Gebel & Carl Schuberth string chamber music

[Martin Eastick]

I have just noticed this: https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/gebel-double-sting-qunitet-op-28-schuberth/hnum/8166554. Whilst the repertoire is certainly interesting enough - judging by the Gebel string quintets already recorded by this label, I'm sure I can speak for others here, in commenting on the previous releases from Profil, that the great shame again is the use period instruments. Nevertheless, I will probably have to succumb with this one, and will be interested especially in hearing the double quintet.

[Alan Howe]

Trouble is, I'd play it once out of interest in the music and then file it under 'unlistenable'. So, not for me - sadly.

[eschiss1]

Ooh! I just helped "process" the material of that Schuberth octet (in E) over @ IMSLP. I'm looking forward to hearing both those works- maybe pre-hearing them at NML first, though. 

Can always hope there will be a variety of recordings in a variety of performance styles.

[Alan Howe]

A forlorn hope, I fear.

[Santo Neuenwelt]

It is interesting and annoying that so many recordings of music from the first half of the 19th century  are made on "period instruments"---the wrong period. Take the recording of Carl Gottlieb Reissiger's Op.111 string quartets by the Camesina Quartet. They even defend their use of period instruments, a term which generally is meant to mean string instruments which sound nothing like today's because they have lower bridges different strings etc. Their defense is specious. Why? Well, in the case of the Reissiger Op.111, which were composed in 1836, so called period instruments were no longer being used. Bridges, fingerboards and bows and hence the sound produced, were all pretty close to what we hear today. True, modern steel strings and their like were not around but still. As for the Gebel Op.28, it dates from the 1830s and the Schuberth was not composed until 1848! Surely somebody ought to get a hold of these people who are insistent on using period instruments in the attempt to sound original and set them straight that even those composers who wrote in the age of period instruments would have surely preferred, if they could,   to have had their works played on modern instruments. Take Beethoven, for example, and his quest for a better piano. Just saying...

[Alan Howe]

At last, the voice of sanity!

[matesic]

Thirty years ago I thought pioneering groups such as the Salomon Quartet brought fresh air into the performance of late 18th and early 19th century repertoire, sweeping away what was thought of as the anachronistic influence of romanticism, but recently I tend to side with Alan on the grounds that most similarly motivated efforts tend to sound artificial and self-conscious.

Furthermore, to echo Santo's phrase, it is interesting although perhaps not so annoying that few if any chamber groups and instrumentalists seem to be interested in trying to recreate authentic late 19th century performance sound and style, or even early 20th century style as exemplified by the Busch Quartet and others. The reason I think, is that we have documentary evidence in the form of recordings which, however much we may admire the artistry, unfortunately sound "dated" and this performers can't bear to emulate.  To get a taste of what authenticity really sounds like, try listening on youtube to recording by unquestionably (in the judgement of contemporary listeners and critics) "great" violinists such as Franz Drdla and Jan Kubelik...

[Martin Eastick]

What annoys me so much about these so-called "period instrument" (or whatever others may call them) recordings is this. I accept that there are those who accept such as historically accurate and also that performances/recordings of repertoire from the late 18th to early 20th century would have sounded quite different (more so the further one goes back in time) to what would pass as "normal" today, using modern instruments and modern interpretation/performing traditions etc. Therefore, I would not in anyway seek to deny to those who have every right to follow such a path and enjoy their music in such a way. This is fine with the music of, say, Beethoven (and other such well-knowns). Here there is an immense amount of choice of recordings of ALL types, from the "historic" to the "modern" - so the listener is certainly spoilt for choice and can go with whatever he or she prefers. HOWEVER, when it comes to such as the Gebel and Schuberth works presented on this particular CD; however interesting the works may be, the fact that THE ONLY OPTION is this interpretation using "period instruments" certainly doesn't do much in promoting interest and perhaps even stands in the way of gaining such composers some recognition. Then, surely, the only support such projects will have will be from those who are  "period instruments" enthusiasts with a predilection for music of the unsung! Unless, of course, one is prepared to "make allowances" for the unpalatable sound and just live in the forlorn hope that an alternative performance may be made available at some time in the future!

Fine, then, let us have the choice - "period" versus "modern", but let us not forget that there is still much unsung music to be rediscovered which DOES NOT need to be disadvantaged by being offered ONLY in such interpretations enthused over by a minority, but which unfortunately is not to the liking of the majority of listeners who may be OTHERWISE tempted to try something new to them.

I WILL be buying this, in spite of the above, but I have to say, most reluctantly, and I can safely add that I cannot imagine more than a few hearings........

[sdtom]

Well said Martin!

[matesic]

For me the instruments themselves aren't in fact the real bugbear, but the style of playing in which vibrato is abhorred, acidulous tone cultivated and bulges encouraged. The virtue of being able to play senza vib is that intonation needs to be deadly accurate - never a bad thing, although I particularly miss the emotional warmth and pathos that a touch of vibrato at select points in a phrase can give. Constant vibrato laid on like paint, however, suggests to me a player on automatic pilot.

There is a happy medium. I'm not sure whether the Buchberger Quartet use period instruments or not, but their performances of Haydn on Brilliant Classics seem to combine HIP zest with the tonal bloom that I'm sure wasn't completely foreign to 18th century practice.

Actually I'm rather enjoying the earlier Profil recording of Gebel's quintet No.8! He certainly knew his Haydn.

[matesic]

But yes, I see the Gebel 8th quintet wasn't published until 1862! The sound of the augmented Hoffmeister Quartet would suggest closer to 1762, although whether it's at all appropriate for either date is anybody's guess.

[Alan Howe]

The point is: the sound's just horrible.

[Sharkkb8]

The point is: the sound's just horrible.

That's for sure.  And a question I've always wanted to ask devotees of these performances and recordings.....if the whole point of "period instruments" is to allow the listener to hear the music as it sounded "in its day", and if you really want your live audience to experience a genuine "historically informed performance", then surely you would need to turn off all electric lights in the concert hall, and have hundreds of candles instead.  No heating or cooling, of course.  I wonder how they'd respond.   
Gregory

[Double-A]

Somebody aught to perhaps throw a defense into this discussion or at any rate a little more nuance:

- There is no doubt that the period instrument movement has greatly changed (IMO improved) the way we play baroque music these days.  Nowadays nobody would dare play these things as boringly as they were played when I was young (remember "Terassendynamik"?), on "normal" instruments as well as on period instruments.  And even the Vienna classics have been injected with some more life, Haydn especially.  They did this by going to the sources (e.g. treatises on how to play the violin, the flute etc.) and descriptions as much as or probably more than by using instruments with lower bridges and shorter fingerboards.

-  There are two aspects to this:  The instruments and the way they are played.  The focus tends to be too much on the instruments and paradoxically on those that have changed the least since the early baroque:  The strings.  The key part of the violin, the box has not changed in centuries and the sound of a baroque violin is closer to a modern violin than the sound of Mozart's piano is to a Steinway.  The most important innovation was to the bow.  The modern bow (pioneered by Tourte) allows  variety of different articulations and effects that Vivaldi could only dream of (and seeing that Tourte got rich from his bows it seems they did dream).  But by the time we enter our remit the modern bow can be assumed to be the one in a composer's imagination if not in the hand of every fiddler.

-  In the era we are dealing with here the violin is the modern violin with maybe more rickety strings (gut E-strings for example).  But at least in the first half of the century the piano is not nearly as powerful and singing as modern pianos.  This changes the balance in chamber music works.  I found a recording of Fanny Mendelssohn's piano trio in the public library once.  It was on period instruments (forget the names of the players now).  The strings sounded not much different from my fiddle (which I think is historically accurate) but the balance between the instruments was making the piece more transparent and the piano sounded much clearer and cleaner in the runs in the left hand than a modern instrument.  To me it was the best interpretation of the piece that I have heard (not just because of the instruments of course).

So to summarize:  One can, if one is so inclined, produce good renditions on period instruments.  But maybe the whole movement has by now reached its goals--to make performers aware of the differences in playing depending on the period in which the piece was created and to create as accurate a record of actual performance practices as possible.  I assume this is why for example Harnoncourt (one of the early and most famous pioneers of period instruments) went back to using modern instruments.

[Alan Howe]

I think HIP ceases to become useful or listenable around late Beethoven/Schubert. Just an opinion..