Par FREEMAN ALEX. Alex Freeman found initial inspiration for his string quartet (2015) in a series of photographs a geologist friend showed him of en échelon veins in rock formations. The open strings punctuated with pizzicato unisons that begin the single-movement work call to mind something crystalline and shimmering, which is immediately infused with tumbling lyrical lines in something of a rapid caccia technique throughout. The middle of the work becomes more suspended in slower material loosely based on a technique of prolation canon, comprises layers of free, expressive, lyrical, and even elegiac music moving at different speeds. As the work concludes, the materials converge in a rhythmically pulsating stasis and an almost chorale-like statement. Duration: c. 13' This product includes the score and the parts (A4 sized). American-Finnish composer Alex Freeman (b.1972) has established himself among the foremost composers of choral music in Finland. A dedicated citizen of his musical community, a teacher, and a choral singer himself, he composes music that reflects an appreciation for a wide range of aesthetics and a passion for communicating with listeners and performers. In his choral works, in particular, we find music that aims to be sonorous, melodic, and resonant, but is always crafted to carefully avoid the cliches that can burden conventional tonality. His instrumental works run the gamut: a cantata with orchestra based on poetry of Whitman; a significant body of solo piano works that reveal deep roots in everything from austere absolute music to soaring elegaic rhetoric (see Albany Records, Inner Voice); his chamber work Blueshift (Navona Records), which is a kind of paean to Reich and Adams in miniature; open-ended modular works, like various iterations of his Slow All Clocks for electronic media, solo clarinet, and mixed choirs of kanteles; and, recently, some new directions in microtonal music. / Date parution : 2022-05-31/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

The complete score and set of parts for Carl Nielsen's Quartet For Strings in F Minor Op.5 composed in 1890.

The set of parts for Maxwell Davies's Naxos Quartet Six for strings. This work was commissioned by the Naxos Recording Company and is the sixth in a series of ten quartets. It was first performed on 26th April 2005 at the PurcellRoom London by the Maggini Quartet.

'Quartet In C Minor' is in four movements with a total duration of about 25 minutes. The opening Allegro is similar in style to Dvorak in its lyricism though there is a darker more brooding atmosphere towards the close. It is tempting to detect a hint of folk-song in the theme of the Andantino played by the viola but that may be stretching hindsight too far. The movement has a wistful melancholy that carries over into the following Intermezzo a song-like episode containing some of the most virtuosic writing in the work. The last movement is a theme and six variations with a fugal ending. The theme is ballad-like with a suggestion of 18th-century elegance. Modalitycreeps into the second Adagio variation and there is rhythmic exhilaration in the succeeding Presto. What can be admired in this attractive quartet is its conciseness. This String Quartet was his first major composition of any kind.