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.
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.
Composed by Christian Mason. World premiere: Paris, Cite de la musique, Januar...(+)
Composed by Christian
Mason.
World premiere: Paris,
Cite
de la musique, January
14,
2020. Breitkopf and
Haertel
#EB 9377. Published by
Breitkopf and Haertel
Chamber Music String Quartet SKU: PR.11441345S Prelude to Contrapunctu...(+)
Chamber Music String
Quartet
SKU:
PR.11441345S
Prelude to
Contrapunctus X from the
Art of the Fugue.
Composed by Shulamit Ran.
Full score. With Standard
notation. Duration 4
minutes. Theodore Presser
Company #114-41345S.
Published by Theodore
Presser Company
(PR.11441345S).
UPC:
680160608829. 8.5 x 11
inches.
BACH-SHARDS
was commissioned by the
Brentano String Quartet
as part of their Art of
the Fugue companion-piece
project. Ran deliberately
stays within the realm of
Bach-like vocabulary,
altering syntax in ways
that add up to something
slightly different from
the anticipated sum of
the parts. The work
builds up to a climax
that makes the entry
point into Bach’s
Contrapunctus X seem
thoroughly
natural. While
composing Bach-Shards I
found myself gravitating,
intuitively and
gradually, toward a dual
goal. First, though
the tension and
dissonance inherent in
certain moments of
Bach’s own
maze-likeÂ
contrapuntal structures
could quite easily and
naturally lead one into a
pungent contemporary
terrain, I opted not to
stray outside the realm
of Bach-like materials
and harmonic
language. Instead, it
was my hope to alter
their relationships and
context in ways that add
up to a something
that’s slightly
different than the
anticipated sum of the
parts. A mildly
deconstructed Bach, if
you will. The other
important challenge I set
for myself was building
up the latter,
toccata-like portion of
Bach-Shards in a way that
would make the entry
point of the fugue which
it precedes,
Contrapunctus X, seem
thoroughly natural.Â
It was my intent to have
the first fugal entrance
feel like a huge and much
welcome release of the
energy created by my
Prelude’s
penultimate stretch, with
its bravura figurations
elaborating on an
insistent dominant pedal
point.
Parts for String Quartet No.3 'Angel's Music' by Bent Sorensen (1988) Premiered ...(+)
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. ...(+)
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.'.
String Quartet - Grade 4 SKU: HL.14001159 Composed by Bent Sorensen. Musi...(+)
String Quartet - Grade 4
SKU: HL.14001159
Composed by Bent
Sorensen. Music Sales
America. Classical.
Studyscore. Composed
2005. 28 pages. Edition
Wilhelm Hansen #WH30120B.
Published by Edition
Wilhelm Hansen
(HL.14001159).
ISBN
9788759805527. UPC:
888680792657.
8.25x11.75x0.106
inches.
Study score
to Bent Sorensen's Adieu
for String Quartet. The
slow choral-like music
which initiates Adieu was
the result of an image or
almost a dream that I
had. Without being able
to explain why, I
imagined a procession of
people, maybe medieval
monks, wearing large gray
mantles with
Ku-Klux-Klan-like white
cowls on their heads,
something like a funeral
procession. The title
Adieu is partly a comment
on this funeral
procession, but also used
because the piece is
split up by three
slow-ascending glissandi,
a kind of farewell
glissandi which removes
the intervening music.
The first absorbing
glissando is soft and
removes both the slow
funeral choral and the
agitating figures in the
first half of the piece.
The second glissando is
given only to the cello
and crawls out from the
elegiac melodies in the
middle part. The third
and final glissando is
intense and agitating,
and prepares the way for
the end of the piece.
This end primarily deals
with the relationship
fast - slow. This
relationship is turned
topsy turvy: the music
gets faster and faster
until it is so fast that
it suddenly becomes slow,
so slow in fact that it
is very quickly able to
become extremely fast
again. Bent Sorensen.
Tenor & String Quartet SKU: PE.EP72822 Composed by Jonathan Dove. Voice(s...(+)
Tenor & String Quartet
SKU: PE.EP72822
Composed by Jonathan
Dove. Voice(s) & Various
Instruments. Edition
Peters. Living Composer.
Score and Part(s). 164
pages. Duration 00:30:00.
Edition Peters
#98-EP72822. Published by
Edition Peters
(PE.EP72822).
ISBN
9790577011769. 232 x
303mm inches.
English.
I have
only visited Damascus
once, twenty years ago,
on the way to
Palmyra. I had a
purpose (I was writing
music for a play about
Palmyra’s Queen
Zenobia) but essentially
I was a tourist.
Like any visitor, I was
thrilled to step out of
the noisy modern city
into the magical ancient
world of the walled Old
City, its vibrant souk
leading to the
magnificent mosque, and a
labyrinth of winding,
narrow streets filled
with the smell of
unleavened
bread.
