Early American String Quartets

[Alan Howe]

How about this new reissue?>>>
http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Various-Early-String-Quartets/hnum/1720300

[Mark Thomas]

Hmm, interesting. The Chadwick is his No.4 - I have it on another recording and it's a good piece.  The Foote has been available for years from Marco Polo (and now downloadable) - another fine work by him. I don't know the rest, but I assume that Mason is Daniel Gregory Mason, whose music always seems to me to take "limpid" to a whole new level of wetness.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Mmm, a bit unfair on Mason, Mark! This Vox box has been around for some time, and the image to which Alan provides a link represents its latest reissue. (For those who enjoy e-grubbing around, the earlier edition is available on Amazon UK for less than £2 - an inexpensive and especially rewarding present to yourself).

The (George Whitefield) Chadwick Quartet 4 is indeed a good piece. Actually I'll stick out the neck and declare his five string quartets to be some of the best quartets written in America (that will doubtless ruffle some feathers). They are available, along with the E flat major Piano Quintet (an important and powerful work), on a series of Northeastern CDs played by the Portland String Quartet.

But the Vox box is worth getting since it contains what I believe is the only available recording of Hadley's A minor Piano Quintet Op. 50. An especially fine work.

[eschiss1]

That Mason quartet is based on a theme by or collected by John Powell (1882-1963), I think?

[minacciosa]

Though unfortunately not on that cd, Henry Hadley's String Quartet Op.132 is absolutely fantastic. It's a more bracing composition than you would expect from this composer. Listen to this performance from the archives of WYNC. It's part of concert given in 1950, and there are many other fascinating things on the program.
http://nycma.lunaimaging.com/luna/servlet/detail/RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~26~26~1315495~133948:MUNI-AMFV-1950-02-14-72571-2-LT3841?qvq=q:henry%2Bhadley;lc:RECORDSPHOTOUNITMAY~7~7,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~31~31,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~33~33,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~22~22,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~29~29,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~30~30,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~32~32,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~13~13,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~37~37,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~17~17,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~6~6,RECORDSPHOTOUNITMAY~8~8,RECORDSPHOTOUNITBRO~4~4,RECORDSPHOTOUNITBRK~1~1,RECORDSPHOTOUNITMAN~2~2,RECORDSPHOTOUNITQUE~1~1,RECORDSPHOTOUNITSTA~1~1,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~36~36,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~20~20,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~35~35,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~16~16,RECORDSPHOTOUNITMAY~1~1,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~5~5,RECORDSPHOTOUNITMAY~2~2,RECORDSPHOTOUNITMAY~6~6,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~15~15,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~24~24,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~9~9,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~19~19,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~21~21,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~34~34,RECORDSPHOTOUNITMAY~5~5,RECORDSPHOTOUNITMAY~9~9,RECORDSPHOTOUNITMAY~4~4,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~26~26,RECORDSPHOTOUNITMAY~3~3,RECORDSPHOTOUNITARC~25~25&mi=2&trs=3

[eschiss1]

I think Hadley wrote at least two quartets, Op.24 and Op.132, but Op.24 may not have been published- the one library copy I even think I may have seen may have been only an ms or ms copy. Thanks for that notice that Op.132 has even been performed, though; I hope both will be commercially recorded (he seems an interesting composer from what little I know of him...)

Vernon Duke (Vladimir Dukelsky) played piano on that program? Well, neat. (They don't make radio programs like that anymore, not in this country, or hardly any. There's a few concert series that ... shut -up-, Eric, you're riding that dead horse like a broken record, again...)

[minacciosa]

You're correct; Op.132 is the 2nd string quartet, though it is not called such on the published score and parts set. I too hope for a recording; there is SO much of Hadley that deserves wide exposure. He has waited long enough.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Repeating myself, I know.....but the Hadley piano quintet (also included in this invaluable box set of American quartets played by the Kohon Quartet) impresses me as a very fine piece. Echoing Minacciosa, it is a work that thoroughly deserves wide exposure.

[chill319]

Unquestionably, some attractive and moving works, decently performed in the early 1970s. Four decades on, the early American quartets that beg to be recorded, IMHO, are the Razumovsky-style quartets of real substance written in the 1830s (IIRC) by Charles Hommann. Was any other American composer from that period able to write a musically cogent Durchfürung?

[eschiss1]

Interesting, had no idea Hommann wrote quartets. Have seen part of a book of his orchestral works, I think.

[minacciosa]

That name is completely unknown to me!

[chill319]

Years ago John Graziano kindly sent me tapes of some performances. Before hearing those, I could only think of Benjamin Franklin's "proof-of-concept" quartet when I thought of early American chamber music.  From everything I know, Hommann devoted (= sacrificed) his life to write music that raised the bar way beyond what American audiences were expecting at the time.

https://www.areditions.com/rr/rra/a030.html