# Music by Genre > Orchestral, Classical, Italian, Medieval, Renaissance >  Music for Quartet

## bohemianbiker

Four of us from our mandolin orchestra play in a quartet together.  I play guitar (classical) and the others all play mandolin, although one guy is considering moving to mandola for our quartet.  

One of our challenges is getting sheet music with 4 parts.  In fact, I don't think we have any music with 4 parts.  Some of our music is just 2 parts, with one part being the chords written in at the top (eg, "Am" or "G7" with no written notes).  This is kind of boring to play as written (particular for the guitar), and we try to find ways to jazz it up.  For some songs we do have 3 parts (2 for the mandos, plus chords), which is somewhat better, but not as good as it could be.  On only a few songs do we have any notes written for the guitar.  

The music in the thread found at the link below is great, although in a perfect world we are looking for four distinct parts (ie, the guitar has something more challenging than just fake book chords).  Does anyone have suggestions about where we might find such sheet music?  One suggestion was the Classical Mandolin Society of America, altho I'm assuming that their music would have more than 4 parts (but would love to be wrong).  Any other ideas?  Thanks for any suggestions.  bb

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...tunes-for-2015

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## ukrobbiej

You could do what I did and start arranging things yourselves.  With some practice you should find you are able to write parts that suit each member of the group.

Inspired by the pieces by Evelyn that you linked to in your post, I have actually become quite addicted to arranging different tunes, you could too if you give it a try  :Smile: 

Robbie

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bohemianbiker

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## margora

"Four of us from our mandolin orchestra play in a quartet together. I play guitar (classical) and the others all play mandolin, although one guy is considering moving to mandola for our quartet ... Does anyone have suggestions about where we might find such sheet music? One suggestion was the Classical Mandolin Society of America, altho I'm assuming that their music would have more than 4 parts (but would love to be wrong). Any other ideas? Thanks for any suggestions."

There is a very large literature for mandolin quartet.  There are two types of quartets -- "classical" and "romantic".  Classical quartets emulate string quartets -- M1, M2, alto mandola (CGDA), and mandocello (or liuto cantabile).  A "romantic quartet" consists of M1, M2, European mandola (GDAE, or what we call octave mandolin in the US), and classical guitar.   Assuming one of your mandolin players switches to octave mandolin, then you have a romantic quartet.

There are roughly 20-odd pieces by Calace for romantic quartet, all freely available.   Munier wrote three quartets that are standard repertoire (for such ensembles), and which exist in versions for romantic quartet or classical quartet.  There are several quartets by Herman Ambrosius that also qualify as standard repertoire; these are available from www.trekel.de, along with much else.

In addition, almost anything written for 5-part mandolin ensembles -- M1, M2, Octave Mandolin, Guitar, Bass -- can be reduced to a romantic quartet configuration because the bass line will generally be doubled in the guitar part.

If you wish to stay as a quartet of 3 mandolins plus guitar, the available literature is much smaller (you could, perhaps, assign one of the mandolins to the octave mandolin part because it will be written in treble clef, but the register would be wrong).

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bohemianbiker

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## Martin Jonas

> Four of us from our mandolin orchestra play in a quartet together.  I play guitar (classical) and the others all play mandolin, although one guy is considering moving to mandola for our quartet.  
> 
> One of our challenges is getting sheet music with 4 parts.  In fact, I don't think we have any music with 4 parts.


There is a vast amount of music out there arranged for "quartetto romantico" (two mandolins, octave mandolin and guitar), some copyrighted and some in the public domain.  I have posted a fair few of my own recordings of such pieces here on the Cafe, including the scores where they are in the public domain (or from our own ensemble, where we generally use quartetto romantico arrangements).

Here are a few scores with four parts, including full guitar, i have posted in the past:

Dvořák: Largo

Chopin: Rêverie de la Marche funèbre

 Mendelssohn: Lied ohne Worte (Op. 102, No. 6)

Nocturne No. 2 (Jean Vogt, 1853)

Whispering Hope

In addition, check arrangements posted here by Andy Boden, and drop a PM to Victor Kioulaphides who has many beautiful arrangements and original pieces for that line-up which he has made freely available.  I particular recommend his mandolin quartet arrangements of Baroque keyboard pieces by Scarlatti and Sweelinck, and his Ionian Mandolinata.  

If you can make you own guitar parts from chords, there are very many great arrangements for three parts plus guitar chords.  You have already linked Evelyn's free "Winter" gig book -- also check out her very much more comprehensive new ebook on Amazon (Link).  There are also several sites with huge numbers of arrangements in this format, many of which I have recorded and linked here on the Cafe and on my Youtube channel.

With a little bit of flexibility, you can find literally thousands of great arrangements online that will adapt to your line-up just fine.

