Major unsung piano quartets

[eschiss1]

Ok. I'll bite.

If someone starts a topic Piano Quartet must hear I'll make a strong case for Melanie's opp. 69 & 124 

(from the thread Women unsungs)
Major "sung" piano quartets - for the usual combination, piano violin viola cello - from the classical and Romantic periods, or Romantic-minded works from the modern era- would include:
*Mozart's 2 quartets
*Schubert's adagio and rondo
*Schumann's second piano quartet (his early C minor piano quartet is basically unsung)
*Brahms' 3 piano quartets
*Fauré's 2 quartets
*Dvorak's 2 quartets
*Beethoven's quartet version of his piano quintet
*Copland's quartet

Perhaps to greater or lesser extents (very debatable, partial list - and I'm not quite sure of my standards for inclusion unfortunately, which need to be clear of course)
*Martinu's quartet
*Mahler's quartet movement
*Frank Bridge's phantasy piano quartet
*William Walton's piano quartet
*George Enescu's 2 piano quartets
*Sergei Taneyev's piano quartet
*Beethoven's 3 early piano quartets
*Josef Suk's early quartet

[Peter1953]

I'm very fond of the following, on CDs available, PQs by unsung composers:

•   Gernsheim, 1 op. 6 & 3 op. 47
•   Von Herzogenberg, 1 op. 75 & 2 op. 95
•   Huber, op. 117
•   Kiel, 1 op. 43 & 2 op. 44 & 3 op. 50
•   Reinecke, op. 34 & op. 272
•   Rufinatscha, in C minor & in A flat major
•   Xaver Scharwenka, op. 37

and.... I ordered the Bonis PQs

[Kriton]

Major "sung" piano quartets - for the usual combination, piano violin viola cello - from the classical and Romantic periods, or Romantic-minded works from the modern era- would include:

- 3 by Mendelssohn
- 1 by Saint-Saens

Unsung quartets would include:
- an early, unpublished one by Mendelssohn
- an early, unpublished one by Saint-Saens

[Hofrat]

Joachim Eggert (1779-1814) wrote a piano quartet the parts of which were published postumously by Breitkiopf & Hartel. 

[eschiss1]

Major "sung" piano quartets - for the usual combination, piano violin viola cello - from the classical and Romantic periods, or Romantic-minded works from the modern era- would include:

- 3 by Mendelssohn
- 1 by Saint-Saens

Unsung quartets would include:
- an early, unpublished one by Mendelssohn
- an early, unpublished one by Saint-Saens

Thank you- quite forgot! Mendelssohn, Saint-Saens. d'Indy's quartet has got a respectable number of recordings too- I believe. (Hrm- ok, Widor, Parry, Dubois, recorded once. Stanford first piano quartet recorded once.) And from the not very long list at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_quartet of course) I'm reminded of Carl Weber's quartet, also a good piece, and some others too... (and Piston's late work which doesn't fall into the orbit of this forum, for all its other qualities )

[TerraEpon]

Saint-Saens also rearranged at least one piece for the combonation, the Barcarole Op. 108. There's a VERY nice recording from last year on MD&G with all three pieces

[eschiss1]

Managed to forget also (in the now-unsung category)
Reger's 2 late quartets
Rheinberger's once very popular (I believe!) E-flat quartet op38
Turina's fairly romantic (I think?) piano quartet

There's also one by Vitezslav Novak, two by Robert Fuchs, and one (I believe unfinished??) by Lekeu. (And of course Goetz's, which unlike these last - actually no, I have heard Fuchs' G minor, right - I have heard, I believe.)
Rontgen probably wrote piano quartets along with everything else? (Yes, 3, according to the Donemus catalog. In A, f minor and g minor.) Rubinstein did write one, and Raff wrote two.

And rather better known:
Richard Strauss' quartet op.13 in C minor.

I probably would consider the Rheinberger a "major undersung" work, subjectively, and maybe a few others mentioned so far...

[JimL]

There's a CD out of Suk's early A minor Quartet.  It appears to be a 3 movement work.  I heard a great deal of it on Jim Svejda's show on KUSC.  Marvellous!

[Mark Thomas]

Raff's two piano quartets are stunningly good works - certainly up to the standard of his Piano Quintet. They'll shortly be coming out on the Swiss Divox label in wonderful performances from Il Trittico. For a preview of the Second Piano Quartet and Il Trittico's performance go here.

[TerraEpon]

The streams don't seem to work (at least on Winamp) :-(

[eschiss1]

There's a CD out of Suk's early A minor Quartet.  It appears to be a 3 movement work.  I heard a great deal of it on Jim Svejda's show on KUSC.  Marvellous!

Suk's piano quartet and trio are three movement works (then the quintet that followed adds a scherzo ). There is or was a good recording of his chamber music on the Supraphon label (I've only heard the first two CDs though- the string quartet works on volume 1, the piano and string works on volume 2. The second string quartet is something really special, I mean that in the best sense.)
Eric

[Mark Thomas]

The streams don't seem to work (at least on Winamp) :-(

All seems fine to me. Anybody else had a problem?

[john_boyer]

I certainly would second the mention of Rheinberger's wonderful Piano Quartet, which is possessed of one of his most tuneful and inventive first movements.  Pity Thorofon did not keep the disc in print, as it was beautifully recorded (far better than many of the other releases in their Rheinberger series) and coupled with the equally tuneful Cello Sonata and Horn Sonata.

Unless I missed it, no one has mentioned Arthur Foote's Piano Quartet, which can stand comparison with any romantic rival bar none.