String quartet SKU: HL.49045639 Chaconne. Composed by Fred Lerdahl...(+)
String quartet
SKU:
HL.49045639
Chaconne. Composed
by Fred Lerdahl. This
edition: Saddle
stitching. Sheet music.
String Ensemble.
Softcover. Composed 2016.
108 pages. Duration 990
seconds. Schott Music #ED
30174. Published by
Schott Music
(HL.49045639).
ISBN
9781540004796. UPC:
888680710774.
9.5x12.0x0.37
inches.
Chaconne
(2016), for string
quartet, was commissioned
by the Daedalus Quartet
to celebrate its 15th
anniversary. The
commission was supported
by New Music USA, made
possible by annual
program support and/or
endowment gifts from
Pennsylvania Council on
the Arts, Helen F.
Whitaker Fund, and Aaron
Copland Fund for Music.My
music has a substantial
history with Daedalus. I
composed the Third String
Quartet (2008) for them,
and subsequently they
performed my three string
quartets on several
occasions and recorded
them brilliantly on
Bridge Records (Bridge
9352: Music of Fred
Lerdahl, vol. 3).
Chaconne is in one
movement lasting 19
minutes. It is
effectively my fourth
string quartet. Quartets
1-3 form a unified cycle
lasting 70 minutes. When
I finished the cycle, I
thought I would never
write again for the
medium; yet I could not
resist the opportunity of
working again with
Daedalus. The issue was
how to compose another
string quartet unrelated
to the earlier cycle. The
solution came from my
solo cello piece There
and Back Again (2010),
which was based on a
four-bar variation
pattern from a
17th-century chaconne.
Unlike the asymmetrical
phrases and expanding
variations of much of my
music, the chaconne form
requires symmetrical
phrases and strictly
periodic variations. I
wished to work again with
these symmetries but on a
larger scale. Chaconne
also differs in character
and expression from the
three-quartet cycle. The
cycle is inward and
intense, a kind of
psychological excavation.
Chaconne is, for the most
part, transparent and
playful. Many of its
textures emerge from
little canons, not
completely unlike the
rounds that children
sing. Any composer who
writes in chaconne form
(one thinks above all of
the last movement of
Bach's D minor violin
partita and the finale of
Brahms's Fourth Symphony)
is confronted with the
challenge of how to
create a larger form out
of a constantly repeating
pattern.My Chaconne grows
from paired
antecedent-consequent
phrases, each variation
lasting eight bars. The
50 variations group into
three large rotations,
forming three arcs of
tension and relaxation,
with subtle parallel
connections across the
rotations.
Notwithstanding my
attraction to chaconne
form, I purposefully
disguised its symmetries
and periodicities in
order to build an overall
dramatic shape. Fred
Lerdahl.
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.
String Quartet SKU: HL.14036341 Composed by Hugh Wood. Music Sales Americ...(+)
String Quartet
SKU:
HL.14036341
Composed
by Hugh Wood. Music Sales
America. Classical. Set.
Composed 2001. Chester
Music #CH60931. Published
by Chester Music
(HL.14036341).
ISBN
9780711955080.
Comm
issioned by the BBC and
premiered by the
Chilingirian String
Quartet. Quoting Wood: In
my Second and Third
Quartets I attempted
sectional, agglutinative
forms: in my Fourth I
return to the
conventional four
movement form of my First
Quartet of 1962. Both
works build up (as in the
19th century symphony) to
the Finale, thus making
it the most substantial
movement, which provides
a climax to the work. The
First Movement has, in
both works, only the
status of an
Introduction. But there
the consciously willed
resemblances end. This
Introduction follows the
Second Quartet to a
certain extent, in that
it provides a sort of
'cauldron', from which
elements to be used later
can all be plucked. Its
opening will reappear at
various points throughout
the work, most completely
at a climatic point of
the Finale (bar 110).
Subsequent material will
be more fully worked out
in the second movement, a
large Scherzo. The
Introduction concludes
with an unusually placed
violin cadenza (itself a
rare feature in a string
quartet, the idea lifted
from Elliott Carter's
First Quartet) of which
the opening is to
reappear halfway through
the Finale. The Scherzo
(which follows attacca)
does not have at its
centre a discretely
characterized Trio: a
figure in double-stops
like a distant fanfare
supplies the necessary
contrast of a second
idea. The Slow Movement
has a secondary idea
first heard on the cello
and marked appassionato:
an agitato middle section
recalls the opening of
the work, but in a
formulation which will be
found closely to
anticipate its
reappearance in the
Finale. The Finale is
planned on a broad scale.
Only after a fully worked
exposition of both
primary and secondary
material does the opening
of the whole work return,
now in a greatly extended
form. Then, at bar 140,
the tune of the violin
cadenza is first
harmonized in fanfare
style on the upper
instruments, then
presented as a chorale on
the lower ones, with a
rushing semiquaver
accompaniment above. This
climatic activity mounts
to the very end. The work
is dedicated to the
Chilingirian Quartet, old
friends over many years.
Score available
separately: SOS04044.