Two Little Quartets

Blake Dreaming ‘Goodison Quartet No. 5’ was commissioned by Nicholas and Judith Goodison.First performance on 30th April 2010 at Wigmore Hall London by Roderick Williams (baritone) and the DoricQuartet. Composer's Note   The commission was for a work which “uses the voice as an extra instrument without a text.” In BlakeDreaming I have cheated a little setting a line from “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” albeit incompletely:- The roaring of lions the howling of wolves the raging ofthe stormy sea... are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man. The first section sets the Blake down to “stormy sea” with voice alone and follows this by a “dreaming” upon andaround it for voice and quartet where the baritone has pure vocalise. The second section sets the rest of the sentence again followed by an extended “dreaming” with pure vocalise. The baritone line should be urgentand moody suggesting eventful and disturbing dreaming. I would suggest that he imagine a dramatic outline throughout – even to specific (but unsung!) words and emotions – to ensure as powerful and gripping a dialoguewith the quartet as possible.

All In One for 3 String Quartets was composed by Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen in 2013 (String Quartet No.12 13 and 14 played simultaneously). Gudmundsen-Holmgreen has written a collection of three new string quartets: String Quartet no. 12 ‘Each in Each’; String Quartet no. 13 ‘Mutual Ordering’ and String Quartet no. 14 ‘Well-Tuned Sounds’. Each quartet can be played on its own; they can also played simultaneously in any combination. When all three quartets are played together as they are tonight the combined work is titled All in One. About this collection Gudmundsen-Holmgreenwrites: 'Some years ago Kronos and the vocal group Theatre of Voices performed three new pieces which I had written for the two groups: one for Theatre of Voices (Green) and two for Kronos (New Ground and No Ground). They were played and sung by each group independently – but also both groups together concurrently on top of each other as a final gesture. The combined pieces were called New Ground Green and No Ground Green. 'David liked the idea (and the result) of pairs of quartets that could be played both independently and simultaneously and asked me if the vocal quartet could be transformed into a string quartet. It could not. He then asked me to repeat the whole set-up with a new pair of quartets adding also some percussion instruments as was the case with Green for Theatre of Voices. Of course this was tempting. Furthermore David asked me to make one of the two new quartets a little easier to play. 'I began to work. The Kronos part of the pair of quartets turned out to be tough to play as David puts it. Unfortunately the ‘easier’ one was tough to play also! So I had to write one more which was then a little easier still (but still not easy). 'The three new works can be played separately and on top of each other in many different combinations resulting in different kinds of

Comprised of works from Volumes 1 2 and 3 of the Suzuki Violin School which have been arranged for string quartet by violinist/arranger Joseph Knaus. With lower string parts providing melodic and rhythmic counterpoint to set off the simple melodies (which match the Suzuki Method[R] repertoire) these quartets are nevertheless simple enough for beginning level players ready for their first chamber music experience. String Quartets for Beginning Ensembles are sold in sets including full score and one part book per instrument. Volume 1 contents are: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Theme and Variations (Shinichi Suzuki) * Lightly Row (Folk Song) * Song of the Wind (Folk Song) * Go TellAunt Rhody (Folk Song) * O Come Little Children (Folk Song) * May Song (Folk Song) * Long Long Ago (T.H. Bayly) * Allegro (Shinichi Suzuki) * Etude (Shinichi Suzuki) * Perpetual Motion (Shinichi Suzuki) * Allegretto (Shinichi Suzuki) * Andantino (Shinichi Suzuki) * Gavotte (F.J. Gossec).

String Quartet No.4 by Poul Ruders dating from 2012. Programme Note: It might be of interest for some to note that a gap of only six months separates the writing of my second and third quartets (1979) but a 33 year interval stands between the third and the present piece String Quartet No. 4.Which is in five movements and is about nothing but itself. The first movement 'Adagio - Presto alla breve - Adagio' is an overture of sorts lifting the lid as it were on the odd bit of what happens later on in the other movements.A portal into: The second movement 'Vivo scherzando' which is justthat: a short (2 minutes only) fast and jocular piece leading up to the next movement: 'Adagio sognante' a slow and hushed dream-world paving the way for the pièce de resistance of the entire quartet: 'Presto alla breve' a ferociously fast tour de force for the four players who with that one under their belts can lean back a little (but only a little) and put the whole thing gently to bed in the fifth and final movement: a simple 'Adagio'. Off the record: my first string quartet (1972) has been withdrawn and is no more a fact that renders the numbering of the subsequent quartets a matter of personal conviction. Poul Ruders November 2012

Chaconne. Par LERDAHL FRED. 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/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Par BRYARS GAVIN. “Apart from the ten 5-minute string quartets that I wrote in 1992 as the original version of A Man in a Room, Gambling, there are 8 years between my second and third quartets. Another element which finds its way into the quartet comes from my work with groups from the world of early music, particularly from the experience of writing for a consort of viols …. In several places I ask for little or no vibrato from the strings, occasionally preferring open strings and natural harmonics to stopped notes.”/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes