Par BARGIELSKI ZBIGNIEW . After the first performance of my Fourth Quartet, in Salzburg in 1997, the artists of the excellent Hugo Wolf Quartett approached me with the appealing proposition that I write a new quartet. Rather problematic, however, proved to be the musicians’ delicate suggestion that I invest the work with elements of a more pungent expression and elements of folklore – ideally Polish. That suggestion meant that I did not immediately come to a decision, since folklore had not been (with the exception of a few works for accordion) the object of my interest. However, in defiance of my aesthetic outlook at that time, I decided to take up this interesting invitation and tackle what was for me a difficult problem. Ultimately, I found a way out of this rather ambiguous situation by employing a sort of dodge: I gave the new work a title. In a way, ‘The time that has passed’ substantiates the current to which I referred while writing this composition. The title and the subtitles of the work’s movements, which sound quite exotic in our day and age (there are as many as nine movements), justify the curious marriage between the somewhat nostalgic past and a present that has not yet been particularly well ‘assimilated’. I hope that these feuilles d’album will discharge their ‘toning’ function well. - Zbigniew Bargielski/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

8 Popular String Quartets. Following the success of 'Beautiful Dreamer', Carson Turner returns with a fresh collection of string quartet arrangements, ideal for intermediate-level players. The Schott String Quartet Series With the first books in the series focusing on baroque, classical and romantic styles, The Schott String Quartet Series has expanded to cover music ranging from traditional pieces through to Eastern-influenced works. Aside from 'Indian Summer', which features original compositions, each book contains original arrangements of well known themes, which have often never been arranged for string quartet before. An important characteristic of these arrangements is that they allow all four instruments to demand the attention throughout the music. The pieces are suitable for amateur musicians or school students and are ideal for public performance./ Recueil / Quatuor à Cordes

Par BARTOK BELA. To make myself clear: This is not 'programme music', it does not require an explanation attached to it; it speaks for itself. What it wishes to say it does by means of pure music. But it does say something, more in fact than the simple music-making we have become accustomed to since the decline of chamber music.' (Zoltán Kodály)/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

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

Born in South Africa, but now an Irish citizen, Kevin Volans' musical idiom has been shaped by an unusually diverse range of experiences, including studies with Stockhausen in Cologne, field trips to South Africa to study traditional music, his own involvement with the New Simplicity movement, his collection of contemporary art and African textiles, friendships with composers like Morton Feldman and Gerald Barry, as well as a love of virtuoso piano music which he performs, broadcasts and records. While having an easily recognised, unique voice, Volans' music resists compartmentalisation. He is as comfortable working in conventional genres as embarking on innovative collaborations with artists of other disciplines.String Quartet #1 (White Man Sleeps) was written for the Kronos Quartet and was first performed by them in July 1986, London.The title 'White Man Sleeps' comes from a moment in nyanga Panpipe music where the performers leave off playing their loud pipes for a few cycles and dance only to the sound of their ankle rattles, to let the white landowner sleep - for a minute or two.'In composing this piece I drew from the following sources: the first movement owes something to the style of Basotho concertina music - the second and fourth movements are drawn from traditional Nyungwe music played by Makina Chirenje and his Nyanga panpipe group at Nsava, Tete, Mozambique, recorded and transcribed by Andrew Tracey (to be found in an article entitled 'The nyanga Panpipe dance' in African Music, Vol.5, #1 (1971) - the third movement derives from the San bow music (recorded by Tony Traill of the University of Witwatersrand) and from Basotho lesiba music, transcribed by myself - in the fifth movement I added my own invented folklore. My approach to the original music was anything but purist - it is played in Western tuning, filtered, slowed down by a few 'time-octaves?, cast into non-African metres (like the 13-beat pattern of the first dance) and redistributed between the players in several ways. I also used interlocking techniques where they were absent in the original models and vice versa' - Kevin VolansDuration 24 minutes. Parts available: CH61205. / Quatuor A Cordes (Conducteur)