Jadassohn Piano Quartet

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Some friends on the Forum often make a plea for more recordings of Jadassohn, and I am certainly with them in that. (It is actually quite wretched how so few of his works are available in commercial recordings).

Hence my delight in reading a very recent review on MusicWeb of a Querstand CD of Jadassohn's Piano Quartet in C minor Op. 77 from 1884, along with the 14 year old Mendelssohn's F minor Piano Quartet Op. 2, and Schumann's E flat major Piano Quartet Op. 47 composed in that glorious year of 1842. An immediate order and thankfully a very rapid arrival of the CD.

Not really a hotch-potch since all three Pf Quartets were composed in Leipzig but with 61 years between the Mendelssohn and the Jadassohn. The latter is composed very much in the Mendelssohnian tradition (especially its second movement which sounds almost like a Mendelssohn scherzo), but is certainly not a pale imitation of that early model. Early days yet, and I've played the work but a couple of times, but I'm hooked. Not an absolute masterpiece (as is the Schumann which is, in my view, one of the great chamber works without qualification). Written fully within that tradition, and not making you gasp with wonder at Jadassohn's innovations in working within the piano quartet form for there aren't any. Nonetheless full of wonderful flowing melodies and especially rich harmonies. Glorious stuff, and if that doesn't persuade you into buying the disc then what might tip the balance is a real top notch performance of the Schumann. In short, a full disc and 78 minutes of sheer bliss.

And has this disc, as it were, slipped under the net? I've seen no announcements of it, and were it not for that MusicWeb review it might have passed me by and in years to come I might have ended up in the village graveyard without ever having heard the Jadassohn work. Dreadful thought! But the disc now sits very comfortably on the shelves having slipped in next to that wonderful Toccata disc of the three Piano Trios.

Can't resist a final general thought. We tend to take Piano Trios, Quartets, and Quintets almost for granted for all the way down from early Viennese models such as Haydn's down to wonderful things outside the agreed boundaries of the Forum (hint: Shostakovich and Weinberg) there are so many good ones. But a bit of reflection tells me that it is actually exceedingly difficult to write for strings and piano. The latter instrument is enormously different from violin, viola and cello. A not so good work often sounds like a piano work vaguely accompanied by strings, or a string dominant work with piano providing a supporting bass line. Thus the composition of a well crafted work in which both piano and strings have a perfect marriage and play equal indispensable parts in the musical conversation between all instruments is an achievement of a very high order. Yes? Apologies for these hasty reflections from an absolute untutored amateur.

[eschiss1]

By the way a radio recording of the Jadassohn quartet is (was?) somewhere in the Downloads forum, I think (hopefully still is, to add to the recording you now have). There is-or-was also another commercial recording (from 2003) of the first piano quartet, coupled with Jadassohn's 4th piano trio (there are 4, not 3; that other recording lacks the 4th, of course) and the G minor quintet Op.126, released awhile ago. (See e.g. CDUniverse.)

[Gauk]

Trouble is with this sort of release, I would not buy it just to get one work out of three.

[Alan Howe]

I would. But I've already got the work on a (presumably deleted) all-Jadassohn CD on the Real Sound label from 2002.

[eschiss1]

ah, that's the disc I was referring to. One could also, i think, hear it at Concertzender at one point (each work at each of three different broadcasts on their site - so three points...- not sure if this is true anymore. Not very "real" sound, as radio + webcast, but good for auditioning before a possible purchase...)

[Gauk]

I have to ration my CD purchases. I have enough tottering piles as it is!

[Alan Howe]

For me Jadassohn's one of those must-buy composers.

[Gauk]

Ah, understood - for me it is Widor or Fuchs.

[Alan Howe]

I buy them too.

[Gareth Vaughan]

For me Jadassohn's one of those must-buy composers.

For me too. 

[Gauk]

I can understand that!

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Let me stick this one on the tail end of an existing thread.

I was browsing through the Jadassohn work list (and lamenting that so many of his chamber works remain unrecorded), and then noted a work which I can't remember spotting before:

Sextet in G major (1888) for Piano-4 Hands, 2 Violins, Viola & Cello.

This is surely something quite extraordinary? I can't think of any similar work with Piano 4-Hands. Anyone know it? Anyone played it? What does it sound like? (Knowing Jadassohn, it is probably rather a good work that leaves one thinking: why hasn't any other composer used 4 hands and string quartet?)

Two other Jadassohn questions: some sources (e.g. New Grove) attribute 2 string Quartets to Jadassohn. I think this is mistaken, and there is in fact only a single quartet - in C minor, Op. 10. True or false?

(Incidentally the New Grove simply reprints a short entry on Jadassohn by Grove himself. It is so full of remarks along the lines of 'much skill but little inspiration' that one is tempted to chuck the thing out of the window. We also get "...as a teacher J was highly esteemed by scholastic authorities, but his pupils often found him uninspiring". That view seems to me to be founded on nothing but unexamined evidence and prejudice, and contradicts what I've read elsewhere. Inexcusable...and what is New Grove doing using an entry that is now (presumably) 100+ years old? To be fair, I'm so busy ranting I haven't checked the on-line Grove but hopefully that has an updated article.)

Question 2: does anyone have any news at all about CPO's plans to record / release the 4 symphonies? There's a now pretty ancient thread going back to 2009 when Alan notified us of CPO's intentions...but sadly all has been quiet since. (In the unlikely event of my winning the National Lottery I think I'd buy CPO so I could release everything stored up in their vaults - plus a good number of out of print CDs that are offered for silly prices in places like Amazon.)

[Alan Howe]

I have no news about cpo's Jadassohn symphonies. Unfortunately.

[eschiss1]

I am only aware of one string quartet, though at one point Wikipedia mentioned four. I removed the other three pending any evidence. Maybe they're in manuscript, or something...

[Martin Eastick]

Re the Sextet for piano duet and string quartet - this is Jadassohn's Op100 and was published by Kistner and I do have this in my collection. I did read through the piano part with a freind some years ago but obviously one would need to have the strings present to get a proper idea of the work - however, I recall us both being impressed with the piece at the time and wonder if it would perhaps be an idea to try to couple with the Fetis work for the same forces! Otherwise certainly this would be a good way to introduce more unrecorded Jadassohn chamber music, providing that is if it would be (financially) viable to obtain the services of a specialist piano duet team just for the one work!