The Four and the One

The Four and the One
Author: David Rounds
Publisher:
Total Pages: 222
Release: 1999
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

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.

The Beethoven Quartet Companion

The Beethoven Quartet Companion
Author: Robert Winter
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1994
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780520082113

"Reading The Beethoven Quartet Companion made me want to listen to the quartets again from a new sociological as well as musical perspective. It is an invaluable guide not only for professional and amateur musicians but also for anyone who is curious about culture and wants to find out more."--Yo-Yo Ma "These essays are the most readable, useful, and well-informed commentary available today on these masterworks. Michael Steinberg's 'program notes' to each quartet, directed at once to the musical beginner and to the expert, are as eloquent and persuasive as popular writing about music can get. . . . His essays are followed by equally expert and accessible contributions by other masters on The Master, providing literate music lovers with the context and equipment for a richer enjoyment and clearer understanding of these sixteen unique conversations among two violins, a viola, and a cello."--David Littlejohn, author of The Ultimate Art: Essays Around and About Opera "A fine collection of essays to assist the music lover in the seemingly endless quest to illuminate the Beethoven string quartets."--Arnold Steinhardt, The Guarneri String Quartet "This book delivers on the implied promise of its title--it provides a lively, readable, and wide-ranging introduction to the quartets. Readers at many levels of experience will find it profitable."--Lewis Lockwood, author of Beethoven: Studies in the Creative Process

Indivisible by Four

Indivisible by Four
Author: Arnold Steinhardt
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2000-06-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780374527006

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.

Arranging for Strings

Arranging for Strings
Author: Mimi Rabson
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2018-02-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1540025527

(Berklee Guide). Learn to use strings in your compositions and arrangements! From romantic chord pads to powerful grooves to gut-wrenching passionate melodies, strings do it all. This book presents time-tested techniques and contemporary developments in writing and arranging for strings. You'll learn strategies for authentic writing in many different styles and find ideas to take your personal sound forward. Discover voicings that work best for each project and explore the intricacies of bowing. Hear articulation approaches from pads to chopping in the online audio examples. See how other composers have used strings to heighten the impact of their music in the written examples. Make your work stand out with the drama and depth that well informed string writing can bring. You will learn: * The tunings, range, and timbres for the violin, viola, cello, and bass, including standard instruments and common variations, including acoustic, electric, and synthesized string instruments and sections * Bowing techniques and possibilities * Characteristic articulations and sounds, such as vibrato, pizzicato, sul tasto, trills, tremolos, and harmonics * Timbral and rhythm effects, such as chop technique, ponticello/feedback, portamento, and falls * String-section arranging techniques, such as melody/countermelody, fills, pads, and comping * Stylistic nuances of genres such as American roots, Celtic, jazz, rock, klezmer, eastern European, Gypsy jazz, and swing * Mic, recording, and live sound techniques for capturing the best string sounds for both acoustic and electric instruments

A Quintessential Quartet: The Story of the Lindsay String Quartet

A Quintessential Quartet: The Story of the Lindsay String Quartet
Author: Bernard Gregor-Smith
Publisher: Mirador Publishing
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2019-07-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781913264079

Bernard takes the reader on an evocative and fascinating journey from his early life, detailing his ancestral influences on his chosen career of cellist, until the present day. A charming book full of pathos and humour, which tells the true story of the forming of the world famous Lindsay String Quartet, their adventures, during 40 years of world travel and their achievement of the highest accolades making them one of the most revered quarters of the 20th century. Bernard continues, in his third section, to talk of his introduction to the Alpujarras in the Sierra Mountains of Southern Spain, the area he has chosen to live with his wife Theresa. This book is both engaging and humorous whilst also giving a uniquely personal perspective into the life of one of the world's greatest quartet cellists. A must read for any fan of chamber music and in particular of the famed 'Lindsay String Quartet'.

The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet

The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet
Author: Robin Stowell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 672
Release: 2003-11-13
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1139826549

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.

Quartet in Autumn

Quartet in Autumn
Author: Barbara Pym
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2015-10-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1447289625

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.

The Quartet

The Quartet
Author: Joseph J. Ellis
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2016-05-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 080417248X

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Founding Brothers tells the unexpected story of America’s second great founding and of the men most responsible—Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, John Jay, and James Madison. Ellis explains of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew. These men, with the help of Robert Morris and Gouverneur Morris, shaped the contours of American history by diagnosing the systemic dysfunctions created by the Articles of Confederation, manipulating the political process to force the calling of the Constitutional Convention, conspiring to set the agenda in Philadelphia, orchestrating the debate in the state ratifying conventions, and, finally, drafting the Bill of Rights to assure state compliance with the constitutional settlement, created the new republic. Ellis gives us a dramatic portrait of one of the most crucial and misconstrued periods in American history: the years between the end of the Revolution and the formation of the federal government. The Quartet unmasks a myth, and in its place presents an even more compelling truth—one that lies at the heart of understanding the creation of the United States of America.

The Art of Quartet Playing

The Art of Quartet Playing
Author: David Blum
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 1987
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780801494567

These intelligent conversations will be greeted enthusiastically not only by string players and serious musicians but also by advanced listeners. A musicologist and conductor, Blum knows from experience what crucial questions to ask about the medium and its practice. The members of the Guarneri Quartet discuss their backgrounds, training, cooperative efforts, problems with specific repertoire, and reactions to composers and conductors, as well as such detailed matters as bowing, intonation, vibrato, pizzicato, dynamics and the use of the left hand. Enhanced by hundreds of music examples and a detailed analysis of Beethoven's Opus 131, this is arguably the best book on the subject and one of the most important books on music issued in recent years. Performing Arts Book Club selection.

Beethoven for a Later Age

Beethoven for a Later Age
Author: Edward Dusinberre
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2016-01-19
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0571317154

'They are not for you but for a later age!' Ludwig van Beethoven, on the Opus 59 quartets. Tackling the Beethoven quartets is a rite of passage that has shaped the Takács Quartet's work together for over forty years. Using the history of the composition and first performances of the quartets as the backbone to his story, Edward Dusinberre, first violinist of the Takács since 1993 - recounts the life of the Quartet from its inception in Hungary, through emigration to the US and its present-day life as one of the world's renowned string quartets. He also describes what it was like for him, as a young man fresh out of the Juilliard School, to join the Quartet as its first non-Hungarian member - an exhilarating challenge. Beethoven for a Later Age takes the reader inside the life of a quartet, vividly showing how four people enjoy making music together over a long period of time. The key, the author argues, is in balancing continuity with change and experimentation - a theme that also lies at the heart of Beethoven's remarkable compositions.