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  • The Boosey & Hawkes catalogue contains a rich variety of instrumental, chamber and ensemble music, from solo up to large ensemble groupings. To listen to a selection of recordings visit the Keyboard, Chamber or Ensemble sections of our Sound Samples area.


  • Simrock Chamber Music collection

    From the vast Simrock catalogue, a wide-ranging selection of chamber works by 19th century composers. Brahms, Bruch, Dvorák, Sarasate and Tchaikovsky are among the many composers represented in this series, which includes music for string ensemble, wind quintet and mixed groups of instruments. Many standard, often-performed works are available in this original edition - published for the first time while the composer was alive in every instance and therefore completely authentic.

  • Classic String Repertoire

    Highlights include violin sonatas by Bartók and Prokofieff, Brahms's Viola Sonata, and Britten's Cello Sonata, plus reductions of concertos by Dvorák, Bartók and  Shostakovich, and Bruch's Kol Nidrei for cello. Explore exciting new repertoire including John Adams's Road Movies for violin and James MacMillan's Kiss on Wood for violin or cello.

  • Classic Woodwind Repertoire

    Woodwind highlights include Jolivet's Cinq Incantations for flute, Britten's 6 Metamorphoses after Ovid and Finzi's Five Bagatelles for clarinet. Reductions include clarinet concertos by Copland, Finzi and Goldschmidt, Strauss's Oboe Concerto and Panufnik's Bassoon Concerto. Repertoire by contemporary composers includes Górecki's For You Anne-Lill for flute, Carter's Gra for clarinet and Maxwell Davies's First Grace of Light for oboe.

  • Classic Brass Repertoire

    Classic works for brass instruments include trumpet concertos by Haydn, Hummel and Arutunian, Strauss's Horn Concerto No.2 and Gordon Jacob's Tuba Suite. Contemporary repertoire includes the Horn Concerto by Benjamin Lees, Elliott Carter's Gra in the version for trombone, and Peter Maxwell Davies's Strathclyde Concerto No.3  in the reduction for horn, trumpet and piano.

  • Classic Guitar Repertoire

    Repertoire for guitar is headed with classic Spanish music by Fernando Sor (1778-1839). Contemporary works include Maxwell Davies's Hill Runes and the guitar version of Farewell to Stromness. Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint can be played by a single electric guitar and tape, or by an ensemble of 12 guitars and 2 bass guitars.

  • Simrock Percussion Studio

    Series Editor: Siegfried Fink
    A comprehensive series of solo and ensemble pieces, tutors and studies, for all levels of ability. The series includes timpani studies drawn from orchestral repertoire by Dvorák and Tchaikovsky, plus new works by Bertold Hummel Heinz von Moisy and Siegfried Fink. 

  • Copland Instrumental Series

    The music of Aaron Copland has become synonymous with the sound of America. Boosey & Hawkes has published a series of instrumental books, each featuring popular themes such as Fanfare for the Common Man, Hoe Down, Simple Gifts and more in idiomatic arrangements for the intermediate player by Quincy Hilliard.

  • Bernstein for Wind or Brass

    Now you can play your favourite tunes from Bernstein's shows, musicals and operettas! These collections feature all the most memorable themes idiomatically arranged for intermediate level woodwind and brass players by David Elliott. Includes Tonight, Maria, Sometimes, Simple Song and other favourites.

  • Chamber Music from Terezin

    Chamber Music was one of the most preferred genres of the so-called Terezi­n composers Hans Krása, Gideon Klein and Pavel Haas, interred in the transit camp during the Second World War awaiting their fate. Their oeuvres for strings includes duos, trios and quartets orginating from pre-war times as well as from Terezi­n.


  • Boosey & Hawkes composers have made a major contribution to the string quartet repertoire, from the 19th century to the present day.

  • Béla Bartók

    Bartók's cycle of six string quartets is one of the greatest contributions to 20th century music, combining classical proportions, energetic folk-inspired movements and imaginatively-scored nocturnal music.

  • Boris Blacher

    Blacher's five quartets were all written in Berlin, yet take a journey from the frivolity of the interwar years to the rebuilding of German music on new models after 1945.

  • Benjamin Britten

    Britten's three string quartets are modern distillations of classical principles, demonstrating the composer's technical mastery and clarity of expression. B&H publishes the youthful and extrovert first quartet and the emotionally intense second quartet.

  • Elliott Carter

    Carter's five string quartets form the most important cycle by a living composer, reinventing the quartet idiom for the post-war age and exploring the interaction of the four players and their instrumental personalities. Nos.4 and 5 are published by B&H.

  • Antonin Dvorák

    Dvorak's quartets, such as the ever-popular American Quartet, are standards of the repertoire, expanding a classical heritage with warm Romanticism and Bohemian folk elements.

  • Alberto Ginastera

    Ginastera's first string quartet extends the language of his early ballet scores, the second is an impassioned expressionist work, and the third is a virtuoso modernist score with the strings joined by a soprano singing a Lorca text.

  • Berthold Goldschmidt

    Goldschmidt's four string quartets span his compositional career and contain some of his most personal and highly charged music. The first was written in 1926 while he was still a student in Berlin; the fourth, completed at the age of 89, was his last chamber work.

  • Henryk Mikolaj Górecki

    Gorecki's three string quartets are central to his output, combining folklike simplicity with expressive power. Already it is Dusk, Quasi una fantasia and ...songs are sung were all written for the Kronos Quartet and have been toured internationally.

  • Benjamin Lees

    The quartets of Benjamin Lees reinvigorate the classical forms, using an extended tonality, with shifting metres and expressive string writing.

