SKU: HL.14037707
ISBN 9781849385916. UPC: 884088578626. 8.25x11.75x0.262 inches.
Kevin Volans' String Quartet No. 9: Shiva Dances was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and first performed by the Smith Quartet at the 2004 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.Kevin Volans (the composer) notes on the piece:In the past I have been interested in trying to go beyond historicism (1970s), beyond style(1980s) and beyond form (1990s) in my work. Looking back over the music of the twentiethcentury I was struck by the fact the nearlyall of it is extremely 'busy', almost cluttered. Italmost seemed that composers felt compelled to look industrious. In the new millennium Ithought it would be interesting to try and eliminate content. I also aspired to movingfrommusic (sound as art) to art (art as sound). This, of course, has already been done by a numberof composers (many from New York - Phil Niblock and La Monte Young, to name but two), butit was something I had never tried.AlthoughI found it annoying that the label 'minimalist' was given to my African-based work,and fearing this would make the label stick, I set out to write a piece which reflected my loveof minimal painting and architecture. The Japanesehave a term 'wabi' meaning 'voluntarypoverty' or 'emptiness' to describe their restrained minimal aesthetic, an aesthetic which,however, pays greatest attention to the quality of material and fine detail. I like to think thatthelack of excessive pitch material in this piece reflects a kind of voluntary poverty.When Shiva is portrayed dancing (as Nataraj) He is depicted in a circle of flames crushing asmall figure - the ego - underfoot.You get theimpression He dances on the spot, not movingaround at all. I like that.The piece is dedicated to Pablo Pascual Cilleruelo.
SKU: FG.55011-510-1
ISBN 9790550115101.
Matt hew Whittall's preface to Bright Ferment (2019): I have a complicated history with the string quartet. Actually, it's not that complicated. I spent months writing a huge one in my early twenties and hastily withdrew it after a long delayed premiere, vowing never to write another. In a typical case of karmic retribution, my fear of the form would eventually be overcome by the unrefusable offer to write the compulsory piece for the Banff International String Quartet Competition in my native Canada. The short duration requested, about nine minutes, also felt like a good way to wade gingerly back into the medium. The title was originally just a nice-sounding pair of words that surfaced in a brainstorming session with fellow composer Alex Freeman over an injudicious amount of fermented barley. When I looked it up later, I found that it was a phrase of older coinage, seemingly used more for poetic resonance than any fixed meaning. Ferment by itself denotes a state of confusion, change or lack of order. With bright, it takes on a more positive connotation with regard to society and creativity: a wild profusion of ideas barely checked by reason. (It may not actually mean that, but it describes this piece nicely, so let's go with it.) Fermentation in its trendy culinary usage is also hinted at via a recurrent percolating device of scattered pizzicati. As one may guess from the tone of this introduction, there is little attempt at gravity in Bright Ferment, the only means by which I felt I could sidestep the historical and expressive weight of the string quartet genre. Styles, gestures and moods are tossed around, cross-cut and abandoned in stream-of-consciousness fashion, connected by little except an intuitive sense of rightness in their juxtaposition. If the piece acquires depth in spite of me, it will only be because its disparate parts amplify and strengthen each other simply by being together - much like the ensemble itself. Bright Ferment was commissioned by the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with additional funding from the Americas Society (New York), for the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition. Duration: ca. 9 minutes.
SKU: BR.KM-266
The Breitkopf Originals serie s opens up a fascinating view into the Breitkopf & Hartel publishing-house archives. The focus is on its rarities and treasures, together with milestones in the history of interpretation for works of the. Classical; Romantic. Score. 224 pages. Breitkopf and Haertel #KM 266. Published by Breitkopf and Haertel (BR.KM-266).
ISBN 9790004504901. 10 x 12.5 inches.