I generally find my problem is not that there aren't enough pieces for a quartet line-up, but that there are far too many that I want to try out either for my home recordings or with our ensemble -- I just wished I was a good enough player to actually manage a credible effort on all the great arrangements out there!

Martin

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Andy Boden, 

bohemianbiker, 

Phil Vinyard

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## demotlj

This is why I read the forum -- the suggestions everyone made are extremely helpful and I just ordered Evelyn's book.  I can't wait to try it out.  I will also second the recommendation of Andy Boden, and Victor Kioulaphides who have done some very accessible and beautiful arrangements.

I too, have a quartet but it consists of a soprano recorder, two mandolins, and an acoustic guitar player who only does chords.  I have found lots of ensemble music that I can rewrite for the recorder and mandolins but adding the guitar chords has been an ordeal.  Most ensemble music isn't really designed for chordal accompaniment and I've often wished that my guitar player was a classical player who could read music, though as bb has noted, there still isn't a lot of ensemble music that includes any guitar.  

For those interested, I primarily use Notion to do arrangements.  If there is a midi I can download, I can import it directly into Notion.  If I only have the sheet music, I scan it to a pdf and import it into SmartScore which can convert it to midis or xmls which I can open in Notion.  (SmartScore will also allow you to arrange music but I find Notion easier to use especially because they have an iPad app as well.)  I have to occasionally transpose the music to get it into a range that my players can manage, and sometimes I've taken 5 or 6 part ensemble pieces and copied and pasted parts into a 4 part arrangement.  (The composers are primarily turning over in their graves when I do that.)  Like Robbie said, it can be really addictive!  It makes me wish I was retired so I could spend all of my time messing with music.

When I'm looking for music, I'll try to watch for 4 part ensemble pieces that include a classical guitar part and if I see any, I'll pass it along.

Laurie

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bohemianbiker

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## margora

"I've often wished that my guitar player was a classical player who could read music, though as bb has noted, there still isn't a lot of ensemble music that includes any guitar. "

This is simply incorrect.  Please re-read my post as well as Martin's.   There is a vast amount of relevant ensemble music with classical guitar parts.   One could spend $1,000s alone at www.trekel.de if so inclined.

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## bohemianbiker

Thanks everyone; this is just what I'm looking for.  Since our quartet is not yet a huge money-making machine   :Wink:    (we've done some freebies, but tomorrow we have our first paid gig) I will probably start with the pieces in the public domain.  I very much appreciate the help!  bb

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## August Watters

Bob Margora is correct, of course, but there are also entire categories of mandolin-guitar music not yet mentioned: for example you could spend the rest of your days exploring the "ballo liscio" popular repertoire -- commonly scored for two mandolins and classical guitar. Forum member Sheri has complied a wealth of old music, here:
http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...t=ballo+liscio

In addition to other sources mentioned, Jim Garber and John Goodin both have good collections of ensemble music, much of it with guitar. 

It's true that most of this music is not (yet) well-known in the general mandolin scene, which in the USA tends to be out of touch with  America's first wave of mandolin popularity in the late 1800s. Most of this music was never recorded, and forgotten in early 20th century. More reasons why it's a great time to be a mandolinist!

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bohemianbiker, 

DavidKOS

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## demotlj

Sorry, Bob is correct -- there is a lot of guitar music for some periods. My group plays Renaissance music and occasionally Baroque and in those periods I find less music that includes guitar. That qualifier was in my mind when I wrote the post but I neglected to type it in the text.  

Laurie

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August Watters

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## Beanzy

Not exactly spelled out for you, but the basso continuo (harpsichord etc) parts will often have the figured bass written in. A bit of study of reading and playing figured bass would pay dividends for any guitarist in a quartet situation, and you may even be able to temp them to take up the viol after a bit of doing that.

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bohemianbiker

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## Christopher Stetson

Hi, all.  I would echo what others say here, except to comment that keeping the guitar player interested is an ongoing problem for my trio playing this repertoire.  Even the parts tend to be simply chords written out, often just "boom-chunk-chunk", with an occasional bass filler line.  I think it has to do, at least in part, with the different timbre of the then-standard gut-strung guitar compared to the brighter mandolins.  That seems to have been the intent of the composers, I think at least in part because of the different timbre of the then-standard gut-strung guitar compared to the brighter sound of the mandolins.  I play mandolin in the trio, but guitar in a larger ensemble, so I know that it's hard to keep focus.  In my limited experience, and if I may indulge in a gross generalization, the European arrangements at least tend to have slightly more challenging harmonies for the guitar to play.  

