Ernst music, Volume 4

[alharris]

I have greatly enjoyed the Ernst recordings on Toccata Classics, and was pleased to see that Volume 4 has just been made available for download.

Here's the link:

http://www.toccataclassics.com/cddetail.php?CN=TOCC0189

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Those with a penchant for big bands (OK - I'm in a minority!) might prefer the two Violin Concertos, but I've been qute enthralled by Ernst's String Quartet in B flat major.

Lovely work, and I've been so glad to get to know it. My prejudices against Ernst were rattled by finding the quartet is written in "a musical language much influenced by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schumann" (I quote the notes by Mark Rowe which, in true Toccata fashion, are worth the price of the disc). There is an extended Andante movement (the second) beginning with a deeply melancholic theme and developing into something quite ravishing and powerful. Throughout the quartet there's also some dazzling work by the first violin - as one might expect from Ernst.

And fancy this. I learn from the notes that at the Quartet's first public performance in London in 1862, the players assembled were Joachim. Ferdinand Laub, Bernhard Molique, and Alfredo Piatti. Heavens, a composer could not get a greater leg up than that.

Obviously not in the same league as Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schumann (how could it be?), but a marvellous Quartet and well worth getting to know. Hurrah for Toccata, and for the price of the disc you get two Violin Concertos thrown in.

Very sad to read that two other Quartets by Ernst remained in manuscript, were never published, and are now lost. What a very great misfortune.

[Alan Howe]

Are the VCs any good, though? My memory of is of music of quite stupefying vapidity.

[eschiss1]

As someone who does like hearing things done for sheer effect and wow now and then (I admit to this without a hint of shame, though it can be done better and it can be done worse), I'm looking forward to hearing his "trio" for one violin - which I remember mistagging as a real string trio when it was uploaded to IMSLP, which led to a disagreement (with someone who understood that the 3 parts were not actually meant for 3 different players ) which soon became very interesting.

BTW if anyone wants to look at, or any quartet to perform, Ernst's quartet in B-flat op.26, the parts are

here (via Merton).

The "trio pour un violon" I mentioned is here. Etc. !!!

[Gareth Vaughan]

I'm afraid, like Alan, I don't have a very high regard for Ernst's concerti. They are full of fireworks but melodically feeble. I was quite seriously disappointed when I heard them. A pity, as I wanted to enjoy them.

[Alan Howe]

Inevitably, I agree with Gareth. When I think of the 19thC VCs that haven't been recorded and find that so much care is being lavished on these feeble pieces. Ah well, each to his own. But when one considers that VCs by Gernsheim (x2), Becker (Reinhold - x2) and Draeseke (newly orchestrated by Wolfgang Müller-Steinbach) haven't yet been committed to disc...

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I do so agree (hugely) that it is scandalous that these - and other - important and deserving violin concertos haven't been recorded. But it doesn't follow from this that Ernst's concertos are feeble and undeserving (with all respect, Alan, I thought your "quite stupefying vapidity" betrayed signs of indigestion after a decent Sunday lunch!) My copy of the disc only arrived yesterday and I dived straight into the string quartet (the main reason I bought the disc), but a quick and rather casual hearing of the concertos provided enjoyment and a smile upon the face. Yes, not 'great' (whatever that means) music at all, and if I was stuck on a desert island with only the Ernst concertos for company then maybe after a day or two I'd cast off and take my chance of avoiding the sharks.

However the point of the thread was to recommend to others the string quartet - it really is good. Besides you get a tip top recording, excellent and informative notes, and to my mind Toccata's commitment to providing excellent recordings of off the beaten track and often unknown and unrecorded music knocks for six any grudge that they haven't the resources to record everything under the sun whatever its merits might be. I'm grateful for the disc, look forward to getting to know the concertos better, and for the further insight the recordings provide of an episode in music history when many flocked to hear them. But best of all, my 'library' of string quartets has got a very welcome and deserving addition.

[Alan Howe]

Fair enough, Peter. I'm just not that impressed with Ernst, that's all - and that's before breakfast!

[Mark Thomas]

Well, if nothing else, this debate has piqued my interest, so I'm downloading the album as I type. I'll be back!