The editor, Engelbert Rontgen, writes in his foreword:Following a commission by the gentlemen Breitkopf & Hartel in Leipzig to produce a complete edition of Beethoven's string quartets supplied with bowing marks and fingerings, I undertook this task on the basis of the critical complete edition of these quartets, published in 1862. First of all, it seemed necessary to change the original slurring in some places to suit the bowing technique, with regard to performing and expression.In the quartets from Beethoven's early period, the performing marks often lack the accuracy and completeness that is required for an exact interplay, whereas they are given in the quartets of his later period almost everywhere with the greatest detail and precision, . Furthermore, the before mentioned scores contain a number of mistakes, which in all likelihood may have crept into the manuscripts as writing mistakes.I have therefore endeavored to carefully add the missing performing marks, as well as to correct the incorrect notes, without, however, claiming to have done everything that is questionable.Breitkopf Originals invite you to take a fresh look at 19th-century reception history.The music is printed clearly and in a larger than usual size.(Rebekah Smith, AUSTA Stringendo)The Breitkopf Originals series opens up a fascinating view into the Breitkopf & Hartel publishing-house archives. The focus is on its rarities and treasures, together with milestones in the history of interpretation for works of the Classical and Romantic repertoire, presented by the most prominent artists of their time.
SKU: HL.14023668
ISBN 9780711932975. 9.0x12.0x0.095 inches.
String Quartet No.3 was written for, and first performed by the Balanescu Quartet, February 1990 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Duration 16 minutes. Instrumental parts are available on sale. Quoting composer: In the summer of 1989 I composed a choral work, Out of the Ruins, for Agnieszka Piotrowska's BBC2 documentary which dealt with the physical and emotional responses of some inhabitants of Leninakhan to the earthquake which devastated Armenia the previous December. When he heard the recording of the work that I made with the Holy Echmiadzin Chorus under the fervent conducting of Khoren Meykhanejian, Alex Balanescu suggested turning Out of the Ruins into a string quartet. There seemed no reason or opportunity to do this until I felt the need to add to the intensity of my experiences in Armenia the no less profound experience of witnessing the images of the Romanian revolution on television during the later part of December 1989. The compositional procedure was as follows: to take Out of the Ruins as a template on which the Romanian vocal or instrumental music would be superimposed, quite often stretched into new intervallic shapes though the demands of the completely performed harmonic structure.
SKU: HL.14030965
ISBN 9788759861448. English.
Version for String Quartet. Score available: KP00510 The composer writes: 'In February 1987 I saw in the Tate Gallery in London a painting by the Victorian English painter John William Waterhouse. The painting kept haunting my memory, and as I at the same time planned to write a piece for solo viola, my ideas for the music and the memory of the painting fused more and more. I decided, then, to let my piece borrow the title of Waterhouse's paint-ing: 'The Lady of Shalott'. The picture of a mad-like, pale, and perhaps singing woman alone in a boat without sculls, which calmly slips out from the rush growth of the river is an illustration for the ending of Alfred Tennyson's poem by the same title, which again plaits into the old English legends about King Arthur. My piece tries to meander - like the river at Camelot - among these sources. As suggested above the piece was originally written for viola solo. The version for string quartet is from 1993.'.
SKU: HL.14030964
ISBN 9788759861455. English.
The Composer writes: 'In February 1987 I saw in the Tate Gallery in London a painting by the Victorian English painter John William Waterhouse. The painting kept haunting my memory, and as I at the same time planned to write a piece for solo Viola, my ideas for the music and the memory of the painting fused more and more. I decided, then, to let my piece borrow the title of Waterhouse's painting: The Lady Of Shalott. The picture of a mad-like, pale, and perhaps singing woman alone in a boat without sculls, which calmly slips out from the rush growth of the river is an illustration for the ending of Alfred Tennyson's poem by the same title, which again plaits into the old English legends about King Arthur. My piece tries to meander - like the river at Camelot - among these sources.' As suggested above the piece was originally written for Viola solo. This version for String Quartet is from 1993.
