Jadassohn Piano Quartet

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Thank you Martin! Golly, it would be wonderful to hear the work. Maybe one day - hope so!

I was unaware of the Fetis work, and one point of my post was to ask whether such a piano duet and string quartet combination was unique to Jadassohn. That another work exists I suppose slightly increases the probability of it being recorded if one company was willing to muster up the forces and include both works on a single disc. (OK, I'm fantasising!)

Haven't pursued it, but I'd guess the Fetis would precede the Jadassohn? No influence I suppose from one to the other?

[Martin Eastick]

Peter - the Fetis work has been recorded and is still obtainable via Amazon & other outlets - on the Musique en Wallonie label, although unless you actually know the instrumentation it is not that clear until you look more closely at the details on the back of the CD! The CD gives 1818 as the date of composition and certainly the work easliy falls into the late classical/early romantic mould.
The Jadassohn Op100 seems to be typical of his brand of German Romanticism, dating from the late 19th century and therefore there is little stylistic similarity between the two works, although they would complement each other admirably as a coupling although I imagine any prospective recording would be lucky to achieve 50 minutes playing time in total! So we need a third work for the same forces!

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Thank you very much, Martin. I appreciate your notification of the disc. I'm intrigued by this instrumental combination - and there is only one way to find out what it sounds like. So the disc is ordered (from Amazon UK, and I noted it was the last copy in stock. Don't know whether they will get more stocks - if not, it is a pity since the sharks then move in and prices rocket sky high.)

I shall look forward to the disc - jolly good, for it is around 70+ minutes of the Sextet plus other works. Fetis is a composer who I'm dimly aware of but have not really discovered. I know the E flat Symphony, rather a conservative and portentous thing but with some unexpected flourishes to it which give pleasure. Rather better is the Fantasie symphonique - but played at a decent volume that work can place the chimney pots at risk and attract exasperated yells from my wife several rooms away. Thereafter my knowledge of Fetis ends, so these chamber works will give me another side to him.

Thanks again! (Can't help regretting, though, it is the Fetis work I've ordered, and not the Jadassohn. That would have been something else.)

[eschiss1]

Pieces for violin, cello and piano duet seem to be at least marginally more common, I think. (Guesstimating and pulling rabbit from hat- that is, this is not a scientific anything- we have 9 such pieces (some of them probably arrangements) at IMSLP, but lacking the Fétis or Jadassohn at present, zero zilch for 2vn va vc pf4h- that is, string quartet and piano duet- yet- I think.)