String Quintets

This String Quintet (with two Violas or three Violins) was composed in 1799. It is tuneful and straightforward and suitable for players who are not yet at the standard required to play the Mozart Dvorak or Brahms quintets with two Violas. This edition has the advantage of having a third Violin part included if two Viola players are not available. Johann Michael Haydn was the younger brother of his much more famous older brother Franz Joseph commonly regarded as the 'father' of the classical String Quartet format.

Revisiting The Don is a piece of music composed by Michael Nyman for the album 'Mozart 252', a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. Revisiting The Don is one of the two newly-composed works on this album and is arranged here as parts for String Quintet. Nyman himself states that 'as the title suggests, I revisit the same harmonic material that makes 'In Re Don Giovanni' so powerful, and come up with more lyrical 'solutions'.' The result is a wonderful piece, beginning with a smooth staccato that lays the foundations for wonderful lilting melodies. The piece gradually progresses to widen out the warm strings, making this piece a real joy to play. / Quintette A Cordes

This edition of Onslow's fifteenth String Quintet has the advantage of being either a two Viola or a two Cello quintet as it is published with parts for two cellists or two violists. It is a major work with good parts for all players with the 1st Violin part having a particularly large numbers of fast semi quavers (sixteenths) in the outer movements.It is known as 'The Bullet' due to the circumstances of its composition: Onslow was boar hunting in the Auvergne when a theme occurred to him. He dismounted and sat on a nearby fallen tree trunk and wrote it down. A boar then burst from the bushes and his companions fired missing the boar and hitting Onslow.The quintet was completed on his recovery and graphically illustrates his sufferings. George Onslow an Anglo-French composer was born in Clermont-Ferrand in July 1784 and died there in October 1853.

This is a String Quintet (a single slow movement lasting about seven minutes) with two Cellos with the added flexibility of a Clarinet part to replace the Viola part and a Double Bass part to replace one Cello part. It is lyrical and straightforward to play.Frank Martin was born in 1890 in Geneva Switzerland the youngest of ten children and died in his adopted country The Netherlands in 1974.

This String Quartet along with other chamber works by Onslow is worthy of serious study alongside works of other composers of the period such as Beethoven. It has a lively and tuneful first movement a beautiful theme and variations (including a florid variation with an exciting part for 1st Violin) a pretty minuet and trio and a rousing final movement. All instruments have interesting parts.George Onslow an Anglo-French composer was born in Clermont-Ferrand in July 1784 and died there in October 1853. Three of his String Quintets and his Piano quintet are also published by SJ Music (Q1993-5 Q1991-1 Q1993-4 and Q2005-2).