A string orchestra is an orchestra consisting solely of a string section made up of the bowed strings used in Western Classical music. The instruments of such an orchestra are most often the following: the violin, which is divided into first and second violin players, the viola, the cello, and usually, but not always, the double bass.
Boris Blacher was a German composer and librettist.
Arnold Atkinson Cooke was a British composer, a pupil of Paul Hindemith. He wrote a considerable amount of chamber music, including five string quartets and many instrumental sonatas, much of which is only now becoming accessible through modern recordings. Cooke also composed two operas, six symphonies and several concertos.
Walter Sinclair Hartley was an American composer of contemporary classical music.
Osvaldas Jonas Balakauskas is a Lithuanian composer of classical music and diplomat.
Dmitri Nikolaevich Smirnov was a Russian-British composer and academic teacher, who also published as Dmitri N. Smirnov and D. Smirnov-Sadovsky. He wrote operas, symphonies, string quartets and other chamber music, and vocal music from song to oratorio. Many of his works were inspired by the art of William Blake.
Stefans Grové was a South African composer. Before his death the following assessment was made of him: "He is regarded by many as Africa's greatest living composer, possesses one of the most distinctive compositional voices of our time".
Zdeněk Lukáš was a Czech composer. He authored over 330 works.
Michael Alec Rose composes chamber and symphonic music. He is Professor of Composition at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. His awards and commissions include the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s chamber music commission, for which he composed his String Quartet No. 2, premiered by the Meliora Quartet at Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress; a commission from the International Spoleto Festival for a violin-cello duo; twenty-five consecutive annual awards in composition from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, 1986–2010; string quartet commissions from the Blair and Mendelssohn Quartets; and three commissioned performances by the Nashville Symphony, including Symphony No. 1—Paths of Peace (2000).
Matthew Taylor is an English composer and conductor.
Alexander Mikhailovich Raskatov is a Russian composer.
Arnold Rosner was an American composer of classical music.
The Concerto Grosso No. 1 was the first of six concerti grossi by Soviet composer Alfred Schnittke. It was written in 1976–1977 at the request of Gidon Kremer and Tatiana Grindenko who were also the violin soloists at its premiere on 21 March 1977 in Leningrad together with Yuri Smirnov on keyboard instruments and the Leningrad Chamber Orchestra under Eri Klas. It is one of the best-known of Schnittke's polystylistic compositions and marked his break-through in the West.
