Violin Viola Piano trios

[Glazier]

Does anyone know of any recordings of violin viola and piano trios? There's plenty of unsung repertoire: Naumann, Zellner, Hobrooke, Kreuz, Herzogenberg, Reger, Amberg, Jensen etc mostly available on IMSLP (or for money from Amadeus and Merton).

[Kriton]

Didn't the great sung Mendelssohn also write a trio for this combination of instruments? And, apologising for going off topic so early in a thread, didn't he also write a fourth piano quartet ("No. 0"), along with the three that have been published? If anyone knows of recordings of either of those works, I'd be grateful!

Altmann's catalogue lists no less than 83 trios for piano, violin & viola, and those are just the ones that have been published. Going through the list, though, I have to admit that a lot of them are transcriptions of famous piano trios. Having said that, one has to admit that this particular combination of instruments poses problems in sound balance - the viola often just doesn't match up to the other two instruments, if you haven't the best of composers to handle the instrumentation. The Herzogenberg Trio you mentioned is also a arrangement, the original trio being written for either oboe or horn. But, as far as I can see, the rest are originals.

Since it appears rather unlikely that a performing group of those three instruments will ever be formed (unless there are some very adventurous conservatory students!), I think the waiting is for ad-hoc performances. The Reger Trio, by the way, I own. And it's a bad recording....

[TerraEpon]

Yeah, Mendelssohn wroth both a violin/viola/piano trio, and an early piano quintet. I'd love to hear them too, though they WERE written when he was 11 and 13 (of course, so were some of the string symphonies).

[Kriton]

Yeah, Mendelssohn wrote (...) an early piano quintet.

A piano quintet as well? I only knew of a sextet! I've only heard of the "0th" piano quartet, as the first of the series that later became his opp.1 - 3. Would that be a quintet for the combination piano + string quartet?

[JimL]

Believe it or not the first "official" piano quintet for the combination of piano and string quartet is the Schumann.  If anyone, even the youthful Mendelssohn composed one that antedates it that fact would be well known.  Schubert's Trout Quintet is for piano and single violin, viola, cello and bass.

[eschiss1]

The usual statement I've heard is that the Schumann is the first Romantic piano quintet. Boccherini for example wrote, if memory serves, several quintets for piano and strings in the usual combination (or am I mistaken? Not sure now.)

[JimL]

I think those were guitar quintets, Eric.

[eschiss1]

No, the guitar quintets are later arrangements of various works by Boccherini including quartets, string quintets, piano quintets and others. There's some clarification in this http://www.uquebec.ca/musique/catal/boccherini/boclchb5.html (French online list of his compositions for five instruments- lists the guitar quintets with a notation where each movement of the guitar quintets that isn't original comes from.)

[Kriton]

Believe it or not the first "official" piano quintet for the combination of piano and string quartet is the Schumann.

I have always thought that as well, although I think we should see it as the first "romantic" (bit hard to define, but still...) quintet for piano & string quartet, accounting for a couple of stray quintets for the same combination that were composed before Schumann's. I still remember how surprised I was (my, I have such an exciting life...) when I found out Beethoven wrote his 3 piano quartets before those 2 glorious examples by Mozart - as I thought that Beethoven, the younger composer of the two, would have surely taken Mozart's quartets as a model for his own.

Among the earliest examples - if not the earliest - of the quintet for piano & string quartet are indeed Boccherini's opp.56 & 57, completed in 1797 & 1799.

[TerraEpon]

A piano quintet as well? I only knew of a sextet! I've only heard of the "0th" piano quartet, as the first of the series that later became his opp.1 - 3. Would that be a quintet for the combination piano + string quartet?

Whoops. I meant quartet there. I misread what you wrote and didn't even check carefully. x.x

[eschiss1]

How about the Lachner? There's a good set. (Ignaz Lachner, on Thorofon. I've heard some of them on Concertzender radio, but not all. The ones I've heard were well worthy of their place in Martin Anderson's Fanfare want-list that year - memory serving?. Not sure the set's still available alas.)

Eric

[Glazier]

Piano Quartet/quintet fans please keep off this thread!

Thank you for the Lachner and Reger hints. Any more?