In music, a quartet or quartette is an ensemble of four singers or instrumental performers; or a musical composition for four voices or instruments.
Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for numerous film scores, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano. He has written a number of operas, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat; Letters, Riddles and Writs; Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs; Facing Goya; Man and Boy: Dada; Love Counts; and Sparkie: Cage and Beyond. He has written six concerti, five string quartets, and many other chamber works, many for his Michael Nyman Band. He is also a performing pianist. Nyman prefers to write opera over other forms of music.
Grażyna Bacewicz was a Polish composer and violinist. She is the second Polish female composer to have achieved national and international recognition, the first being Maria Szymanowska in the early 19th century.
André George(s) Louis Onslow was a French composer of English descent. His wealth, position and personal tastes allowed him to pursue a path unfamiliar to most of his French contemporaries, more similar to that of his contemporary German romantic composers; his music also had a strong following in Germany and in England. His principal output was chamber music, but he also wrote four symphonies and four operas. Esteemed by many of the critics of his time, his reputation declined swiftly after his death and has only been revived in recent years.
Robert Casadesus was a renowned 20th-century French pianist and composer. He was the most prominent member of a distinguished musical family, being the nephew of Henri Casadesus and Marius Casadesus, husband of Gaby Casadesus, and father of Jean Casadesus. The preferred pronunciation of his last name is "Kah-zah-deh-su" with a silent final "s." Per live interview ca. 1970 of Robert Casadesus by announcer Bill Agee of KKHI-AM-FM San Francisco during a live San Francisco Symphony concert, Mr. Casadesus indicated that he pronounced his name as it is pronounced in Spanish, Kah-sah-deh'sus, final s pronounced.
Gideon Freudmann, is a composer, performer and cello innovator coined the term CelloBop to describe his music. His solo performances often include improvisation and the use of technology to sample, loop and layer tracks in real time to create music that is complex, nuanced, creative and compelling.
The Kolisch Quartet was a string quartet musical ensemble founded in Vienna, originally as the New Vienna String Quartet for the performance of Schoenberg's works, and settling to the form in which it was later known. It had a worldwide reputation and made several recordings. The quartet disbanded in the United States during the early 1940s.
The Capet String Quartet was a French musical ensemble founded in 1893, which remained in existence until 1928 or later. It made a number of recordings and was considered one of the leading string quartets of its time.
Georges Elbert Migot was a prolific French composer. Though primarily known as a composer, he was also a poet, often integrating his poetry into his compositions, and an accomplished painter. He won the 1921 Prix Blumenthal.
The Krettly Quartet was a French string quartet musical ensemble active during the 1920s and 1930s. Its repertoire included avant-garde and modern works, and the group made early recordings of some of these.
Alan Shulman was an American composer and cellist. He wrote a considerable amount of symphonic music, chamber music, and jazz music. Trumpeter Eddie Bailey said, "Alan had the greatest ear of any musician I ever came across. He had better than perfect pitch. I've simply never met anyone like him." Some of his more well known works include his 1940 Neo-Classical Theme and Variations for Viola and Piano and his A Laurentian Overture, which was premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1952 under the baton of Guido Cantelli. Also of note is his 1948 Concerto for Cello and Orchestra which was also premiered by the New York Philharmonic with cellist Leonard Rose and conductor Dmitri Mitropoulos. Many of Shulman's works have been recorded, and the violinist Jascha Heifetz and jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw have been particular exponents of his work both in performance and on recordings.
The Loewenguth Quartet was a string quartet music ensemble led by the French violinist Alfred Loewenguth. It was particularly famous for performances of classical repertoire such as Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn quartets, and was active from the 1930s to the 1970s.
The Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra is an ensemble of composers and musicians based in St. Louis, Missouri. The ensemble composes and performs original scores to accompany films of the Silent Era, and composes and records soundtrack music for contemporary films.
Serge Collot was a French violist and music educator.
Maria Louise Newman is an American composer of classical music, violist and pianist. She is the youngest child of Alfred Newman, a major Hollywood film composer. Maria holds the Louis and Annette Kaufman Composition Chair; and the Joachim Chassman Violin Chair at the Montgomery Arts House for Music and Architecture in Malibu, California, and is a founder of the Malibu Friends of Music. Her library of original works represents a range of genres, from large-scale orchestral works, works for the ballet, chamber works, choral and vocal works, to new collaborative scores for vintage silent film. She has been presented with many awards and commissions, including musical commendations from the United States Congress (2009), the California State Senate (2009), the California State Assembly (2009), the City of Malibu (2010), and the Annenberg Foundation (2011).
Edward Swan Hennessy was an Irish-American composer and pianist who lived much of his life in Paris. In his pre-War piano music, he excelled as a miniaturist in descriptive, programmatic music. After joining a group of Breton composers, he developed a reputation as a "Celtic" composer, drawing on his Irish heritage, writing in a style that was unique in a French as well as an Irish context. Even though he has been almost forgotten after 1950, his music was applauded by contemporary French music critics including Henri Collet, Louis Vuillemin, Émile Vuillermoz and Lucien Chevaillier. In some works, he used jazz elements and took inspiration from funfairs and industrial noise, anticipating trends associated with the group of "Les Six".
Six sonatas for various instruments, composed by Claude Debussy, French musician was a projected cycle of sonatas that was interrupted by the composer's death in 1918, after he had composed only half of the projected sonatas. He left behind his sonatas for cello and piano (1915), flute, viola and harp (1915), and violin and piano (1916–1917).
Baudime Jam is a French violist, composer and musicologist.
The String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 22, No. 1, is a chamber music work by the Romanian violinist and composer George Enescu, composed between 1916 and 1920. A performance of it lasts about 45 minutes.
Pierre Georges Cornil Jansen was a French film scores composer. He was in particular the permanent collaborator of Claude Chabrol for whom he composed the music for many films.
