Music for Violin

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 Quartet.$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.

Three Chaucer Songs

for soprano & string quartet



Robert Russell Bennett (composer)

For the music director of His Majesty's Theatre in London, Bennett chose to set the three poems of Merciless Beauty, ascribed to Geoffrey Chaucer, of Canterbury Tales fame. Bennett intended the work "for women's voice or voices" with string quartet. Bennett concurrently prepared a voice and piano version.$35.00Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase.