Gernsheim Violin Concertos at last!

[chill319]

...at a later age Gernsheim's style developed into something much more personal than before

The website Wormser Juden in der Geschichte (http://www.warmaisa.de/index.php?id=4595) avers that the high point of Gernsheim's chamber music is found in the slow movements of the fifth String Quartet, op. 83, and the second String Quintet, op. 89 -- both from the second decade of the twentieth century (shades of Bruch here). Can't wait to hear them.

[eschiss1]

Haven't heard the quintet, but the quartet's easy enough to hear at least in -a- performance (or a "performance" if you like) over @ IMSLP. (The 2nd string quintet, 1915, has been performed recentlyish I -think-, and also recently published by Edition Dohr, but not yet, I think, recorded. It was performed back in 1916, though.)

[Alan Howe]

It's always good to-revisit recordings acquired a while back - and this one is no exception. What's significant, I find, is that I now rather disagree with my initial view of VC1 as being on the same level as Bruch's VC3 or VC3 - simply because its melodic profile doesn't match Bruch's in either work. It's beautiful throughout, but not really distinctive - whereas Gernsheim's late VC2 from 1912 I now find to be a much stronger and personal, less 'generic' piece. In its sparer, yet more passionate way it's VC2 that surely deserves a place in the repertoire/concert hall. It's quite short (22 mins in Roth's recording) and would make a fine centrepiece to any programme. Written when the composer was 72/3, it's as if Gernsheim was free to compose looking backing back on the conservative tradition that was almost played out and give it a happy send-off. Within four years he would be dead...

[eschiss1]

And 7 years later those two works (quartet no.5 and string quintet no.2) on a CD announced quite awhile back by the Diogenes Quartet are soon to be available on cpo. A wider representation of his late work is available to hear, I think (I've noticed that a fair amount of it was unpublished.)
Meanwhile, this is impetus for me to give the violin concertos CD a really good listen. Thanks.