Further if, like Laurie, you're interested in going Renaissance, the huge body of lute songs might be a source.  All have written out lute parts, and very often four voice parts which could be adapted to the 2 mandolin and octave mandola format (the lute almost always includes the bass line).  To play them at pitch from the tablature you'd need to capo the guitar at the 3rd fret and tune the g string to f#, but the parts are quite challenging and should keep your guitarist busy.  You can find many in modern edition here:  http://gerbode.net/composers/  Look at Dowland and Campion to start.  If they're still bored, go to Danyel.

Best of luck, and keep playing.

Chris.

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bohemianbiker, 

Jess L.

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## Bernie Daniel

> Four of us from our mandolin orchestra play in a quartet together.  I play guitar (classical) and the others all play mandolin, although one guy is considering moving to mandola for our quartet.  
> 
> One of our challenges is getting sheet music with 4 parts.  In fact, I don't think we have any music with 4 parts.  Some of our music is just 2 parts, with one part being the chords written in at the top (eg, "Am" or "G7" with no written notes).  This is kind of boring to play as written (particular for the guitar), and we try to find ways to jazz it up.  For some songs we do have 3 parts (2 for the mandos, plus chords), which is somewhat better, but not as good as it could be.  On only a few songs do we have any notes written for the guitar.  
> 
> The music in the thread found at the link below is great, although in a perfect world we are looking for four distinct parts (ie, the guitar has something more challenging than just fake book chords).  Does anyone have suggestions about where we might find such sheet music?  One suggestion was the Classical Mandolin Society of America, altho I'm assuming that their music would have more than 4 parts (but would love to be wrong).  Any other ideas?  Thanks for any suggestions.  bb
> 
> http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...tunes-for-2015


Here is something you could try.

I ginned up "Silent Night" in C for a mandolin quartet from a bit of four part tab I found on Mandozine.  An individual named Kim Davis put together a four part score for 3 mandolins and a guitar.

I used TablEdit to convert her tab into a score for two mandolins, mandola, and mandocello (guitar to mandocello was the only "hard" part).  

I can give it to you in tab or standard notation -- just PM me with your email address.  I'll also try load it on to my blog site -- if I remember how that is!

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bohemianbiker

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## Sherman

Try the following sites:
Steve Hendricks at sca.uwaterloo.ca
and tangosite.com
Lots of 4 part pieces, Renaissance, folksongs treble & bass clef notation, no TABs

Sherman 
One of our challenges is getting sheet music with 4 parts.  In fact, I don't think we have any music with 4 parts.  Some of our music is just 2 parts, with one part being the chords written in at the top (eg, "Am" or "G7" with no written notes).  This is kind of boring to play as written (particular for the guitar), and we try to find ways to jazz it up.  For some songs we do have 3 parts (2 for the mandos, plus chords), which is somewhat better, but not as good as it could be.  On only a few songs do we have any notes written for the guitar.  

The music in the thread found at the link below is great, although in a perfect world we are looking for four distinct parts (ie, the guitar has something more challenging than just fake book chords).  Does anyone have suggestions about where we might find such sheet music?  One suggestion was the Classical Mandolin Society of America, altho I'm assuming that their music would have more than 4 parts (but would love to be wrong).  Any other ideas?  Thanks for any suggestions.  bb

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...tunes-for-2015[/QUOTE]

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bohemianbiker

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## barbaram

The Sydney Mandolins (Artistic Director: Adrian Hooper) have commissioned a very large number of pieces for mandolin. 

Over 50 works are for Mandolin 1 and 2, Mandola and Guitar. Some pieces offer unusual combinations eg Dr Eric Gross' "Plectrabrass" for Mandolin Quartet and Brass Band. 

They are all *original* mandolin works written by professional composers.

You can see them at:
www.sydneymandolins.com
and click on Compositions.

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August Watters, 

bohemianbiker

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## Christopher Stetson

There are also several pieces for quartet here: http://www.justclassicalguitar.com/v...biblioteca.php  though you need to search through a bit, and being European they all require an octave mandolin to play the "mandola" parts.

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bohemianbiker, 

DavidKOS

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## Martin Jonas

> There are also several pieces for quartet here: http://www.justclassicalguitar.com/v...biblioteca.php  though you need to search through a bit, and being European they all require an octave mandolin to play the "mandola" parts.


Thanks, Christopher.  I hadn't seen that site before.  There are quite a large number of mandolin pieces there, mostly quartets. Almost all are from the various Italian mandolin/guitar periodicals of the early 20th century (mainly Il Plettro and Il Mandolino).  There's a lot of overlap with the Nakano archive in repertoire, but the scans are much better than at Nakano.  However, the Nakano archive is very considerably larger, and these early 20th century Italian magazine pieces are not generally among the most exciting parts of the reperoire.  Also, as far as I can see it's mostly full scores, no individual instrument parts, which makes them harder to use for performances.  I'll have to try to trawl through to see what is playable and interesting.

