Michael Nyman: Two Violins: Violin Duet: Score and Parts

SKU: HL.14023640

UPC: 884088676384. 8.75x11.75x0.375 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. Duration 40 minutes. A score is available for sale.

SKU: HL.14023668

ISBN 9780711932975. 9.0x12.0x0.095 inches.

String Quartet No.3 was written for, and first performed by the Balanescu Quartet, February 1990 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Duration 16 minutes. Instrumental parts are available on sale. Quoting composer: In the summer of 1989 I composed a choral work, Out of the Ruins, for Agnieszka Piotrowska's BBC2 documentary which dealt with the physical and emotional responses of some inhabitants of Leninakhan to the earthquake which devastated Armenia the previous December. When he heard the recording of the work that I made with the Holy Echmiadzin Chorus under the fervent conducting of Khoren Meykhanejian, Alex Balanescu suggested turning Out of the Ruins into a string quartet. There seemed no reason or opportunity to do this until I felt the need to add to the intensity of my experiences in Armenia the no less profound experience of witnessing the images of the Romanian revolution on television during the later part of December 1989. The compositional procedure was as follows: to take Out of the Ruins as a template on which the Romanian vocal or instrumental music would be superimposed, quite often stretched into new intervallic shapes though the demands of the completely performed harmonic structure.

SKU: HL.14023669

ISBN 9780711977570. 9.0x12.0x0.155 inches.

There are two primary ideas behind this composition, the first being to create and almost orchestral chamber music, the idea for this coming from a performance of the Grosse Fuge performed by the Arditti Quartet. The second idea was to excercise the impressive and oppresive history of the string quartet by making the work a compendium of quotations from quartet repertoire. Influence from Schoenberg can be heard in chromatic, harmonic sequences and modal/diatonic varioations are also actively displayed within the piece. The quartet is written with amplification in mind and it is the composer's preference that it is performed in this way. String Quartet No.1 is dedicated to the memory of Thurston Dart. It was commissioned by the Arditti Quartet and first performed by them on 23 September 1985, Warsaw. Duration 26 minutes. Instrumental parts are available on sale.

SKU: HL.14023628

ISBN 9780711975729. 12.0x9.0x0.095 inches.

On The Fiddle consists of three pieces derived from scores to three Peter Greenaway films. The first piece Full Fathom Five, is a version of the Shakespeare song setting made for Prospero's Books (1990). The second Angelfish Decay, is an arrangement of an arrangement: the music for the speeded up time lapse decaying animal sequences in A Zed And Two Noughts (1985) was written for two violins and a harpsichord. This was subsequently 'reduced' to a violin solo for Zoo Caprices (1986). For On The Fiddle a piano part has been added. The final piece Miserere Paraphrase, was written for use in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover (1989), and is a transcription of Nyman's setting of the 'Miserere' text (Psalm 51) sung in the film by a boy soprano and mixed chorus. This version for cello and piano written in 1997. Duration c.15 mins.