Chamber Music Without Piano

Clarinet Quartet

for four b♭ clarinets


Robert Russell Bennett (composer)

A three-movement work which is clearly influenced by elements of American popular music, particularly big-band swing, but nevertheless keeps itself well within the “classical” camp. It is a delightful piece which requires excellent performers. It is filled with close harmonies and has many technical passages which challenge each of the four players. Bennett's evocation of fife and drum in the final march is both inventive and witty, a description which fits the entire work.$45.95Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase.

String Quartet.



Robert Russell Bennett (composer)

The work was premiered by the Guilet String Quartet on 13 December 1956 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The members of
the Quartet – all-stars of their time – were Daniel Guilet, violin 1, who already was a founding member of the famed Beaux Arts Trio; David Sackson, violin 2, who became an advocate of Henry Cowell’s violin music; Emanuel Vardi, viola, who, simply put, is considered to be one of the greatest violists of the 20th century; and Benar Heifetz, violoncello, principal with the Philadelphia Orchestra and a member of the highly regarded Coolidge String
$49.00Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase.

Water Music

for string quartet



Robert Russell Bennett (composer)

Bennett said that he wrote it one day when he “stayed home from a ball game.” The music is based on the famous Sailors’ Hornpipe, but soon becomes a witty compendium of modernist techniques, though omitting 12-tone. Not very far into the piece, for example, Bennett puts each player in a different key. He fragments and reassembles the tune to dramatic effect well beyond what one would expect from an essentially trivial folk melody. The first concert performance was by the Walden Quartet in 1945 at the Festival of Contemporary Music at Columbia University in New York.$44.75Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase.