This single-movement for String quartet employs some of the more familiar elements of Herrmannâ??s compositional style: short musical phrases repeated and then repeated again in other positions sharp use of dynamics among them. It is a fascinating sidelight into the work of one of the 20th centuryâ??s most brilliant composers.Bernard Herrmann was among the greatest of all composers of music for cinema and there are many who avow that he was the greatest of all. A very short list of the films for which this award-winning composer created soundtracks includes Citizen Kane The Man Who Knew Too Much Vertigo Jason and Argonauts Fahrenheit 451 Obsession and Taxi Driver. He had along and fertile association with Alfred Hitchcock during the most productive period of Hitchcockâ??s career and with Orson Welles from the time of the Mercury Theatre on the Air. In addition to his conducting and composing work for the entertainment world Herrmann wrote concert pieces including a symphony opera and cantata.

This string quartet is a reflection on emperors and kings their works their passions and the inevitable passge of time. Specifically it follows the career of Artashes who ruled Armenia about twenty-two hundred years ago (190-160 BC) founded theArmenian capital Artashat and abducted his beautiful bride Satenik. The composer was struck by a 19th century painting of Artashes funeral with its grand and seemingly endless cortege the wailing throng lining the road the deceased king borne instate on a royal carriage all led by regal horsemen and a colorful phalanx of musicians. The music is divided into five short scenes played without pause: I. Cortege II. Theft III. Build IV. Cortege V. Farewell. Commissioned by the DilijanChamber Music Seriesfor the Lark Musical Society. Duration: c. 14 minutes

At the end of the 18th century the town of Cádiz in southern Spain provided the backdrop for a Passion to mark Christ?s hour of death; its focal point was the reading and interpretation of Christ?s last words. Haydn wascommissioned to write short meditative music to be played alternately with the readings. Haydn composed a work for orchestra. Due to its success the publisher commissioned Haydn to make an arrangement for string quartet. As thewind instruments double the strings for the most part only a few changes had to be made to the string parts. Here is the Henle Urtext Edition of Joseph Haydn's The Seven Last Words of Christ arranged for StringQuartet based upon on the musical text of the Haydn Complete Edition.

Carnovale is a well known 19th Century melody popularised by variations on the theme by Paganini and then later by Italian clarinettist and composer Ernsesto Cavallini who wrote his own set of variations. This is aterrific arrangement by Pamela Weston re-scored for Clarinet in A accompanied by a String Quartet to form a wonderful encore for use in concerts.

Programme Note 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. Poul Ruders 1979