SKU: HL.49045639
ISBN 9781540004796. UPC: 888680710774. 9.5x12.0x0.37 inches.
Chaconne (2016), for string quartet, was commissioned by the Daedalus Quartet to celebrate its 15th anniversary. The commission was supported by New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Helen F. Whitaker Fund, and Aaron Copland Fund for Music.My music has a substantial history with Daedalus. I composed the Third String Quartet (2008) for them, and subsequently they performed my three string quartets on several occasions and recorded them brilliantly on Bridge Records (Bridge 9352: Music of Fred Lerdahl, vol. 3). Chaconne is in one movement lasting 19 minutes. It is effectively my fourth string quartet. Quartets 1-3 form a unified cycle lasting 70 minutes. When I finished the cycle, I thought I would never write again for the medium; yet I could not resist the opportunity of working again with Daedalus. The issue was how to compose another string quartet unrelated to the earlier cycle. The solution came from my solo cello piece There and Back Again (2010), which was based on a four-bar variation pattern from a 17th-century chaconne. Unlike the asymmetrical phrases and expanding variations of much of my music, the chaconne form requires symmetrical phrases and strictly periodic variations. I wished to work again with these symmetries but on a larger scale. Chaconne also differs in character and expression from the three-quartet cycle. The cycle is inward and intense, a kind of psychological excavation. Chaconne is, for the most part, transparent and playful. Many of its textures emerge from little canons, not completely unlike the rounds that children sing. Any composer who writes in chaconne form (one thinks above all of the last movement of Bach's D minor violin partita and the finale of Brahms's Fourth Symphony) is confronted with the challenge of how to create a larger form out of a constantly repeating pattern.My Chaconne grows from paired antecedent-consequent phrases, each variation lasting eight bars. The 50 variations group into three large rotations, forming three arcs of tension and relaxation, with subtle parallel connections across the rotations. Notwithstanding my attraction to chaconne form, I purposefully disguised its symmetries and periodicities in order to build an overall dramatic shape. Fred Lerdahl.
SKU: BT.DHP-1064034-070
ISBN 9789043124720. 9x12 inches. English-German-French-Dut ch.
Traditionally a string quartet will not readily take on pop music. But times are changing and the classic quartet line-up proves suitable for beautiful arrangements of contemporary songs as well. This book features three hits from past decades, The Rose (Bette Midler) with its simple, pure sounds and underlying harmonies, La Solitudine (Laura Pausini) - compelling and with a hidden energy and finally Wonderwall (Oasis), an unexpected choice, with its persistent rhythmic background. To allow the string quartet to play together with optional guitar or keyboard, chord symbols have been added in the score. These songs - which certainly have a passionate andromantic ring to them - are ideal for receptions, weddings and other festive occasions. (Position 1-5) Drie bekende songs in geslaagde bewerkingen voor strijkkwartet: Pop Ballads for String Quartet bewijst dat het kan. Om het strijkkwartet de mogelijkheid te bieden samen te spelen met gitaar of keyboards zijn akkoordsymbolentoegevoegd in de partituur. Deze songs vol passie en romantiek zijn ideaal voor het opluisteren van recepties, bruiloften en andere feestelijke gelegenheden. (Position 1-5)Ein Buch für alle Streicher, die anstatt der klassischen Literatur für Streichquartett auch einmal etwas ganz Modernes, Unterhaltsames spielen wollen. Hans Aerts und Gunter Van Rompaey bearbeiteten für diese Ausgabe drei bekannte Pop- Titel für zwei Violinen, Viola und Cello. Akkordsymbole für eine Begleitung von Keyboard oder Gitarre sind ebenfalls enthalten.(Position 1-5) Ce recueil contient trois succès des dernières décennies : The Rose, avec ses sonorités simples et épurées et ses harmonies demi cachées ; La Solitudine, l‘énergie dissimulée et enfin Wonderwall, un choix inattendu dont le tapis sonore est continuellement rythmé. Des symboles d’accords ont été ajoutés sur la partition afin de permettre au quatuor cordes de se faire accompagner d’une guitare ou clavier (partie optionnelle). (Position 1-5)Questa pubblicazione permetter ai giovani musicisti di cominciare a suonare in gruppo. Il quartetto d’archi è da sempre la formazione per eccellenza, equilibrata e potente nell’espressione. Anche la musica in stile pop, arrangiata per l’occasione da Hans Aerts, si adatta a questo tipo di organico. L’importante è saper ascoltare la parte degli altri per inserire il proprio ritmo nell’insieme. (Position 1-5).
SKU: PR.114406980
UPC: 680160010806.
Shula mit 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€?Final ly, 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. “Vistasâ € 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.16400272S
UPC: 680160588442. 8.5 x 11 inches.
