SKU: HL.49045929
9.0x12.0x0.057 inches.
The Austro-Hungarian composer Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942) was musically precocious: At the suggestion of AntonÃn Dvorák, he receivedpiano lessons at the age of seven, and at the age of ten became a student at the Prague Conservatory. Further piano studies in Vienna, Cologne and Leipzig as well as composition lessons with Max Reger supplemented his education. His Jewish heritage, which defamed his music as “degenerateâ€, and his sympathy for communism, however, cost him his life. In Prague and finally interned in Wülzburg near Weissenburg in Bavaria, he died of tuberculosis. Schulhoff's musical significance lies in the integration of jazz into art music, for example in his oratorio H.M.S. Royal Oak or in his Hot Sonata for alto saxophone and piano. He earned his living as a jazz pianist for a long time. In August 1922 he wrote four short piano pieces, his Rag Music, to which he added four more phrases in November: released as Partita, also known as Jazz-like Partita - with the fashion dances Ragtime, Foxtrott, Shimmy, Boston and - as No. 7 - a tango. From a piano to a string quartet movement, the arrangement presents itself as a delicate and smart, technically not too difficult sweet, suitable as a diversion or addition in a quartet program.
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SKU: FG.55011-553-8
Jyrki Linjama's second string quartet (2018) is subtitled Allerheiligentag III. The material for the Allerheiligentag cycle is a Finnish folk chorale for All Saints' Day (no. 146 in the Finnish Hymn Book). The first work in the cycle is a string trio (2007), the second a piece for orchestra (2009), and the fourth and fifth are solo works for viola da gamba and violin.The composer tells: The choice of topic and material for the string trio was originally prompted by the venue at which it was to be premiered: the old church on the island of Seili (Sjalo). The bleak history of the island's leper and mental hospital evoked images of suffering and death. I got so attached to the harsh and beautiful melody that it began to generate a whole cycle. The string quartet is in three movements (slow-quick-slow) tensed in different ways by contrasts. The first movement has both swinging softness and cutting sharpness, the Scherzo the wildness of a dance of death and lyricism, and the finale the irrevocability of a funeral march and tender melodiousness.
SKU: PR.114406980
UPC: 680160010806.
Shulamit Ran’s second string quartet, subtitled “Vistas,†occupies a large canvas that is cast in a traditional fourmovement mold, where the outer movements present, explore, and later return to the work’s principal musical materials, surrounding a slow movement and scherzo-type third movement with a trio. In addition to tempo-based titles, the individual movements have subtitles that are evocative of each movement’s character, as follows: I. Concentric: from the inside out II. Stasis III. Flashes IV. Vistas.My second string quartet, “Vistasâ€, is a work cast in a traditional four-movement formal mold, with the outer movements, presenting and later returning to the work’s principal musical materials, surrounding a slow movement and a scherzo-type third movement.While the four movements’ “proper†names -- Maestoso con forza, Lento, Scherzo impetuoso, and Introduzione; Maestoso e grande – give some indication of the general character of the individual movements, I have also subtitled, less formally, each movement as follows: 1) Concentric: from the inside out 2) Stasis 3) Flashes 4) Vista. The images evoked by these titles tell one, I think, a bit more about the inner workings of the quartet.In the first movement, a prominently presented opening pitch (E) reveals itself, as the movement unfolds, to be a center of gravity from which ever-growing cycles of activity gradually evolve. While various important themes come into being as the movement progresses, their impact on the listener has, I believe, a great deal to do with their juxtaposition and relationship to the initial central point of gravity.Stasis is, as the name implies, a movement where activity seems, at times, almost suspended. Being also, as Webster’s Dictionary reminds us, “a state of static balance and equilibrium among opposing tendencies or forces,†it develops various materials, including ones from the first movement, without bringing them to points of resolution.Flashes is short and very fast, evoking in my mind the quick shimmer of fireflies, a “sudden burst of lightâ€, but also a “brief timeâ€. Perhaps, even, a “smileâ€?Finally, the last movement, Vista, is not only “a view or outlookâ€, but also “a comprehensive mental view of a series of remembered or anticipated events.â€Â After a brief recall of the opening of the second movement, this movement brings back all the important themes of the first movement in their original order. But just as going back can never really mean going back in time, the movement is much more than recapitulatory. By cutting through previously transitory passages and presenting the main ideas in a fashion more direct yet more evolved, it also sheds new light on earlier events, offering a retrospective, synoptic view of the first movement as it brings to culmination the work as a whole. “Vistas†was commissioned by C. Geraldine Freund for the Taneyev String Quartet of what was then Leningrad. It was the first commission given in this country to a Soviet chamber ensemble since the 1985 cultural exchange accord between the Soviet Union and the United States.
SKU: PR.14440265S
UPC: 680160027910.
