Renaissance Quartets

Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen's  String Quartet No. 10 'New Ground' (2011). Set of parts: WH31462A Programme note: New Ground – No Ground – Green In 1986 I wrote Ground for the Kronos Quartet. I used the principle of the baroque ground and created a series of chords – going up and going down symmetrically. The material formed the basis for the quartet. In my next collaboration with Kronos I wrote the darker Last Ground – at the time supposed to be my last composition of the kind. After some years this seemed a bit pathetic and Idecided to write a new – lighter ground – New Ground. To disappoint my listeners as much as possible I based this piece on a very old and very well-known ground: Pachelbel’s Canon.  The piece is tonal and that suggested another –atonal – composition – No Ground (based on another string quartet – no. 7 Parted from 1984 first performed by Kronos). I am very fond of the elaborated constructivism of the medieval or early renaissance music so in my view the two new quartets needed to be connected and combined. The two quartets can be performed in combination with the four-part vocal piece Green. The text is from medieval England. The pieces are written for the Kronos Quartet and Theatre of Voices.

This is volume 3 (Renaissance Dances) from our series of arrangements for recorder quartets. The pieces are sorted according to their difficulty from easy to medium.   Contents (for SATB unless otherwise stated):   Pavane et Galliarde - Pierre Phalèse   Dantze und Galliarden - Erasmus Widmann   Vier Tänze - Tilman Susato (1 for AATB)   Tanzfolgen - Michael Praetorius (1for SSAT)   Drei Tänze - Claude Gervaise   Sechs Tänze - Pièrre Attaingnant (2 for AATB)   Diferencias sobre la Pavana Italiana - Antonio de Cabezón   Pavane and Galiardo - William Byrd   Courante - Giles Farnaby   Courante 'Barafostus' Dream' - Anonymous   Scottische Tänze - Jame Lauder (1 for SAAT)

This quartet collection of 13 keyboard, vocal and instrumental pieces covering the Renaissance to the Romantic periods can be played together in harmony by any number or combination of instruments. Woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion can play in like-instrument or mixed instrumentation. It's an all-purpose folio that makes sacred music fun! Contains: Adoramus Te (We Adore Thee) (Palestrina) * Amen (Stainer) * Cherubim Song (Archangelsky) * Chorale (Bach) * Deep River (Anonymous) * Gloria Patri (Purcell) * Go Down, Moses (Anonymous) * God Of Our Fathers (Warren) * Missa Apostolorum (Cavazzoni) * Old Hundredth (Bourgeois) * Onward, Christian Soldiers (Sullivan) * The Quest (Marianlieder) * Shir Hamaalot (Anonymous).

four easy arrangements for flexible brass ensemble-Renaissance Brass is a collection of four Renaissance pieces including works by Susato and Praetorius. Skilfully arranged by Tony Evans a legendary Welsh trombonist and doctor of music.Renaissance Brass has been written for a flexible four part Brass group with optional Drum or Tambourine for authentic effect.

The full score for String Quartet No.3 'Angel's Music' by Bent Sørensen (1988) Premiered by the Arditti String Quartet at the Danish Radio Concert Hall 16 November 1988. Parts available: KP00249The composer writes:'Even when I was writing 'Adieu' I knew that I wished to write 'Angel’s Music'. The title existed in an incomplete form in my mind and gradually more and more ideas and a few outlines became clear. The actual work on 'Angel’s Music' was started in Rome where I spent the autumn of 1987 staying at 'The Danish Academy'. Whether this stay has influenced the quartet or not is impossible to say. however it is true tosay that in the Roman churches I visited I saw countless angels playing in the top of frescoes and altars. Without these angels together with the many crackled-gold paintings in this city and my general fascination with the Italian renaissance painter Fra Angelico (in fact there are only a few paintings by him in Rome but even his name..!) I am not sure my quartet would have been what it is. Anyway I do feel that there is a bit of Italy in the piece. The angels apart there are in the short rhythmic agitating part of the quartet reminiscences of the Italian medieval Trotto dance and in the most expressive part of the piece there are flashes of Puccini-like music. From the very beginning of my work on the quartet the distant extremely muted sound in the high register which opens the piece was on my mind. A sound satiated with a dense heterophonic and polyphonic texture of elegiac melody and vibrating trills. I imagined that 'little songs' (maybe angel songs) could be created in this density these songs constantly echoing themselves. Gradually as this sound got a more and more concrete musical and instrumental form I felt that not only should the 'little songs' be created played and die out in an echo but also that the general pattern of the quartet should give the feeling of music which from the distance is getting closer and