SKU: PR.114406980

UPC: 680160010806.

Shula mit Ran’s second string quartet, subtitled “Vistas,” occupies a large canvas that is cast in a traditional fourmovement mold, where the outer movements present, explore, and later return to the work’s principal musical materials, surrounding a slow movement and scherzo-type third movement with a trio. In addition to tempo-based titles, the individual movements have subtitles that are evocative of each movement’s character, as follows: I. Concentric: from the inside out II. Stasis III. Flashes IV. Vistas.
My second string quartet, “Vistas”, is a work cast in a traditional four-movement formal mold, with the outer movements, presenting and later returning to the work’s principal musical materials, surrounding a slow movement and a scherzo-type third movement.While the four movements’ “proper” names -- Maestoso con forza, Lento, Scherzo impetuoso, and Introduzione; Maestoso e grande – give some indication of the general character of the individual movements, I have also subtitled, less formally, each movement as follows:  1) Concentric:  from the inside out  2)  Stasis  3) Flashes  4) Vista.  The images evoked by these titles tell one, I think, a bit more about the inner workings of the quartet.In the first movement, a prominently presented opening pitch (E) reveals itself, as the movement unfolds, to be a center of gravity from which ever-growing cycles of activity gradually evolve.  While various important themes come into being as the movement progresses, their impact on the listener has, I believe, a great deal to do with their juxtaposition and relationship to the initial central point of gravity.Stasis is, as the name implies, a movement where activity seems, at times, almost suspended.  Being also, as Webster’s Dictionary reminds us, “a state of static balance and equilibrium among opposing tendencies or forces,” it develops various materials, including ones from the first movement, without bringing them to points of resolution.Flashes is short and very fast, evoking in my mind the quick shimmer of fireflies, a “sudden burst of light”, but also a “brief time”.  Perhaps, even, a “smile”?Final ly, the last movement, Vista, is not only “a view or outlook”, but also “a comprehensive mental view of a series of remembered or anticipated events.”  After a brief recall of the opening of the second movement, this movement brings back all the important themes of the first movement in their original order.  But just as going back can never really mean going back in time, the movement is much more than recapitulatory.  By cutting through previously transitory passages and presenting the main ideas in a fashion more direct yet more evolved, it also sheds new light on earlier events, offering a retrospective, synoptic view of the first movement as it brings to culmination the work as a whole. “Vistasâ € was commissioned by C. Geraldine Freund for the Taneyev String Quartet of what was then Leningrad.  It was the first commission given in this country to a Soviet chamber ensemble since the 1985 cultural exchange accord between the Soviet Union and the United States.

SKU: HL.49018856

ISBN 9790220133244. UPC: 884088675028. 9.0x12.0x0.204 inches.

Although this is technically Cowie's seventh string quartet, it replaces his earlier fourth quartet, which he came to feel no longer fit with his compositional voice. The quartet fluctuates between a slow, luminous sound and fast, agitated music. Unlike much of Cowie's work, this music is abstracted from his usual preoccupation with the natural world, turning instead to look at an inner landscape. The composer describes the emotional force behind his quartet: The year 2009 was a terrible year in which I lost three close friends to cancer and an elder brother to Alzheimer's disease. It was also a year in which my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer; something from which she has thankfully made a great recovery. At times like these, emotions are sorely tested and highlighted. Four people I loved have gone, so this music must remain as testament not to death, but to the magnificent fragility and loveliness of life. It closes with a gentle and almost vaporising 'benediction' a kind of 'amen' if you like.