Bent Sørensen: String Quartet No.3 'Angel's Music': String Quartet: Instrumental

Alman - String Quartet was composed by Bent Sørensen in 1984. Parts available: WH29837A Programme Note: In Alman which consists of 3 movements it is the dynamic waves that are making the form. Constantly something is created sheltered by these waves things are hidden or are having their own expression. In this light the first movement can be seen as a big curve and the second movement as a mosaic. In the manic last movement the music is whipped against climax. This movement is supported by a quotation of the young Danish poet Michael Strunge. The title of Alman is the name of a dance (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book) even thoughthis is hardly heard in my quartet. (Bent Sørensen)

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

Rosenbad - Papillons by the Danish composer Bent Sørensen scored for Piano Quintet. Set of Parts for 2 x Violin Viola and Cello. Score: WH 32036 Solo Piano part: WH32036C