String Quartet

SKU: PR.16400222S

Composed by Dan Welcher. Full score (study). With Standard notation. Duration 11 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #164-00222S. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.16400222S).

UPC: 680160037841.

This work follows my Quartet No. 1 by five years. In terms of style and aesthetic aim, however, it seems light years away. Where the first work, a 28-minute, four-movement piece, took aim at cosmic conflicts and heroic resolutions, the present work is intended as a kind of divertissment. Harbor Music lasts a mere eleven minutes, is cast in a single movement with six sections, and should leave both performers and listeners with a feeling of good humor and affection.   The title comes from my experience as a guest in the magnificent city of Sydney, Australia. One of its most attractive features is its unique system of ferry boats: the city is laid out around a large, multi-channeled harbor, with destinations more easily approached by water than by land. Consequently, inhabitants of Sydney get around on small, people-friendly boats that come and go from the central docks at Circular Quay. During a week's visit in 1991, I must have boarded these boats at least a dozen times, always bound for a new location - the resort town of Manley, or the Zoo at Taronga Park, or the shopping district at Darling Harbour.   In casting about for a form for my second string quartet, a kind of loose rondo came to mind. Each new destination would be approached from the same starting-out point (although there are subtle variations in the repeating theme; it's always in a new key, and the texture is never the same). The result, I hope, is a sense of constant new information presented with introductory frames of a more familiar nature.   The embarkation theme, which begins the piece, is a sort of bi-tonal fanfare in which the violins are in G major and the viola and cello are in B-flat major. It is bold, eager, and forward-looking. The first voyage maintains this bi-tonality, beginning as a 9/8 due for second violin and viola in a kind of rocking motion -much as a boat produces when reaching the deeper water in the harbor. A sweet, nostalgic theme emerges over this rocking accompaniment. This music is developed somewhat, then transforms quickly into a much faster and lighter episode, filled with rising and falling scales (again, in differing keys). A scherzando interlude in short notes and changing meters provides contrast, and the episode ends with a reprise of the scales.   The second embarkation follows, this time in A major/C major. It leads quickly into a very warm and slow theme, in wide-leaping intervals for the viola. This section is interrupted twice by solo cadenzas for the cello, suggesting distant boat-horns in major thirds. The end of the episode becomes a transition, with boat-horns leading into the final appearance of the embarkation music, this time in trills and tremolos instead of sharply accented chords. The nostalgic theme of the first episode makes a final appearance, serving now as a coda. The rocking motion continues, in a lullaby fashion, leaving us drowsy and satisfied on our homeward journey.   Harbor Music was written for the Cavani Quartet, and is dedicated to Richard J. Bogomolny. Commissioned by his employees at First National Supermarkets as a gift, it represents a thank you from many of the people (including this composer) who have benefitted from his vision and generosity. An ardent advocate of chamber music (and a cellist himself), Mr. Bogomolny has for many years been Chairman of the Board of Chamber Music America. -- Dan Welcher.

String Quartet

SKU: HL.14023641

Composed by Michael Nyman. Music Sales America. 20th Century. Score. Composed 1993. 80 pages. Chester Music #CH61116. Published by Chester Music (HL.14023641).

ISBN 9780711964082. 9.0x12.0x0.219 inches.

String Quartet No.4 was written for the Camilli Quartet who gave the first performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, April 1995. It is dedicated to the memory of Nyman's composition teacher, Alan Bush. This quartet is a narrative made up of a chain of twelve complete but often cross-related movements, each quite simple in design. For instance, the Scottish melody first heard in the second half of I is hinted at in the 2nd violin/viola in the second fast section of II and is directly quoted again during III and XII. The theme of the fast section of IV is taken up again in VIII; IX reverts to the mood of the opening of I, while the rising scale/syncopated themes of II, IX and the bass of X and XII are related. X also reintroduces the slow harmonics theme from VII. XII is (apparently) cast in the form of a baroque French rondeau. The main theme of VI was plucked out of the Quartet and used in my score for Christopher Hampton's film Carrington. Duration 40 minutes. A set of parts is available for sale.

String Quartet (Score)

SKU: HL.284555

String Quartet. Composed by John Luther Adams. Music Sales America. Classical. Softcover. Composed 2018. 74 pages. Chester Music #CH87868. Published by Chester Music (HL.284555).

UPC: 888680912901. 9x12 inches.

Composers note:

I never imagined I would write a string quartet. Then I heard the JACK Quartet, and I understood how I might be able to make the medium my own. The result was The Wind in High Places - a twenty-minute work composed entirely on natural harmonics and open strings.

Over the next few years, two more quartets followed. The second quartet, untouched, is a further exploration of the aeolian sound world of the first. Then, in Canticles of the Sky, the musicians finally touch the fingerboards of their instruments.

And now comes Everything That Rises.

This fourth quartet is more expansive, both in time and in space. It grows out of Sila: The Breath of the World - a performance-length choral/orchestral work composed on a rising series of sixteen harmonic clouds.