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I propose, Alan, a gentlemanly agreement to disagree. I have to say that I am impressed at the music as an example of dazzling fireworks, supreme virtuosity and extended lyricism. I'll stick out the neck and say that the F sharp minor concerto leaves Paganini way behind, and maybe even Vieuxtemps (but a silly thought because I abhor thinking of composers as engaging in some sort of competition).

On the other hand having absorbed the music it isn't stuff that sails through the standing the test of time criterion. I'm very glad I've got to know it, but (silly comparison) it is not inexhaustible - each time I hear for example the Brahms Vn concerto I'm astonished again by it. Ernst is nothing at all like that. But then - and back to the first paragraph - it certainly isn't just 'mere entertainment' either.

Ernst has always been a composer off my own personal map (that maybe forms a critique of me rather than Ernst). Having read the immensely interesting booklet included with the CD I've become quite intrigued by the man. I'm going to hunt around libraries for Mark Rowe's rather expensive book on Ernst (Ashgate, 2008) to find out more.

Here's one for the Ernst doubters: consider Rowe's suggestive and potentially illuminating remarks (in the booklet) about the structural similarity of Liszt's B minor sonata to Ernst's F sharp minor concerto. Considerable food for thought there.

And some tribute to him: in the final years after he withdrew from concerts on account of some horrid persistent illness, and was in financial difficulty having given most of his loot away to family, friends and charitable causes, figures like Brahms, Joachim, Wieniawski, and Halle were raising funds for him through benefit concerts and often performing Ernst's own compositions. That's not the sort of thing that happens to a composer without worth.

[Mark Thomas]

I think that I'll be sitting firmly on the fence. I've listened just the once to each piece, so I have only initial impressions:

I was agreeably surprised by the F sharp minor Concerto Pathétique, which seems to have more musical substance than many a Concerto Brillante, is structurally innovative (Rowe's excellent booklet notes are particularly informative in this respect) and yet has melody enough to please at first hearing. It's certainly a better work IMHO than Döhler's Piano Concerto, about which there was some debate a couple of weeks ago, but I doubt it'll have the staying power of, say, Vieuxtemps' early concertos.  Despite the virtuoso pyrotechnics, there does seem to be a serious intent to the music, which I though completely lacking from the earlier D major Concertino. To be fair, I didn't find that "vapid" but, being at best equivocal about "virtuoso showcases", neither did it make much of an impression on me. Pleasant enough, but not really music which I'd return to with anticipation. The late String Quartet (No.1 of two-and-a- bit, I see) reminded me very much of Mendelssohn and is clearly a solid piece of work which, unfortunately, I thought melodically quite undistinguished at first hearing. It is, though, unflashy and well enough put together. I suspect that it's a grateful work to play, but as a listener I didn't find it very engaging. So, rather to my surprise, the work which I shall look forward to returning to is the Concerto Pathétique, the String Quartet will have more of a dutiful reprise, in the hope of finding more pleasure in it than my initial run through found, and the D minor Concertino will be lucky to get a second chance.

[Alan Howe]

Perhaps my problem has been the Naxos CD?

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I don't know that Naxos recording. But you might try, Alan, a Hyperion disc (CDA67619) released back in 2008 of music for Vn & Pf performed by Ilya Gringolts (one of my favourite chamber music players) and Ashley Wass. The disc contains Ernst's Fantaisie brillante on Rossini's Otello - and listening to it again has shown me what all the fuss was about in Ernst's own day. Must have been quite an experience dropping into a recital and hearing Ernst himself performing such a piece - though no taxi back home afterwards of course!

[eschiss1]

I'm getting intrigued about these four volumes now, and also hoping that Toccata Classics will consider including e.g. that violin "trio" in one of the later ones (if later ones are planned and materialize). Interesting project, at any rate.

(Well, no reason for me to put trio in quotes; one doesn't for organ trios, after all.)

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I'll communicate your suggestion, Eric, to Martin Anderson and what you indicate about the piece. He'll be interested, but I'd hazard a guess he has already got something lined up.

Incidentally, perhaps we need a convention by way of scare quotes or whatever of referring to something that is both a trio and not a trio! As you say 'organ trio' slips easily off the tongue. Whereas 'violin trio' stops one in one's track. Strange things are words.