Martin

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DavidKOS

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## bohemianbiker

> Not exactly spelled out for you, but the basso continuo (harpsichord etc) parts will often have the figured bass written in. A bit of study of reading and playing figured bass would pay dividends for any guitarist in a quartet situation, and you may even be able to temp them to take up the viol after a bit of doing that.


We do have a few songs with a bass part that I've move up to the treble clef for guitar.  I do think that's better than just having the chords, but I do not have tons of experience with the bass clef, so I need to write it all out in the treble clef, which takes time.  I find the process tedious, altho I have to admit whenever I'm done I consider the time well spent.  tls

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## bohemianbiker

Thanks everyone for the continued posting of terrific info.

Our gig Saturday was at a retirement home, and it went well.  A lot of our Christmas music has only 2 parts plus chords, so one of the mando players didn't play on some of those, but sang instead.  We played the Greensleeves version from Evelyn's 2014 Winter collection, which was well received.  And we ended up doing 1 piece (theme from The Godfather) as a duet rather than a quartet since we only had one part (and of course, after the concert I then found that I have a version with 3 parts plus chords, taken from a thread here on the cafe!).

That's the last gig I have until mid-January, and our mando orchestra has no more rehearsals this year, so now that I have some time freed up, I am really anxious to start going through the music and web sites in this thread in some detail.   bb

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DavidKOS

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## DavidKOS

> Hi, all.  I would echo what others say here, except to comment that keeping the guitar player interested is an ongoing problem for my trio playing this repertoire.  Even the parts tend to be simply chords written out, often just "boom-chunk-chunk", with an occasional bass filler line.  
> .



That's one of my issues with the sheet music too - the very simplistic strictly functional guitar parts. I have been planning to try to arrange some of the music so that the guitar parts and 2nd mandolin would be combined on the guitar part, and then these pieces could be duets for 1 mandolin and guitar, and the new guitar parts will be more interesting to play.

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## harper

If any classical guitarists would like to work with me on arranging my pieces for 4 parts or starting something new, I would be happy to give it a try.  I use Finale.

Regards,
Evelyn

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## wundo

Join Date
    Feb 2013
Posts
    11	

Default Re: Music for Quartet

    There are also several pieces for quartet here: http://www.justclassicalguitar.com/v...biblioteca.php though you need to search through a bit, and being European they all require an octave mandolin to play the "mandola" parts. 

Here are some parts I broke up from the score for Erodiade by Agostini from the above site.

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bohemianbiker

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## DavidKOS

> If any classical guitarists would like to work with me on arranging my pieces for 4 parts or starting something new, I would be happy to give it a try.  I use Finale.
> 
> Regards,
> Evelyn



What sort of help would you need? 

BTW, I use Sibelius and MuseScore.

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## wundo

Here's the mandola part, transposed so you play a mandola pretending it's a mandolin.

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## Christopher Stetson

I agree on most points, Martin, though I'd say here that interest is in the ear of the beholder (intentionally mixed metaphor!), but then I tend to have plebeian tastes.  Enjoy your trawl!

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## harper

> What sort of help would you need? 
> 
> BTW, I use Sibelius and MuseScore.


David,

I don't play classical guitar and know little about the idiomatic possibilities of this instrument.  When I write a guitar part, I hear a harp in my head and then try it out on a guitar to see if it fits the fingers.  That approach works but does not make full use of the guitar.

I think a guitarist could look at one of my scores and improve it or look at the mandolin parts and write a guitar part.  Please let me know if you would like to try a project.

Thanks,
Evelyn

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## bohemianbiker

> Join Date
>     Feb 2013
> Posts
>     11	
> 
> Default Re: Music for Quartet
> 
>     There are also several pieces for quartet here: http://www.justclassicalguitar.com/v...biblioteca.php though you need to search through a bit, and being European they all require an octave mandolin to play the "mandola" parts. 
> 
> Here are some parts I broke up from the score for Erodiade by Agostini from the above site.


Wundo, do you know if there's a youtube link of this (or a comparable) arrangement?  I did some searching under Erodiade and Agostini, and found a bunch of performances, but I'm not sure what I found was the same song/movement.  I'd like to listen to it, and have the others in the quartet do the same, if that's feasible.  Thanks.  bb

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## wundo

PM me and I can send you a midi file of the arrangement.
I think Mark Freemantle uses Noteworthy software too, so I could send that file.

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## bohemianbiker

Thanks Wundo, just sent you a PM!  bb

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## ukrobbiej

I came across a site yesterday which seems to offer a whole load of stuff for mandolin orchestra, most of it for two mandolins, mandola, and a couple of guitars.  Probably not quite what you are looking for but maybe you could adapt me of it?

It is www.edition49.de

Hope this helps,

Robbie

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bohemianbiker

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