Music for Violoncello
 | 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. | $49.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Water Music | 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. | $44.75 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Three Chaucer Songs | 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. | $35.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Five Improvisations on Exotic Scales | Composed for the Sagul Trio, which premiered music by several mid-20th century composers. It was played by them on 14 February at Town Hall, New York City, as part of radio station WNYC’s 1947 American Music Festival. The use of unusual scales was probably rooted in Bennett’s study of the Greek modes with Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) twenty years earlier. Each movement is preceded by an intonation or statement of its “exotic” scale. | $44.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |
 | Sonata for Violoncello and PianoPaul Mack Somers (composer) | Commissioned by Ellen Zoe Hassman in 2008. I had long known that her long soaring lines were rightly her pride and joy, so I made sure to give her passages where she could show off that special attribute. Other ’cellists have since taken up the piece, one even excerpting the lyric slow movement as a standalone solo. | $45.00 | Click Here For More Details Or To Purchase. |