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: HL.14008374
ISBN 9781846096150. UPC: 884088435202. 8.25x11.75x0.105 inches.
The Full Score for Peter Maxwell Davies' fourth in a series of ten string quartets commissioned by the Naxos Recording company, first performed by the Maggini Quartet on 20th August 2004 at the Chapel of the Royal Palace, Oslo, Norway, as part of the Olso Chamber Music Festival. Composer Note: The fourth Naxos quartet was written in January and February of 2004, with the intention of producing something lighter and much less fierce than its predecessor, an unpremeditated and spontaneous reaction to the illegal invasion of Iraq. I returned to the well-known Brueghel picture of children's games (1560, now in Vienna), which had been the inspiration for my sixth Strathclyde Concerto, for flute and orchestra. These illustrations liberated my musical imagination, but I feel it would limit the listener's perception to be too specific about which game relates to exactly which section of the work. Suffice it to say that there is vigorous play - leap-frog, bind the devil with a cord, truss, wrestling - alongside quieter pastimes - masks, guess whom I shall choose, courting, odds and evens. The single movement juxtaposes these activities as abruptly and intimately as they occur in Brueghel. Rather as the eye is taken into different perspectives and proportions of scale within the picture, taking liberties which would never be present in, for instance, Brunelleschi architectural drawings, so here, with a constant sequence of transformation processes, I have distorted the neat, precise implications of modal progression, expressed in the unison opening phrase (from F to B through A sharp/B flat), so that the ear is led, en route, into the sound equivalents of strange passageways and closed rooms: sicut exposition ludus. As work on the quartet progressed I became aware that I was reading into, and behind the games, adult motives and implications, concerning aggression and war, with their consequences. It was impossible to escape into innocent childhood fantasy. The nature of the F to B progression underlying the whole construction derives from a passage in the development of the first movement of Mahler's Third Symphony, and the opening of Schoenberg's Second String Quartet. However, unlike in these models, here a real - if temporary - sense of resolution occurs at the close of the quartet: as when the curtain falls on the reconciled Count and Countess in 'Figaro' one wonders how long the F/B truce will hold, and games break out again. The quartet is dedicated to Giuseppe Rebecchini, Roman architect, and friend since the nineteen-fifties.
SKU: HL.14020978
ISBN 9781844498802. 5.5x7.5x0.147 inches.
The second of the Quartets commissioned by the Naxos label was completed in January 2003. This work swings between nervous virtuosic energy to the serene calm of an extended Lento, with exotic harmonies reminiscent of Bartok, and is characterised by it's sharp and unpredictable contrasts. First performed by the Maggini Quartet on 11 July 2003 at the Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham, as part of the Cheltenham International Festival. This is the score in a pocket-size format. The set of parts is available, catalogue number CH66594-01.
