Commissioned by the Santa Fe and La Jolla Chamber Music Festivals
String Quartet No
SKU: PR.16400272S
UPC: 680160588442. 8.5 x 11 inches.
My third quartet is laid out in a three-movement structure, with each movement based on an early, middle, and late work of the great American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. Although the movements are separate, with full-stop endings, the music is connected by a common scale-form, derived from the name MARY CASSATT, and by a recurring theme that introduces all three movements. I see this theme as Mary's Theme, a personality that stays intact while undergoing gradual change. I The Bacchante (1876) [Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] The painting shows a young girl of Italian or Spanish origin, playing a small pair of cymbals. Since Cassatt was trying very hard to fit in at the French Academy at the time, she painted a lot of these subjects, which were considered typical and universal. The style of the painting doesn't yet show Cassatt's originality, except perhaps for certain details in the face. Accordingly the music for this movement is Spanish/Italian, in a similar period-style but using the musical signature described above. The music begins with Mary's Theme, ruminative and slow, then abruptly changes to an alla Spagnola-type fast 3/4 - 6/8 meter. It evokes the Spanish-influenced music of Ravel and Falla. Midway through, there's an accompanied recitative for the viola, which figures large in this particular movement, then back to a truncated recapitulation of the fast music. The overall feeling is of a well-made, rather conventional movement in a contemporary Spanish/Italian style. Cassatt's painting, too, is rather conventional. II At the Opera (1880) [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts] This painting is one of Cassatt's most well known works, and it hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The painting shows a woman alone in a box at the opera house, completely dressed (including gloves) and looking through opera glasses at someone or something that is NOT on the stage. Across the auditorium from her, but exactly at eye level, is a gentleman with opera glasses intently watching her - though it is not him that she's looking at. It's an intriguing picture. This movement is far less conventional than the first movement, as the painting is far less conventional. The music begins with a rapid, Shostakovich-type mini-overture lasting less than a minute, based on Mary's Theme. My conjecture is that the woman in the painting has arrived late to the opera, busily stumbling into her box. What happens next is a kind of collage, a kind of surrealistic overlaying of two different elements: the foreground music, at first is a direct quotation of Soldier's Chorus from Gounod's FAUST (an opera Cassatt would certainly have heard in the brand-new Paris Opera House at that time), played by Violin II, Viola, and Cello. This music is played sul ponticello in the melody and col legno in the marching accompaniment. On top of this, the first violin hovers at first on a high harmonic, then descends into a slow melody, completely separate from the Gounod. It's as if the woman in the painting is hearing the opera onstage but is not really interested in it. Then the cello joins the first violin in a kind of love-duet (just the two of them, at first). This music isn't at all Gounod-derived; it's entirely from the same scale patterns as the first movement and derives from Mary's Theme and its scale. The music stays in a kind of dichotomy feeling, usually three-against-one, until the end of the movement, when another Gounod melody, Valentin's aria Avant de quitter ce lieux reappears in a kind of coda for all four players. It ends atmospherically and emotionally disconnected, however. The overall feeling is a kind of schizophrenic, opera-inspired dream. III Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun (1909) [Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts] The painting, one of Cassatt's last, is very simple: just a figure, looking sideways out of the picture. The colors are pastel and yet bold - and the woman is likewise very self-assured and not in the least demure. It is eight minutes long, and is all about melody - three melodies, to be exact (Young Woman, Green, and Sunlight). No angst, no choppy rhythms, just ever-unfolding melody and lush harmonies. I quote one other French composer here, too: Debussy's song Green, from Ariettes Oubliees. 1909 would have been Debussy's heyday in Paris, and it makes perfect sense musically as well as visually to do this. Mary Cassatt lived her last several years in near-total blindness, and as she lost visual acuity, her work became less sharply defined - something akin to late water lilies of Monet, who suffered similar vision loss. My idea of making this movement entirely melodic was compounded by having each of the three melodies appear twice, once in a pure form, and the second time in a more diffuse setting. This makes an interesting two ways form: A-B-C-A1-B1-C1. String Quartet No.3 (Cassatt) is dedicated, with great affection and respect, to the Cassatt String Quartet, whose members have dedicated themselves in large measure to the furthering of the contemporary repertoire for quartet.
SKU: PR.164002720
UPC: 680160573042. 8.5 x 11 inches.
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.14047982
ISBN 9788759817452. 8.25x11.75x0.052 inches. English.
String Quartet No.3 was composed by Hans Abrahamsen in 2008. String Quartet No.3 is a sister piece to Air for accordion solo, by further developing the musical material. The work is written for Cikada String Quartet which premiered it in 2008.
SKU: HL.14047983
ISBN 9788759817469. 9.75x14.25x0.072 inches. English.
Parts for Hans Abrahamsen's String Quartet No.3 (2008).
SKU: HL.14020979
ISBN 9781846091193. UPC: 884088435172. 5.5x7.5x0.125 inches.
The third in the series of ten Quartets commissioned by the Naxos recording company. First performed at Wigmore Hall, London in Oct 2003 by the Maggini Quartet. A convenient, miniature-sized version of the score intended for study. Performance parts are available available: CH67045-01.
SKU: HL.14035183
ISBN 9780711976689. 9.0x12.0x0.372 inches.
Kevin Volans has been described as one of the more inventive composers since Stravinsky. Songlines was composed in 1988, and revised in 1993. Score available: CH61335.
SKU: PR.144403980
UPC: 680160030088.
