Reinecke Complete String Quartets

[Alan Howe]

...forthcoming from cpo:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/carl-heinrich-reinecke-streichquartette-vol-1/hnum/7971829

[Martin Eastick]

I noticed these earlier, Alan, and have already added them to my "must have" list - which is getting longer and longer! A worthy follow-up to the Bargiel cycle no doubt.

[Mark Thomas]

How splendid!

[eschiss1]

Agreed! I've been wanting to hear 1, 3 and 5 (and new performances of 2 and 4).

[Sharkkb8]

I'm particularly pleased!   

http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,4866.msg51997.html#msg51997

[semloh]

Yes, good news indeed. I'm sure that few of us would have these quartets on our real or virtual shelves.

[Alan Howe]

Superb music - am currently listening to Quartet No.5 (1909). Of course, it's 30 years behind the times, but who cares when the music is of such quality? More when I've got got round to absorbing these wonderful pieces...

[Alan Howe]

This is wonderfully resourceful music from a master-composer. No.2 in F, Op.30 (1851) begins in Schubert 9 (finale) mode - the similarity is hard to miss - but soon goes its own way, with some 'scrunchy' harmonies, and is followed by a songful slow movement that is not without anguished-sounding passages of its own. The minor-key scherzo scurries along anxiously before the finale scampers off in a whirlwind of invention at even greater speed, sidestepping into calmer episodes as it progresses.

To imagine that Reinecke's music might be like 'Mendelssohn + water' couldn't be further from the truth. This is big-boned chamber music with real sinew and purpose. No.2 is absolutely SUPERB. I look forward to listening to the other SQs in due course.

[Alan Howe]

No.4 in D major, Op.211 (1890) breathes different air entirely. The first movement is denser stuff; what's most interesting is the way that 'clouds' invade the basic air of contentment - what fabulous quality and variety of invention is on show here. The slow movement begins in sonorous, songful mode, but soon diverts into a more questing section. There is mystery here too - and then, in a trice, the movement is over. The scherzo is pizzicato-dominated and strangely fragmentary in effect - very original. The finale begins in a more comfortable mood, but the music shifts and changes in kaleidoscopic fashion as the movement progresses, returning frequently to the opening theme. And it's all over within five minutes. Another masterpiece of the genre. Who knew?

[eschiss1]

well, different performances of those two have been already available (thanks matesic)...

[Alan Howe]

I'd never heard them. Get the cpo set!

[matesic]

Well, thank you Alan for that accolade!

[matesic]

However, leaving amour propre to one side, they are good pieces and I'm looking forward to hearing them played by a quartet consisting of four professionals!

[Alan Howe]

I do apologise, Steve. I was on my way out to help put up a large Xmas tree this morning and rather dashed off my response without thinking. All I meant was that I knew nothing of your renderings (congrats on all your hard work, of course) and that the cpo set is an urgent, indeed mandatory purchase - for the reason you yourself give. Again, I apologise for my haste.

Obviously I should have known about the SBB renderings - but I didn't. My loss, clearly.

[Alan Howe]

Well, it just shows that beauty - or indeed mastery - lies in the ear of the listener. I don't agree at all, as my descriptions of nos. 2 and 4 indicated.

Herzogenberg and Fuchs are composers of a later generation, of course; and Raff is a very different sort of composer.

How one can describe the troubled opening of, for example, No.5 'bland' is beyond me:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/carl-heinrich-reinecke-streichquartette-vol-1/hnum/7971829