Mendelssohn - String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80 - for orchestra

[gprengel]

My favourite string quartet from the Romantic aera is Mendelssohn's ingenious last string quartet in F minor,  which he wrote under the devastating impression of the death of his beloved sister. I think it has real symphonic dimensions. So I tried to do an orchestral version of it, here the first movement:

I. Allegro assai
www.gerdprengel.de/Mendelssohn_quartett-fm-1_orch.mp3
www.gerdprengel.de/Mendelssohn_quartett-fm-1_orch.pdf

II. Adagio
www.gerdprengel.de/Mendelssohn_quartett-fm-3_orch.mp3

Gerd

[Alan Howe]

Perhaps if you tackle Rubinstein's Sonata for Piano Four-Hands, you will help him write his best symphony.

I'm tempted to say it wouldn't be hard (to create a 'best' Rubinstein symphony), but I'd actually rather like to hear the result.

[eschiss1]

I'd rather hear more of that composer's unrecorded chamber music, eg his string quintet (whose first movement I've heard and enjoyed, but only the first movement), than orchestrations of works already recorded, but ok...?

[Mark Thomas]

Gerd, this orchestration is a first-rate job and very convincing. I look forward to hearing the other movements. Well done!

[gprengel]

eschiss1, which string quintett do you mean? I know only his 2 beautiful quintetts in A and Bb major ...

[eschiss1]

I was following up on the brief tangent about the composer Anton Rubinstein, whose string quintet in F major op.59 is unrecorded (I've made a midi of the first movement but it's more likely to turn -other- people off than on, because midi and my lack of talent with. So, come to think, are _most_ if not all of Rubinstein's string quartets after the first two of the 3 Op.17 quartets (! just the first two...), his sextet, etc. As of January 2019 and to the best of my knowledge offhand. But: tangent, and the consensus here, it seems, has been that as unsungs go Rubinstein is not among the more inspired and his chamber works not among his more inspired works.)

It is true that Mendelssohn wrote a fair amount of undersung (though no longer completely unknown) chamber music like his piano quartet in D minor ("No. 0", 1821), string quartet of 1823 (a little better known), piano trio of 1820 (unknown to me! but I see on Wikipedia...), and other works besides which his student symphonies for strings (1821-3, plus an arrangement of no.8 for chamber orchestra with winds) are comparatively repertoire pieces...

[gprengel]

I look forward to the rest.  Mendelssohn's Sixth Symphony is well on to completion!

Dear John, I am proud that you like my orchestration. Well, here now is the Adagio which I just finished:

http://www.gerdprengel.de/Mendelssohn_quartett-fm-3_orch.mp3

This Adagio from the f minor quartett, his last and certainly his most personal Adagio, for me is one of the most beautiful and deep felt Adagios of chamber music. For me it is breathtaking as a sublime and intimate string quartett movement as well as a symphonic orchestra movement which I tried to a accomplish here...

You wrote "Mendelssohn's Sixth Symphony is well on to completion". Well, this is not quite true ... see my post "Unfinished 6th symphony by Felix Mendelssohn (1845)" from last November ;-)


Gerd

[eschiss1]

Nah, the unfinished 6th symphony is the alternate version (lacking first movement) of his "Italian" (a critical edition of the score of the last three movements of which I skimmed for abit a month or two ago. That'd be the version recorded by Gardiner and Caetani, with the usual first movement tacked on at the beginning.)

[eschiss1]

My mistake then !

On the subject of computer renderings of string chamber music, I was introduced to some music by borrowing it from the library and creating (since I had the software at the time) renderings myself - Stanford's 3rd quartet, the first movement of Antonio Scontrino's G minor string quartet and Christian Sinding's A minor ebd., a couple of works by Kopylov and Sokolov as well (and little hints of works by Ropartz (eg his - wonderful, I think!- last of 6 string quartets), Wellesz and others too- I had a little time on my hands and wanted to hear them; some of these have since been recorded). It took quite some time but I found it time well-spent. Fortunately of course the Stanford, at least, has actually been commercially recorded since. (I anyway should not mind if the same fate struck the Scontrino quartets.) The wonderful Mendelssohn quartet in its usual form  - also one of my very favorite works by him - is marginally better-known, though orchestrating it of course has merit! (I would add Robert Fuchs' quartets, as John Boyer mentioned, especially his first which has a beautiful slow movement...)

[JimL]

I'm with you, John, re Rubinstein's chamber music. I like both piano quintets (the one with winds and the one with strings) as well.