Max Bruch String Quartet UK premiere

[giles.enders]

On Sunday March 8th at Conway Hall, London, there will be the UK premiere of a string quartet by Max Bruch.  The world premier was in Germany last year.  There is a pre concert talk to be given by Christopher Fifield about this quartet and why it was put to one side.  CF is an authority on Bruch having written the 400 page tome, Max Brook,his life and works.  There is also a post concert reception to which the audience are invited.

Also invited to this concert are the direct descendants of the following composers: Fanny Mendelssohn, Sterndale Bennett, Ignaz Moscheles, Hubert Parry , Thomas Dunhill, Eugene d'Albert, and Granville Bantock.  The first three are descendants of what might be called 'The Mendelssohn Circle'. Sterndale Bennett was a friend and championed by Mendelssohn and Moscheles was Mendelssohn's teacher and life long friend.

[Richard Moss]

Such an august gathering deserves a very intellectual reply.  Unfortunately, I'm restricted to 'WOW!' 

Wish I could be there - Bruch never wrote, that I've come across so far, anything but lovely melodies and enjoyable music.

All the best for the occasion to all invovled

Richard

[Alan Howe]

Best wishes, Giles. I can't be there, but all the best...

[eschiss1]

Wonder if this was written before or after his 2 published string quartets? I'm pleased there are those, the 2 string quintets (one only recently re-discovered and recorded), and his other chamber works as well of course, but a new Bruch chamber work is welcome...

[John H White]

If Max Bruch's string quartet is anything like his orchestral works it should be well worth hearing! Giles, I think you have done very well to secure the 1st UK performance and to gather such a distinguished audience for it. Back in the 50s, I quite often attended the Conway Hall Sunday night concerts but, sadly, now "exiled" to the Isle of Wight, I'm afraid I cannot manage the journey. Anyway, I wish you all the best for a very successful concert. Maybe the same quartet will eventually make a recording of it.
     Cheers,
         John.

[Alan Howe]

Wikipedia lists an early string quartet dating from 1852, i.e. from before the two numbered quartets, as follows:

String Quartet (1852)
String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 9
String Quartet No. 2 in E major, Op. 10

I assume this is the one being premiered - no?

[Alan Howe]

Here's a new recording featuring the early quartet:
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Brilliant%2BClassics/95051BR

[chill319]

In 1852 Bruch would have turned 14. For what it's worth, his enjoyable 1849 Septet shows a talent even more precocious than Mendelssohn's. Naturally one would prefer a sublime work from the late years (akin to the 1919 Quintet or 1920 Octet), but in my house any new Bruch will do.

[Santo Neuenwelt]

Bruch's string quartets do not date from 1852. The first was finished in 1858 and the second in 1861.

As for the so-called posthumous string quintets. It is hard to understand how Fifield, expert on Bruch that he is, attributes them to his final 2 years of life. According to Bruch's daughter, he worked on them during this period. But did he write them then? Perhaps he reworked or revisited them. But I do not think he composed them from scratch then. And here is why.

Anyone who actually plays them will find strong resemblances to his very early work from the 1860's. His later chamber music, q.v. the Eight Pieces, Op.83, as well as his other music written after 1900 sounds entirely different. One has to wonder if Fifield just looked at the cold pages of the score or actually played the music.

I own and have played both works a number of times, as well as the piano quintet and none of the players thought they sounded like late Max Bruch. Of course, we can never know for sure. Maybe, he took early sketches and fleshed them out, but the music sounds, and more importantly, plays so similiarly to his early works, that it seems very hard to accept that they were written late in life. Sometimes, musicologists who are not players themselves get it wrong.

[Alan Howe]

Bruch's string quartets do not date from 1852. The first was finished in 1858 and the second in 1861.

I'm not aware that anyone said they dated from 1852. My listing merely highlights the newly-discovered work from 1852 as coming before Opp.9 and 10, whose dates I omitted.

Sometimes, musicologists who are not players themselves get it wrong.

As for the string quintets in question, there is clearly a difference of opinion concerning their dates of composition. In any case, they are not the subject of this particular thread.

Interestingly, the sleevenotes to the cpo recording of the string quartets Opp.9 and 10 suggest composition dates of 1856 and 1860...

[eschiss1]

"Bruch's string quartets do not date from 1852. "
Or rather, yes, they do: from 1852, 1858 and 1861. because there are 3 string quartets, _NOT 2_ - which is the point of the conversation, Mr. Neuenwelt.

[Santo Neuenwelt]

Sorry, misread that post. Did not realize that was the dating of the 3rd quartet. Just skimmed it and thought they were referring to Opp.9 & 10

[eschiss1]

As did I, at first, but I'm fairly sure his published string quartets didn't wait until 2015 for their UK premieres- or even until the 20th century... which was a reason to stop short and think a bit about it

[eschiss1]

As recently as 2002 a book (on Mendelssohn) says of Bruch that only his string quartets opp.8 & 9 belong to the genre of chamber music. 

... what was it that Wittgenstein wrote at the end of the Tractatus? Of that of which one cannot speak, one must be silent? (I know, I know, he meant something quite different and I'm misquoting anyway, but... STILL!)

[Alan Howe]

Audio samples are available here (tracks 1-4):
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/string-quartets-op-9-10/hnum/8413059