In Palmyra,
I was met with
extraordinary kindness
everywhere. On one
occasion, a little
Bedouin boy noticed that
I was risking sunstroke
wandering bare-headed
among the spectacular
ruins: he showed me how
to tie a turban, then
took me to have tea with
his family in their
tent.
Since then, I
have watched helplessly
as these places of wonder
have been devastated and
their inhabitants
scattered and
killed. When the
Sacconi Quartet suggested
that I might choose a
Syrian poet for our
collaboration, I welcomed
the idea.
I
searched for a long time
to find a contemporary
poet whose work might
gain from any music I
could imagine. I
felt it was important to
find first-hand accounts
of the Syrian experience
– but, of course, I
was always reading them
in translation. In
an anthology
called Syria
Speaks, I was
astonished to read
something that looked
like prose, but was full
of poetry. It was
Anne-Marie
McManus’s fine
translation of Ali
Safar’s A
Black Cloud in a Leaden
White Sky
– an
eloquent, thoughtful,
contained yet vivid
account of life in a
war-torn country, all the
more moving for its
restraint.
In
setting these words, I
have not attempted to
imitate Syrian
music. However,
there is what might be
called a linguistic
accommodation in my
choice of scale, or
mode. Several
movements are in a mode
that I first discovered
while writing a cantata
commemorating the First
World War: it has a
tuning that I associate
with war, its violence
and desolation.
This eight-note
mode is similar to scales
found in Syrian
music. I did not
choose it in the
abstract: it emerged from
the harmonies I was
exploring in the earlier
work, and emerged again
as I was looking for the
right musical colours to
set Ali Safar’s
words. In this
work, its Arabic aspect
is more prominent. -
Jonathan
Dove
This
product is Printed on
Demand and may take
several weeks to fulfill.
Please order from your
favorite retailer.
2 violins, viola, violoncello SKU: FG.55011-881-2 Reconstruction by An...(+)
2 violins, viola,
violoncello
SKU:
FG.55011-881-2
Reconstruction by
Anssi Mattila.
Composed by Erik
Tulindberg. Arranged by
Anssi Mattila. Classical.
Score & parts. Fennica
Gehrman #55011-881-2.
Published by Fennica
Gehrman (FG.55011-881-2).
The first
composer to warrant a
place in the musical
history of Finland, Erik
Tulindberg (1761-1814)
was an excellent
violinist, and he also
played the cello. His
musical reputation spread
all the way to Stockholm
(Finland was at that time
part of the Kingdom of
Sweden), and in 1797 was
there admitted as a
member of the Royal
Academy of
Music.
The I
violin, viola and cello
parts of
Tulindberg’s
String Quartets were
discovered in 1923 in the
collections of Helsinki
University Library. They
were copies of the
instrumental parts
presumably made by
Tulindberg himself,
though they were possibly
never used during his
lifetime. Not only is the
whole of the II violin
part missing; the first
movement of the viola
part of the fifth Quartet
stops in the middle of a
phrase, and the last 60
bars or so of the
movement’s
manuscript page are just
empty staves.
In
the early 2000s, the
Rantatie Quartet asked
Anssi Mattila whether he
would like to reconstruct
the missing II violin
part. The job was
finished in 2004 and the
Rantatie Quartet released
a Classical Emma-winning
disc of the Quartets in
2006.
This product
includes the full score
and the set of parts.
2 violins, viola, violoncello SKU: FG.55011-880-5 Reconstruction by An...(+)
2 violins, viola,
violoncello
SKU:
FG.55011-880-5
Reconstruction by
Anssi Mattila.
Composed by Erik
Tulindberg. Arranged by
Anssi Mattila. Classical.
Score & parts. Fennica
Gehrman #55011-880-5.
Published by Fennica
Gehrman (FG.55011-880-5).
The first
composer to warrant a
place in the musical
history of Finland, Erik
Tulindberg (1761-1814)
was an excellent
violinist, and he also
played the cello. His
musical reputation spread
all the way to Stockholm
(Finland was at that time
part of the Kingdom of
Sweden), and in 1797 was
there admitted as a
member of the Royal
Academy of
Music.
The I
violin, viola and cello
parts of
Tulindberg’s
String Quartets were
discovered in 1923 in the
collections of Helsinki
University Library. They
were copies of the
instrumental parts
presumably made by
Tulindberg himself,
though they were possibly
never used during his
lifetime. Not only is the
whole of the II violin
part missing; the first
movement of the viola
part of the fifth Quartet
stops in the middle of a
phrase, and the last 60
bars or so of the
movement’s
manuscript page are just
empty staves.
In
the early 2000s, the
Rantatie Quartet asked
Anssi Mattila whether he
would like to reconstruct
the missing II violin
part. The job was
finished in 2004 and the
Rantatie Quartet released
a Classical Emma-winning
disc of the Quartets in
2006.
This product
includes the full score
and the set of parts.