailing and moaning, these moods alternating with dancing klezmer rhythms of Jewish wedding music that take over and make things right in the end. (Stanley Fefferman, BachTrack.com).

Parts for String Quartet No.3 'Angel's Music' by Bent Sorensen (1988) Premiered by the Arditti String Quartet at the Danish Radio Concert Hall 16 November 1988. Score available: KP00250 The composer writes: 'Even when I was writing Adieu, I knew that I wished to write Angels Music. The title existed in an incomplete form in my mind and gradually more and more ideas and a few outlines became clear. The actual work on Angels Music was started in Rome, where I spent the autumn of 1987 staying at The Danish Academy. Whether this stay has influenced the quartet or not is impossible to say. however, it is true to say that, in the Roman churches I visited, I saw countless angels playing in the top of frescoes and altars. Without these angels, together with the many crackled-gold paintings in this city and my general fascination with the Italian renaissance painter Fra Angelico, (in fact there are only a few paintings by him in Rome, but even his name..!) I am not sure my quartet would have been what it is. Anyway I do feel that there is a bit of Italy in the piece. The angels apart there are, in the short rhythmic agitating part of the quartet, reminiscences of the Italian medieval Trotto dance, and in the most expressive part ofthe piece there are flashes of Puccini-like music. From the very beginning of my work on the quartet, the distant, extremely muted sound in the high register which opens the piece, was on my mind. A sound satiated with a dense heterophonic and polyphonic texture of elegiac melody and vibrating trills. I imagined that little songs (maybe angel songs) could be created in this density, these songs constantly echoing themselves. Gradually as this sound got a more and more concrete musical and instrumental form, I felt, that not only should the little songs be created, played and die out in an echo, but also that the general pattern of the quartet should give the feeling of music which, from the distance, is getting closer and closer, culminates and at last disappears like an echo. Related to this, the general pattern of Angels Music is divided into three: a pre-echo, culmination and echo.. The relationship between the three part is 5: 6: 4. The reason why I can say this precisely and prosaically is that it was necessary to me to mark the overall guidelines before I started to compose. I had to do this in order to enable the relationships to crawl from the small cells into the general pattern.'

String Quartet

SKU: HL.14030980

Parts. Composed by Bent Sorensen. Music Sales America. Classical. Set of Parts. Edition Wilhelm Hansen #KP00249. Published by Edition Wilhelm Hansen (HL.14030980).

ISBN 9788759871973. 12.0x16.0x0.285 inches.

Score available: KP00250 The composer writes: 'Even when I was writing Adieu, I knew that I wished to write Angel's Music. The title existed in an incomplete form in my mind and gradually more and more ideas and a few outlines became clear. The actual work on Angel's Music was started in Rome, where I spent the autumn of 1987 staying at The Danish Academy. Whether this stay has influenced the quartet or not is impossible to say. however, it is true to say that, in the Roman churches I visited, I saw countless angels playing in the top of frescoes and altars. Without these angels, together with the many crackled-gold paintings in this city and my general fascination with the Italian renaissance painter Fra Angelico, (in fact there are only a few paintings by him in Rome, but even his name..!) I am not sure my quartet would have been what it is. Anyway I do feel that there is a bit of Italy in the piece. The angels apart there are, in the short rhythmic agitating part of the quartet, reminiscences of the Italian medieval Trotto dance, and in the most expressive part of the piece there are flashes of Puccini-like music. From the very beginning of my work on the quartet, the distant, extremely muted sound in the high register which opens the piece, was on my mind. A sound satiated with a dense heterophonic and polyphonic texture of elegiac melody and vibrating trills. I imagined that little songs (maybe angel songs) could be created in this density, these songs constantly echoing themselves. Gradually as this sound got a more and more concrete musical and instrumental form, I felt, that not only should the little songs be created, played and die out in an echo, but also that the general pattern of the quartet should give the feeling of music which, from the distance, is getting closer and closer, culminates and at last disappears like an echo. Related to this, the general pattern of Angel's Music is divided into three: a pre-echo, culmination and echo.. The relationship between the three part is 5: 6: 4. The reason why I can say this precisely and prosaically is that it was necessary to me to mark the overall guidelines before I started to compose. I had to do this in order to enable the relationships to crawl from the general pattern almost fractionally into the smallest cells of the music, or more correctly; crawl from the small cells into the general pattern.'.

