Chamber Music for Two String Instruments, Book II

Par BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN. A master of music in all forms, Beethoven brought his genius to works as mighty as the great 'Choral' Symphony and as intimate as the charming 'Spring' Sonata. Less well known, but no less ingenious, are his delightful works scored for small Wind Ensembles. Intimate, melodious, and full of rhythmic life, this charming music brings a breath of fresh air to the world of fine chamber music. Scored for various combinations of Winds (three works also include solo Strings), the music in this compilation includes the Three Duos, WoO 27 - the Trio, Op. 87 - two Sextets, Opp. 71 and 81b - the Septet, Op. 20 - and the Octet, Op. 103. Beethoven's Serenade, Op. 25, and Rondino, WoO 25, round out this collection of the master's complete music for Wind ensembles. Reproduced from authoritative early scores, Ludwig Van Beethoven: Complete Music For Wind Ensembles offers an inexpensive yet comprehensive volume to all lovers of chamber music. / Niveau : Intermédiaire à Avancé / Répertoire / Instruments à Vent

Commissioned by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra this concertino was originally conceived as a part of a complete educational concertprogram. Four concertini each featuring a different instrumental family within the chamber orchestra are played in succession to demonstrate the characteristic sounds of those instruments. The music is thematically related but not identical to the Concertino for Chamber Orchestra (parts available on rental from the publisher) which serves as the program's closer demonstrating all of theorchestral sections playing together. This program is suggested by the composer for orchestra concerts however each instrumental concertino can beperformed individually and stands quite effectively on its own as a short chamber recital piece.

Herbert Howells was an English composer organist and teacher most famous for his large output of Anglican Church music. However for this reason his secular compositions tend to be unreasonably neglected. Thisedition of the Fantasy String Quartet has set out to change this. The delightful piece of chamber music makes full use of the unique characteristics of String instruments giving all four players equal parts andopportunities to shine separately as well as together as an ensemble. Possibly inspired by Vaughan Williams’ Phantasy Quintet the Fantasy String Quartet requires skilful mastery of their instrument from eachplayer. Performance time is ca. 13 minutes.

This String Quartet along with other chamber works by Onslow is worthy of serious study alongside works of other composers of the period such as Beethoven. It has a lively and tuneful first movement a beautiful theme and variations (including a florid variation with an exciting part for 1st Violin) a pretty minuet and trio and a rousing final movement. All instruments have interesting parts.George Onslow an Anglo-French composer was born in Clermont-Ferrand in July 1784 and died there in October 1853. Three of his String Quintets and his Piano quintet are also published by SJ Music (Q1993-5 Q1991-1 Q1993-4 and Q2005-2).

The solo group consists of a sextet of the woodwind instruments which are normally doubled with more regular members of the orchestra: these six strangers now brought to the fore are piccolo and alto flute cor anglais Eb andbass clarinets and contrabassoon. They make a motley group diverse in colour as in register and one of the tasks of the piece sets itself is to have them blend and cohere both together as an ensemble and in partnership with thestring orchestra (which itself is used with unusual variety and subtlety). Another evident task of the work is to provide fine solos for each member of the woodwind sextet: bright dances for the piccolo recitatives for thealto flute a stoical song from the contrabassoon in the extreme bass. The work is cast as a single movement which begins in the composer's first-movement style of rapid regeneration. This is interrupted by slow interventions including one for divided strings which gives rise to a sextuple cadenza for the soloists. Out of this comes a slow movement or sequence of short slow movements followed by a dancing finale with its own slow episodes. Altogetherthis is music of songs and dances heavily tinged with Scottish rhythms and tonalities: one might think of a magic bagpipe having six chanters and a drone of variegated string texture.This work for woodwind instruments andstring orchestra was commissioned by the Strathclyde Regional Council and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. It is the ninth of ten concerti to be written for principal players of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. The first performancewas given in February 1995 by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer.

By the age of forty Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg was one of the busiest concert composers in the world. His music avails itself of all manner of modern innovations but there is a Neo-Classical orientation in his harmoniesand formal design that makes his works appealing to a wide audience. The Quintet for Clarinet and Strings was comissioned by Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival and first performed in this festival in Finland in 1992. In the composer'sown words: 'Despite its rather extended duration (almost 20 minutes) the work is in one continuous movement. Sections are based on either a static material composed of different scales giving the music an 'insect like'appereance or on directional processes forcing the music to gradually change character or even physically pushing the music to extreme registers or speed.' This is the Score.

For Violin and Cello.Published 2008.Dedicated to Peter Sheppard Skaerved and Neil Heyde.'This music was composed during my DAAD residency in Berlin in October ? November 2007. If I were to describe itin one sentence I would say that it is based on the idea of 'two things seen/heard as one'.'a2 (a due) is a well-known term to musicians; it is often found in orchestral scores indicating a given passage that is to be playedby two instruments of the same family. Although violin and cello could well be regarded as 'first cousins' of the string family the literal implementation of the term a2 as a 'compositional strategy' would have been too much (!)for a piece of chamber music consisting of no more than two players. Not surprisingly this never happens in this work; in fact the opposite is true: regardless of how it appears on paper (i.e. on one or two staves) the musicfor each instrument is constantly based on two layers.'This musical 'interpretation' of the title gives an indication as to how the textural format of the piece operates. However this was by no means the only thought that'preoccupied' my mind whilst composing this music. Berlin made a profound impression on me. The remnants of the wall in Bernauer StraÃ?e and the cobbled two-stone line tracing the wall across where it once stood ? a clear reminderof what not so long ago there were two different worlds in one city ? provoked a strikingly dramatic effect. Border death-strip killing and escape to freedom had a particularly evocative resonance especially of the time when Ilived for three years in a remote town in Southern Albania right at the border with Greece. There there was a nameless road whose destination the authorities did not want you to know but the locals called it the'death-road'.'In no way programmatic in this context the extra-musical dimension of the principal idea is very much part of the piece. Here the musical and extra-musical interpretations cannot easily be separated for they

This authentic arrangement of ten movements from the Water Music suites dates from Handel’s lifetime but is published here for the first time edited by the distinguished Handel scholar Donald Burrows. Its simple light scoring makes it excellently suited to use by schools and small instrumental groups. It can be performed in many different combinations from the original two violins bassoon and continuo to string quartet or wind-based group.