  • Steven Mackey

    Steven Mackey has written a series of highly imaginative pieces for chamber ensembles such as the Kronos and Brentano Quartets. Some works, such as Physical Property, see the string quartet joined by an electric guitarist, a role often taken by the composer.

  • James MacMillan

    MacMillan's first string quartet, Visions of a November Spring, is characteristic in its conflict between different moods and materials, while his second, Why is this night different? is inspired by the flight of Israel from Egypt on the eve of Passover.

  • Andrzej Panufnik

    Panufnik's three quartets explore the mystical interaction between sound and form. They also reflect memories of his Polish homeland and upbringing, whether the sound of telegraph wires humming with messages, or the abstract beauty of paper-cuts.

  • Steve Reich

    Different Trains for string quartet and tape is a classic of the modern repertoire, contrasting train journeys made in free America and those in Europe under Nazi wartime persecution. Both this and Triple Quartet have been championed around the world by the Kronos Quartet.

  • Alfred Schnittke

    Alfred Schnittke had a particular affinity with chamber musicians, and his four string quartets are totally idiomatic for the instruments. The music often moves between a modern idiom and others styles, such as String Quartet No.3 with its references to Lassus, Beethoven and Shostakovich.

  • Dmitri Shostakovich

    Shostakovich's 15 string quartets are central to the repertoire, performed by the world's leading chamber groups. They chronicle the composer's path through a tumultuous century, and intimately capture his innermost feelings about his musical life.


  • Contemporary composers published by Boosey & Hawkes have written works for the world's leading new music ensembles, performed internationally, recorded and broadcast.

  • Michel van der Aa

    b.1970 Oss, Netherlands
    Here [in circles] ... Here [to be found] ...

    >Listen to Michel van der Aa's music

  • John Adams

    b.1947 Worcester, USA
    Gnarly Buttons ... Chamber Symphony ... Scratchband ...

    >Listen to John Adams's music

  • Louis Andriessen

    b.1939 Utrecht, Netherlands
    Hoketus ... De Staat ... De Stijl ...

    >Listen to Louis Andriessen's music

  • Harrison Birtwistle

    b.1934 Accrington, UK
    Pulse Shadows ... Theseus Game ... The Woman and the Hare ...

    >Listen to Harrison Birtwistle's music

  • Elliott Carter

    b.1908 New York City, USA
    Triple Duo ... In Sleep, in Thunder ... Asko Concerto ...

    >Listen to Elliott Carter's music

  • Unsuk Chin

    b.1961 Seoul, South Korea
    Acrostic-Wordplay ... Double Concerto ... Cantatrix Sopranica ...

    >Listen to Unsuk Chin's music

  • Detlev Glanert

    b.1960 Hamburg, Germany
    Mahler/Skizze ... Gestalt ... Secret Room ...

    >Listen to Detlev Glanert's music

  • Henryk Mikolaj Górecki

    b.1933 Czernica, Silesia, Poland
    Good Night ... Kleines Requiem für eine Polka ...

    >Listen to Henryk Mikolaj Górecki's music

  • HK Gruber

    b.1943 Vienna, Austria
    Frankenstein!! ... Cello Concerto ... Zeitfluren ...

    >Listen to HK Gruber's music

  • Peter Maxwell Davies

    b.1934 Manchester, UK
    Eight Songs for a Mad King ... Antechrist ... A Mirror of Whitening Light ...

    >Listen to Peter Maxwell Davies's music
  • Olga Neuwirth

    b.1968 Graz, Austria
    locus...doublure...solus ... torsion: transparent variation ... ecstaloop ...

    >Listen to Olga Neuwirth's music

  • Helmut Oehring

    b.1961 Berlin, Germany
    Dokumentation I ... Polaroids ... Furcht und Begierde ...

    >Listen to Helmut Oehring's music

  • Steve Reich

    b.1936 New York City, USA
    Music for Eighteen Musicians ... Tehillim ... City Life ...

    >Listen to Steve Reich's music

  • Mark-Anthony Turnage

    b.1960 Corringham, UK
    No Let Up ... Crying Out Loud ... Eulogy ...

    >Listen to Mark-Anthony Turnage's music

  • For a fuller list of our contemporary composers please vist our Contemporary area.


  • Explore our series of music in a lighter vein for chamber and ensemble

  • Quartet Cabaret

    Arranged by Bill Thorp
    Popular classics brilliantly arranged for string quartet. Perfect light repertoire for weddings, busking, concerts or just for fun!

  • Jazz Tonight

    by Tim Garland
    Music for 9-piece jazz ensemble as performed by The Dean Street Underground Orchestra, composed & arranged by Tim Garland

  • The Fairer Sax Ensemble Books

    Selected & arranged by Karen Street
    Jazz standards, classical and popular light repertoire in useful arrangements for saxophone quartet (3 alto, one tenor with optional soprano/Bb clarinet).


  • Whether you are a teacher or student, the Boosey & Hawkes catalogue includes a wide selection of music for both private lessons and classroom teaching, including best-selling string tutor and training series by Sheila Nelson and Edward Huws Jones, and the Boosey Wind and Brass Method.

  • Fiddler Collections

    Selected and arranged by Edward Huws Jones
    Traditional fiddle repertoire at your fingertips! Using these collections you can create your own ceilidh, barn dance, jazz club, Sarajevo street café or Gypsy gathering. Some of the music is familiar, some more exotic, but all of it is absolutely authentic, faithfully arranged and, above all, hugely enjoyable. The music is arranged for flexible strings, so you can play as solos, duets, trios or with a larger band.

Publication of the Month

John Adams
Son of Chamber Symphony
for chamber ensemble

First publication of Adams's second chamber symphony, following in the footsteps of the first as one of Adams’s most programmed works.

Stay updated on the latest composer news and publications