Indivisible by Four

Indivisible by Four PDF

Author: Arnold Steinhardt

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2000-06-15

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780374527006

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The author tells of his own development as a student, "of how he and his intrepid colleagues were converted to chamber music ... [and of how] four individualists master and then overcome the confining demands of ensemble playing."--Jacket.

Quartet "From My Life"

Quartet

Author: Bedřich Smetana

Publisher: Alfred Music

Published: 1999-08-26

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 9781457477089

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A string quartet, composed by Bedrich Smetana.

The Four and the One

The Four and the One PDF

Author: David Rounds

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13:

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Spotlighting the four women of the Lafayette Quartet, a leading Canadian ensemble, Rounds offers both a comprehensive history of the beloved instrumental form and an inside view of the complex world of professional quartet players, revealing the exultation and heatache that are the performing artists' daily fare. A treat for every music lover, whether player, listener or composer.

Violin Dreams

Violin Dreams PDF

Author: Arnold Steinhardt

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780547086002

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"A rapturous, witty, and passionate memoir ... Violin Dreams is not only the story of a man becoming an artist, it’s a history of twentieth-century music.” -- John Guare, Tony Award-winning playwright Arnold Steinhardt, for more than forty years an international soloist and the first violinist of the Guarneri String Quartet, brings warmth, wit, and fascinating insider details to the story of his lifelong obsession with the violin, that most seductive and stunningly beautiful instrument. His story is rich with vivid scenes: the terror inflicted by his early violin teachers, the sensual pleasure involved in the pursuit of the perfect violin, the charged atmosphere of high-level competitions. Steinhardt describes Bach’s Chaconne as the holy grail for the solo violin, and he illuminates, from the perspective of an ardent owner of a great Storioni violin, the history and mysteries of the renowned Italian violinmakers. Violin Dreams includes a remarkable CD recording of Steinhardt performing Bach’s Partita in D Minor as a young violinist forty years ago and playing the same piece especially for this book. A conversation between the author and Alan Alda on the differences between the two performances is included in the liner notes.

The Lasalle Quartet

The Lasalle Quartet PDF

Author: Robert Spruytenburg

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 1843838354

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The definitive study of the LaSalle Quartet, for forty years the premier exponent of 'the new music' for string quartet. The LaSalle Quartet (1946-1987) was the premier exponent of 'the new music' for string quartet. Founded in 1946 at the Julliard School in New York, it became famous for its performances of works by the Second Viennese School and its commissioning of many new pieces by contemporary post-war composers. As a result, the quartets by Lutoslawski, Ligeti and Nono have since entered the standard repertory, sitting comfortably next to those by Schoenberg, Berg andWebern. The LaSalle Quartet's brilliant advocacy of the quartets by Alexander Zemlinsky resulted in best-selling recordings for Deutsche Grammophon. In an informative and critical dialogue between new and old, the LaSalleQuartet was also an incisive interpreter of the classical quartet repertory; many of its recordings are still in print. Its record as a teaching quartet is equally impressive, numbering among its students at the University of Cincinnati the Alban Berg, Brahms, Prazak, Artis, Buchberger, Ponche and Vogler Quartets. The LaSalle Quartet's founder and first violinist, Walter Levin, is himself a highly influential teacher whose students have included the conductor James Levine and the violinist Christian Tetzlaff, as well as many third-generation string quartets. This book, based on extensive interviews with Walter Levin conducted by Robert Spruytenburg over five years, is in equal measure autobiography, history of the Quartet, reminiscences of the contemporary composers who figured so prominently in its career, and penetrating commentary on the LaSalle Quartet's wide-ranging repertory. All these aspectsare artfully woven into a uniquely valuable, informative and entertaining document of musical life in the twentieth century. ROBERT SPRUYTENBURG lives in Basel. He was introduced to Walter Levin in 1988 and took part inhis chamber music courses. Since 2003, Spruytenburg has been working on the LaSalle Quartet's archives located at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel. He is a frequent contributor to classical music programmes for Swiss radio.

The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet

The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet PDF

Author: Robin Stowell

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-11-13

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 9780521000420

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This Companion offers a concise and authoritative survey of the string quartet by eleven chamber music specialists. Its fifteen carefully structured chapters provide coverage of a stimulating range of perspectives previously unavailable in one volume. It focuses on four main areas: the social and musical background to the quartet's development; the most celebrated ensembles; string quartet playing, including aspects of contemporary and historical performing practice; and the mainstream repertory, including significant 'mixed ensemble' compositions involving string quartet. Various musical and pictorial illustrations and informative appendixes, including a chronology of the most significant works, complete this indispensable guide. Written for all string quartet enthusiasts, this Companion will enrich readers' understanding of the history of the genre, the context and significance of quartets as cultural phenomena, and the musical, technical and interpretative problems of chamber music performance. It will also enhance their experience of listening to quartets in performance and on recordings.

Balthazar

Balthazar PDF

Author: Lawrence Durrell

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2012-06-12

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1453261427

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DIVDIVThe deeply affecting second novel of theAlexandria Quartet, which boldly questions perception and the nature of contemporary love/divDIV /divDIVIn Alexandria, Egypt, in the years before World War II, Durrell’s narrator, Darley, seeks to fully understand his sexual obsession with two women: the infamous Justine, and Melissa, a dancer. In Darley’s conversations with Balthazar, a doctor and mystic, it soon becomes clear that Darley’s fixation is more complex and ominous than either man could have imagined. Layered and unflinching, Balthazar is a poignant examination of the modern psyche, and a study of a world where love can become consumed by deceit. /divDIV /divDIVThis ebook contains a new introduction by Jan Morris./div/div

Quartet in Autumn

Quartet in Autumn PDF

Author: Barbara Pym

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Published: 2015-10-08

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1447289625

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With an introduction by Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. One did not drink sherry before the evening, just as one did not read a novel in the morning. In 1970s London, Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia work in the same office and suffer the same problem – loneliness. Lovingly and with delightful humour, Barbara Pym conducts us through their day-to-day existence: their preoccupations, their irritations, their judgements, and – perhaps most keenly felt – their worries about having somehow missed out on life as post-war Britain shifted around them. Deliciously, blackly funny and full of obstinate optimism, Quartet in Autumn shows Barbara Pym's sensitive artistry at its most sparkling. Its world is both extraordinary and familiar, revealing the eccentricities of everyday life.

Beethoven for a Later Age

Beethoven for a Later Age PDF

Author: Edward Dusinberre

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780571317134

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Using the history of the composition of Beethoven's string quartets as the backbone to his story, Edward Dusinberre - leader of the Takacs Quartet - recounts the life of the Quartet from its inception in Hungary, through emigration to the US and its present-day life of world renown. He also describes what it was like for him, as a young man fresh out of Julliard, to join the quartet as its (non-Hungarian) leader - a challenging task. Beethoven for a Later Age takes the reader inside the life of a quartet, vividly showing how four people make music together over a long period of time without becoming stale, or falling out. The key, the author argues, is in continual change and experiment - and these are at the heart of Beethoven's remarkable compositions for quartet.