Composed by Christian Mason. World premiere: Paris, Cite de la musique, January 14, 2020. Breitkopf and Haertel #EB 9377. Published by Breitkopf and Haertel

String Quartet (2vl,va,vc)

SKU: BR.EB-9243

Full Score. Composed by Christian Mason. Chamber music; stapled. Edition Breitkopf. World premiere of the original version: London, May 10, 2016World premiere of the string orchestra version: Clermont-Ferrand, October 8, 2020. New music (post-2000). Full score. Composed 2016/2020. 40 pages. Duration 19'. Breitkopf and Haertel #EB 9243. Published by Breitkopf and Haertel (BR.EB-9243).

ISBN 9790004185438. 9 x 12 inches.

It was the practice of Khoomii (throat singing) - following several workshops with Michael Ormiston - that first attracted me to Tuvan music. Composing this Songbook, the first in a series commissioned by the Ligeti Quartet, I took the chance to reflect on compositional questions around transcription and arrangement of existing music, and frequently found myself asking: where is the boundary between the source material and the new substance? Of course the relationship varies from piece to piece, and moment to moment: sometimes we seem to glimpse the pure source, but most of the time there are differing degrees of distance, working towards or away from it. This new version for string orchestra corresponds closely to the original quartet version, with an additional part for double basses.The traditional Tuvan songs that I have transcribed and recomposed are all known to me from the Ay Kherel CD The Music of Tuva: Throat Singing and Instruments from Central Asia (2004, Arc Music). According to the notes from that CD, this is what the songs are about:1. Dyngylday: If you have come on a horse in blue, it doesn't mean that you are the best. My heart tells me something else: my sweetheart doesn't have such a beautiful horse, but he is my darling.An alternative interpretation from Alash Ensemble (alashensemble.com): The word dyngylday is a nonsense term with no translation. The song makes good-humored fun of somebody for being a good-for-nothing.2. Eki Attar (The Best Steeds): The horse is the basis of our life. It is a magic creature. Even its step is full of music and rhythm. You may not be a horse rider, but when you hear this song you will always remember horses.3. Kuda Yry: This wedding song glorifies the strength of the groom and the beauty of his Horse.4. Ezir-Kara ('Black Eagle'): This was the name of a horse, who became a legend through his remarkable strength and speed.It is not just overtones that abound here: there are galloping rhythms aplenty, and though I am no horse rider I tried to keep the horses galloping in my imagination while composing these pieces.Christian Mason (with quotes from Ay Kherel and Alash Ensemble)

World premiere of the original version: London/UK, May 10, 2016, World premiere of the string orchestra version: Clermont-Ferrand/France, October 8, 2020.

String Quartet (2vl,va,vc)

SKU: BR.EB-9244

Set of Parts. Composed by Christian Mason. Chamber music; stapled. Edition Breitkopf. World premiere of the original version: London, May 10, 2016World premiere of the string orchestra version: Clermont-Ferrand, October 8, 2020. New music (post-2000). Set of parts. Composed 2016/2020. 92 pages. Duration 19'. Breitkopf and Haertel #EB 9244. Published by Breitkopf and Haertel (BR.EB-9244).

ISBN 9790004185445. 9 x 12 inches.

It was the practice of Khoomii (throat singing) - following several workshops with Michael Ormiston - that first attracted me to Tuvan music. Composing this Songbook, the first in a series commissioned by the Ligeti Quartet, I took the chance to reflect on compositional questions around transcription and arrangement of existing music, and frequently found myself asking: where is the boundary between the source material and the new substance? Of course the relationship varies from piece to piece, and moment to moment: sometimes we seem to glimpse the pure source, but most of the time there are differing degrees of distance, working towards or away from it. This new version for string orchestra corresponds closely to the original quartet version, with an additional part for double basses.The traditional Tuvan songs that I have transcribed and recomposed are all known to me from the Ay Kherel CD The Music of Tuva: Throat Singing and Instruments from Central Asia (2004, Arc Music). According to the notes from that CD, this is what the songs are about:1. Dyngylday: If you have come on a horse in blue, it doesn't mean that you are the best. My heart tells me something else: my sweetheart doesn't have such a beautiful horse, but he is my darling.An alternative interpretation from Alash Ensemble (alashensemble.com): The word dyngylday is a nonsense term with no translation. The song makes good-humored fun of somebody for being a good-for-nothing.2. Eki Attar (The Best Steeds): The horse is the basis of our life. It is a magic creature. Even its step is full of music and rhythm. You may not be a horse rider, but when you hear this song you will always remember horses.3. Kuda Yry: This wedding song glorifies the strength of the groom and the beauty of his Horse.4. Ezir-Kara ('Black Eagle'): This was the name of a horse, who became a legend through his remarkable strength and speed.It is not just overtones that abound here: there are galloping rhythms aplenty, and though I am no horse rider I tried to keep the horses galloping in my imagination while composing these pieces.Christian Mason (with quotes from Ay Kherel and Alash Ensemble)

World premiere of the original version: London/UK, May 10, 2016, World premiere of the string orchestra version: Clermont-Ferrand/France, October 8, 2020.

String quartet

SKU: FG.042-09103-6

Composed by Eero Sipila. Score. Published by Fennica Gehrman (FG.042-09103-6).

ISBN 979-0-042-09103-6.

Eero Sipila was an organist by training. His liking for Gregorian chant left its mark on his compositions in the form of stylistic borrowings or at least reflections. In one of his letters Sipila mentioned as his main work the quartet that was to be the last thing he wrote. The name Lux aeterna is a reference to the section in the Gregorian mass, melodic motifs from which dominate the entire quartet. There is no trace of the modernistic tendencies of the works composed in the 1960s, but the pungent seconds harmonies characteristic of Sipila are all there.

String Quartet

SKU: HL.14031827

Composed by Per Norgard. Music Sales America. Classical. Score. 48 pages. Music Sales #KP01084. Published by Music Sales (HL.14031827).

ISBN 9788759871089. Danish-English.

Pre face The three movements of the quartet may be perceived as three different expressions of an unstable core: an inherent unrest leads to frequent changes of direction. The first movement is full of dramatic contrasts: it is followed by a second movement, whose basic mood of meditative rest is challenged by occasional centrifugal utbursts, while the third movement takes the inherent conflicts to a higher level, contrasting material of introspective lyricism with excessively pathetic moods. The final way out is a retrograde one, (back) into the source: through a constant accelerando-diminuendo the piece disappears into a vanishing point. The into the source of the titlemay be visualized as a reversed fountain-action: the broad fan-like spread of the first movement, a more coherent-solid second movement, and finally - in the third movement - a return-run, ever more vehemently, like a suction into the spring itself ... The musical motifs are varied: there are traffic-situations (which I heard!) with stomping and machine-like rhythms in different, but simultaneous tempi, and there are more abstract upwards and downwards half-tone-scales, with changing accents, creating glimpses of melodies. INTO THE SOURCE, String Quartet No. 9, was composed on a double-commission from the Orion Quartet and the Vertavo Quartet. The premiere performances took places in Santa Fe in 2002 and in Oslo in 2003. Per Norgard.

String Quartet

SKU: FG.55011-574-3

Composed by Kalevi Aho. Score+parts. Fennica Gehrman #55011-574-3. Published by Fennica Gehrman (FG.55011-574-3).

ISBN 9790550115743.

Kale vi Aho (b.1949) was only 18 years old when he completed his String Quartet no. 1 in g minor (1967). Nonetheless it was already the second one of its kind: the earlier string quartet in a minor got christened String Quartet No. 0 and banned from performing. The g minor quartet was heard the first time only 50 years after it was born, when the Kamus Quartet premiered it at the Musica Kalevi Aho Festival in Forssa on June 28, 2019. In Aho's home town, Forssa, it was not possible to study composition with a teacher: My model in this and the other works I composed while I was at school was all the mostly tonal music I had personally played on the violin or heard on the radio. The first movement, Moderato, begins in variation form, until followed by a fugue based on the variation theme. The initially lyrical second movement has a quick, virtuosic and light middle section. The third movement is a very quick scherzo that becomes dramatic, and the work ends with a chorale-like finale. The composer tells: When I got to study composition at the Sibelius Academy in autumn 1968 and showed the quartet to my teacher, Einojuhani Rautavaara, he said there was no point my studying tonal harmony and tonal formal constructions any longer; that I could do the exams in them straight away and start the courses in modern music resources there and then..

(Parts). By Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). Masterworks; Part(s); Quartet; String Quartet. Faber Edition. 20th Century; Masterwork. Published by Faber Music