My third quartet is laid out in a three-movement structure, with each movement based on an early, middle, and late work of the great American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. Although the movements are separate, with full-stop endings, the music is connected by a common scale-form, derived from the name MARY CASSATT, and by a recurring theme that introduces all three movements. I see this theme as Mary's Theme, a personality that stays intact while undergoing gradual change. I The Bacchante (1876) [Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] The painting shows a young girl of Italian or Spanish origin, playing a small pair of cymbals. Since Cassatt was trying very hard to fit in at the French Academy at the time, she painted a lot of these subjects, which were considered typical and universal. The style of the painting doesn't yet show Cassatt's originality, except perhaps for certain details in the face. Accordingly the music for this movement is Spanish/Italian, in a similar period-style but using the musical signature described above. The music begins with Mary's Theme, ruminative and slow, then abruptly changes to an alla Spagnola-type fast 3/4 - 6/8 meter. It evokes the Spanish-influenced music of Ravel and Falla. Midway through, there's an accompanied recitative for the viola, which figures large in this particular movement, then back to a truncated recapitulation of the fast music. The overall feeling is of a well-made, rather conventional movement in a contemporary Spanish/Italian style. Cassatt's painting, too, is rather conventional. II At the Opera (1880) [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts] This painting is one of Cassatt's most well known works, and it hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The painting shows a woman alone in a box at the opera house, completely dressed (including gloves) and looking through opera glasses at someone or something that is NOT on the stage. Across the auditorium from her, but exactly at eye level, is a gentleman with opera glasses intently watching her - though it is not him that she's looking at. It's an intriguing picture. This movement is far less conventional than the first movement, as the painting is far less conventional. The music begins with a rapid, Shostakovich-type mini-overture lasting less than a minute, based on Mary's Theme. My conjecture is that the woman in the painting has arrived late to the opera, busily stumbling into her box. What happens next is a kind of collage, a kind of surrealistic overlaying of two different elements: the foreground music, at first is a direct quotation of Soldier's Chorus from Gounod's FAUST (an opera Cassatt would certainly have heard in the brand-new Paris Opera House at that time), played by Violin II, Viola, and Cello. This music is played sul ponticello in the melody and col legno in the marching accompaniment. On top of this, the first violin hovers at first on a high harmonic, then descends into a slow melody, completely separate from the Gounod. It's as if the woman in the painting is hearing the opera onstage but is not really interested in it. Then the cello joins the first violin in a kind of love-duet (just the two of them, at first). This music isn't at all Gounod-derived; it's entirely from the same scale patterns as the first movement and derives from Mary's Theme and its scale. The music stays in a kind of dichotomy feeling, usually three-against-one, until the end of the movement, when another Gounod melody, Valentin's aria Avant de quitter ce lieux reappears in a kind of coda for all four players. It ends atmospherically and emotionally disconnected, however. The overall feeling is a kind of schizophrenic, opera-inspired dream. III Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun (1909) [Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts] The painting, one of Cassatt's last, is very simple: just a figure, looking sideways out of the picture. The colors are pastel and yet bold - and the woman is likewise very self-assured and not in the least demure. It is eight minutes long, and is all about melody - three melodies, to be exact (Young Woman, Green, and Sunlight). No angst, no choppy rhythms, just ever-unfolding melody and lush harmonies. I quote one other French composer here, too: Debussy's song Green, from Ariettes Oubliees. 1909 would have been Debussy's heyday in Paris, and it makes perfect sense musically as well as visually to do this. Mary Cassatt lived her last several years in near-total blindness, and as she lost visual acuity, her work became less sharply defined - something akin to late water lilies of Monet, who suffered similar vision loss. My idea of making this movement entirely melodic was compounded by having each of the three melodies appear twice, once in a pure form, and the second time in a more diffuse setting. This makes an interesting two ways form: A-B-C-A1-B1-C1. String Quartet No.3 (Cassatt) is dedicated, with great affection and respect, to the Cassatt String Quartet, whose members have dedicated themselves in large measure to the furthering of the contemporary repertoire for quartet.
SKU: PR.164002720
UPC: 680160573042. 8.5 x 11 inches.
SKU: AP.36-52703617
UPC: 735816385521. English.
This humorous little vignette for string quartet was composed in 1979 and was originally intended to be published by Piedmont Music, the ASCAP division of EB Marks Classical. For reasons unknown, however, it remained in manuscript form until 2021, when a copy of the composer's autograph parts was discovered in the archives of a completely different Alan Shulman piece. This newly engraved Latham Music edition therefore represents the first publication of Shulman's delightful work, as well as the first full score. As the title suggests, this is a medium-slow rag, or cakewalk in a loose AABA form. The bluesy and graceful main melody is introduced by the first violin in a call and response exchange with the rest of the ensemble. The restatement of the primary theme is led by the second violin, with the entire ensemble playing pizzicato, having the effect of playful mockery. In the B section, the first violin earnestly reasserts the stately grace from the opening however, the cello is clearly becoming restless and decides to take over the lead just before the final reprise. The lighthearted ending again has the first violin doing its best to bring the tune to a refined conclusion, but the rest of the group still has mischief in mind. After a couple moments of seeming confusion, the ensemble regroups at last and plays the final riff with resolute emphasis. If you're looking to add a light moment to a recital program, or looking for a short, medium level contest piece that players and audiences alike will enjoy, this little miniature is an ideal choice!
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