The Second and Third Quartets were conceived at the same time; indeed, their composition intermingled, over half of No. 3 being sketched before No. 2 was completed. Accordingly, they share similar material but, like the intertwining blood of cousins, their natures differ: No. 2 being somewhat acerbic and declamatory, No. 3 more lyric and gentler. An annunicatory 'leaping motive' (derived from a motto generated by my name) opens Quartet No. 2 and inhabits the course of the piece as a cyclical binding-force. A five-note motive, usually very deliberate, also keeps recurring like an insistent caller. All three movements are based on tonal centers (I on B and E, II on D, III on C) and the harmonic 'grammar' spoken tends to recall the jazz world of my youth. To hopefully achieve a certain classical ambience was one of the goals of this piece, and all three movements have traditional forms. The first movement is a modified Sonata-Allegro design, with a severely-truncated recapitulation balanced by a lengthy, and decaying Coda. The second movement is a set of strophic variants and an epilogue interspersed with both solo ritornelli and first-movement material (the motto and the five-note motive) in the nature of a fantasia-like 'call-and-response.' It is dedicated to the memory of the American mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani. The third movement is a modified Rondo (ABACBA) which evolves out of the opening motto. All three movements make much use of canonic stretti, similar gestures, and repetition. For example, the climax of movement III's Rondo throws the first movement back at us again, as if the players were reluctant to let it go, so that the entire piece could perhaps be viewed as a single large, extended, Sonata movement, with introduction and Coda.The Second and Third Quartets were conceived at the same time; indeed, their composition intermingled, over half of No. 3 being sketched before No. 2 was completed. Accordingly, they share similar material but, like the intertwining blood of cousins, their natures differ: No. 2 being somewhat acerbic and declamatory, No. 3 more lyric and gentler.An annunicatory ‘leaping motive’ (derived from a motto generated by my name) opens Quartet No. 2 and inhabits the course of the piece as a cyclical binding-force. A five-note motive, usually very deliberate, also keeps recurring like an insistent caller. All three movements are based on tonal centers (I on B and E, II on D, III on C) and the harmonic ‘grammar’ spoken tends to recall the jazz world of my youth.To hopefully achieve a certain classical ambience was one of the goals of this piece, and all three movements have traditional forms. The first movement is a modified Sonata-Allegro design, with a severely-truncated recapitulation balanced by a lengthy, and decaying Coda. The second movement is a set of strophic variants and an epilogue interspersed with both solo ritornelli and first-movement material (the motto and the five-note motive) in the nature of a fantasia-like ‘call-and-response.’ It is dedicated to the memory of the American mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani. The third movement is a modified Rondo (ABACBA) which evolves out of the opening motto.All three movements make much use of canonic stretti, similar gestures, and repetition. For example, the climax of movement III’s Rondo throws the first movement back at us again, as if the players were reluctant to let it go, so that the entire piece could perhaps be viewed as a single large, extended, Sonata movement, with introduction and Coda.
SKU: HL.50603994
ISBN 9781705164679. UPC: 196288068310. 9.0x12.0 inches.
Quatuor No 2 was first performed by the Tana string quartet on April 14, 2013, at Radio France, Paris. I conceived a piece whose principal subject was going to consist in the description of a minuscule sonic element. The description of this tiny initial material would be so precise, so detailed that, deployed on a much larger scale than its original one, it would occupy the entire duration of the piece. At that point, I just had to choose a sound model as the starting point of the piece, the sound that would best characterize the string instruments themselves: the noisy sound produced by the bow barely coming in contact with one of the strings, getting ready to acquire speed, weight, acceleration, and producing a full sound of a violin, a viola or a cello... -Daniel D'Adamo.
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SKU: HL.51481120
UPC: 196288034773. 9.0x12.0x0.625 inches.
This volume brings together Mozart's youthful attempts at this later so central genre of the string quartet: the astonishing “Lodi Quartet†K. 80 by the only fourteen-year-old composer, the three “Quartet-Divertimenti†K. 136-138 which are also readily played by chamber orchestras, and Mozart's first true string-quartet cycle K. 155-160 which was composed during his third (north-)Italian journey in 1772/73. Mozart's cleanly written scores of all the compositions have been preserved so that the edition stands on a secure foundation. In his informative commentary, Wolf-Dieter Seiffert, the experienced Mozart editor at G. Henle Publishers, devotes a separate, comprehensive explanatory section to the well-known articulation problem “dot or wedge.†The Armida Quartet provided artistic input for this edition.
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SKU: HL.51487120
UPC: 196288034353. 6.75x9.5x0.395 inches.
SKU: BA.TP00932
ISBN 9790006203130. 22.5 x 16.5 cm inches. Key: A minor. Preface: Donat, Misha.
After years of several personal and creative crises, the last two years of Beethoven's life were marked by an irrepressible creative urge that was directed almost exclusively towards the string quartet genre.Of all these late works, it is the Quartet in A minor op. 132 that most impressively addresses the overcoming of the depression of the past years. The middle of the five movements is aCanzona di ringraziamentoentitled:Holy Song of Thanksgiving of a recovered person to the deity in the Lydian key.In this movement a slow introduction is followed by the heading:Feeling renewed strength. Due to the middle movement full ofdivine power, this string quartet is certainly one of Beethoven's most emotional compositions.For this new edition of the Quartet op. 132, Beethoven specialist Jonathan Del Mar consulted the autograph as well as several sets of parts corrected by Beethoven, enabling him to correct countless inconsistencies and unconvincing editorial decisions of previous editions.
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MUSICOLOGICALLY SOUND - A reliable musical text based on all available sources - A description of the sources - Information on the genesis and history of the work - Valuable notes on performance practice - Includes an introduction with critical commentary explaining source discrepancies and editorial decisions ... AND PRACTICAL - Page-turns, fold-out pages, and cues where you need them - A well-presented layout and a user-friendly format - Excellent print quality - Superior paper and binding