Primosch's String Quartet No. 3 sets out as a theme and variations, but a sudden Fantasia finds its way into the mix. Upon returning to another variation, we find elements of the Fantasia now appearing, leading to a viola cadenza and the ultimate unison re-statement of a slow variation. Composed for the Ying Quartet and commissioned by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, String Quartet No. 3 had its premiere in 1999. For advanced performers. Duration: 20'.
SKU: PR.14440398S
UPC: 680160030101.
SKU: HL.49043938
ISBN 9790220133923. 9.25x12.0x0.494 inches.
The 3rd String Quartet was originally composed in 1982-3 to a commission from The Adelaide Festival, and premiered by The Petra Quartet in 1983. Subsequent to this quartet, I have composed two more; No. 4 in 1986 and No. 5 in 2002.The offer to re-publish this work, led me to begin by a process of amendment, but ended in the composition of a virtually new quartet! Only parts of the original quartet have been retained. I also chose to 'frame' (in my case this means an inspirational focus and filter), the quartet in a new way too.In Flight Music keeps the 4-movement format of the original quartet, but is now directly linked to a life-long interest in flight. The first two movements are concerned with aspects of humans in flight, whilst the last two deal with insects and birds respectively.Since all my music is these days preceded by visualisations in the form of drawings, wherever possible, this quartet might be performed with the four drawings, one for each movement, back-projected behind the players.Digital copies of these drawings may be obtained from Schott Music.Edward Cowie.Maurens. France. August, 2010.
SKU: BR.EB-9266
World premiere: Vienna, Arnold Schoenberg Center, May 3, 2018 (Asasello-Quartet)
ISBN 9790004185667. 0 x 0 inches.
World premiere: Vienna, Arnold Schoenberg Center, May 3, 2018 (Asasello-Quartet).
SKU: BR.EB-9265
ISBN 9790004185650. 0 x 0 inches.
SKU: PR.14440265S
UPC: 680160027910.
The Second and Third Quartets were conceived at the same time; indeed, their composition intermingled, over half of No. 3 being sketched before No. 2 was completed. Accordingly, they share similar material but, like the intertwining blood of cousins, their natures differ: No. 2 being somewhat acerbic and declamatory, No. 3 more lyric and gentler. An annunicatory 'leaping motive' (derived from a motto generated by my name) opens Quartet No. 2 and inhabits the course of the piece as a cyclical binding-force. A five-note motive, usually very deliberate, also keeps recurring like an insistent caller. All three movements are based on tonal centers (I on B and E, II on D, III on C) and the harmonic 'grammar' spoken tends to recall the jazz world of my youth. To hopefully achieve a certain classical ambience was one of the goals of this piece, and all three movements have traditional forms. The first movement is a modified Sonata-Allegro design, with a severely-truncated recapitulation balanced by a lengthy, and decaying Coda. The second movement is a set of strophic variants and an epilogue interspersed with both solo ritornelli and first-movement material (the motto and the five-note motive) in the nature of a fantasia-like 'call-and-response.' It is dedicated to the memory of the American mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani. The third movement is a modified Rondo (ABACBA) which evolves out of the opening motto. All three movements make much use of canonic stretti, similar gestures, and repetition. For example, the climax of movement III's Rondo throws the first movement back at us again, as if the players were reluctant to let it go, so that the entire piece could perhaps be viewed as a single large, extended, Sonata movement, with introduction and Coda.The Second and Third Quartets were conceived at the same time; indeed, their composition intermingled, over half of No. 3 being sketched before No. 2 was completed. Accordingly, they share similar material but, like the intertwining blood of cousins, their natures differ: No. 2 being somewhat acerbic and declamatory, No. 3 more lyric and gentler.An annunicatory ‘leaping motive’ (derived from a motto generated by my name) opens Quartet No. 2 and inhabits the course of the piece as a cyclical binding-force. A five-note motive, usually very deliberate, also keeps recurring like an insistent caller. All three movements are based on tonal centers (I on B and E, II on D, III on C) and the harmonic ‘grammar’ spoken tends to recall the jazz world of my youth.To hopefully achieve a certain classical ambience was one of the goals of this piece, and all three movements have traditional forms. The first movement is a modified Sonata-Allegro design, with a severely-truncated recapitulation balanced by a lengthy, and decaying Coda. The second movement is a set of strophic variants and an epilogue interspersed with both solo ritornelli and first-movement material (the motto and the five-note motive) in the nature of a fantasia-like ‘call-and-response.’ It is dedicated to the memory of the American mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani. The third movement is a modified Rondo (ABACBA) which evolves out of the opening motto.All three movements make much use of canonic stretti, similar gestures, and repetition. For example, the climax of movement III’s Rondo throws the first movement back at us again, as if the players were reluctant to let it go, so that the entire piece could perhaps be viewed as a single large, extended, Sonata movement, with introduction and Coda.
SKU: HL.14028046
ISBN 9788759859377. 9.5x14.25x0.12 inches. International (more than one language).
Score available: KP00247 Ruders writes: Quartet No. 3 Motet was written in 1979, commissioned by the Lerchenborg music-week of 1979 during which it was first performed by Quatuor Bernede. This short one-movement quartet is a kind of modernization of the 14th century French motets, a cadeau to this weird and fantastic music whose abstract and almost deprecatory, introvert expression appears unaccountably modern and incredibly ancient at the same time. Motet is a sober, cool treatise on rhythm and statics, depicted in a Gothic, crypt-like atmosphere. The almost completely non-vibrato movement is suggestive of boys' choir, monks' processions, and the piercing sound of musical glasses. An ancient world is reborn and becomes the world of today.