Everything That Rises traverses this same territory, but in a much more melodic way.

Each musician is a soloist, playing throughout. They surround the audience. Time floats.

Over the course of an hour, the lines spin out - always rising - in acoustically perfect intervals that grow progressively smaller as they spiral upward... until the music dissolves into the soft noise of the bows, sighing.

String Quartet (2vl,va,vc)

SKU: BR.EB-9402

Composed by Mochizuki. Chamber music. Edition Breitkopf. Music post-1945; New music (post-2000). Full score. Composed 2020. Duration 7'. Breitkopf and Haertel #EB 9402. Published by Breitkopf and Haertel (BR.EB-9402).

ISBN 9790004188767. 0 x 0 inches.

<> est la quatrieme piece (ou le quatrieme mouvement) de mon cycle <> pour quatuor a cordes, base sur les recherches recentes concernant le fonctionnement du cerveau. La piece s'inspire egalement de l'interpretation de la genese du monde telle qu'abordee dans les anciens livres japonais, ou la premiere divinite creee une deuxieme entite pensee comme un <>. C'est a partir de l'harmonie de ces deux etres que naitront par la suite les nombreux esprits lies a la cosmogonie japonaise. J'ai repris cette image dans ma piece, ou une sorte de note contenue dans l'ostinato percussif du violoncelle (<>) sera revelee progressivement par une note tiree et vibree au second violon. Cette vibration, qui s'accentue dans le discours devient a la fois une <> reprise par l'alto et des glissandi joues au premier violon. D'apres certaines etudes, le rythme et la melodie ne stimulent pas les memes zones du cerveau, cette construction permet ainsi l'emergence d'une communaute de quatre differentes personnalites qui s'observent les unes les autres ; elles arrivent a imaginer, a anticiper et meme a participer a la realisation des comportements des autres, par un processus propre au fonctionnement du cerveau nomme <>. (Misato Mochizuki, 2000)

World premiere: Luxembourg, Philharmonie, October 12, 2020 (Aris-Quartett) Commissioned by the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organisation) for the Rising Stars-Project.

(Version for String Quartet and Pre-Recorded Material). By Gavin Bryars (1943-). For String Quartet. G Schirmer String Ensemble. Softcover with CD. 112 pages. Schott Music #ED13473. Published by Schott Music

Arranged by Jerome Naulais. For String Quartet. Swiss import. Grade 2.5. Published by Editions Marc Reift

For String Quartet. Composed by Michael Giacchino. Arranged by Robert Longfield. Pops For String Quartet. Movies, Tv. Softcover. Duration 100 seconds. Published by Hal Leonard

String Quartet

SKU: HL.14031816

Composed by Jean Joubert. Music Sales America. Classical. Book [Softcover]. Music Sales #NOV12053901. Published by Music Sales (HL.14031816).

8.5x11.75x0.3 inches.

Though conceived as four separate movements, my second string quartet has a single motif which is common to them all. This is the three-note Muss es sein? from Beethoven's last quartet, Op. 135. But whereas Beethoven's theme is notated G E A flat, thus giving it an F minor connotation, I have sued an alternative spelling - G E G sharp - which suggests an ambiguous E minor-major. This ambiguity, in fact, becomes the tonal basis of the whole work, only to be resolved at the end of the final movement. Each movement begins with a variant of the basic motif on the cello. The first has the original form of the theme, while the second has a majorised version which is also expressed as a chord. The third movement, with its scherzoid middle section, reverts to the major-minor ambiguity of the first, and the finale begins with the majorised version as an ostinato accompaniment on pizzicato cello. The slow movement is sub-titled In memoriam DSCH and concludes with a quotation of Shostakovich's motto - D E flat C B - which is basically the same as Beethoven's with the addition of one note. This is not to imply that the work contains no other thematic material. One important theme, a rising fifth and a second, is also common to three of the movements, and is ultimately derived from my first quartet, Op. 1 of 27 years earlier, to which this second contribution to the form is in many ways like a sequel. Like the earlier work, too, this quartet is dedicated to my wife.

Chamber Music String Quartet

SKU: PO.PME06

Composed by David Farquhar. Sws. Score and parts. Composed 2003. Promethean Editions #PME06. Published by Promethean Editions (PO.PME06).

ISBN 9780958242844.

In six inter-related movements, exhibiting throughout great concision and economy, devotees of the composer's style will find much to admire in the second of Farquhar's four string quartets.The composer writes: The quartet is in six movements which are played without a break. The odd-numbered movements are quick, and are all based on the same material?an unsettled chord with B as the melody note, followed by a downward arpeggio flourish and a rising stepwise melody. The tempo in movements 3 and 5 gets progressively faster, and the atmosphere increasingly scherzando in character. The first two even-numbered movements (2 and 4) are slow expressive intermezzi; both feature an up-beat of three repeated Bs leading into chromatic lines. The final movement serves as an epilogue and resolution; the instruments are now muted and the three repeated Bs are now on the beat, while off-beat accompaniment figures provide a gentle swaying dance around them..