Swan Hennessy 1866-1929 – Piano Works and Complete String Quartets

[Wheesht]

The Irish-American composer Swan Hennessy (1866-1929) was first influenced by Schumann and other German Romantics, then by the French Impressionists, and later he included more and more of a Celtic note in his music. There are two new(ish) CDs of his music available: Selected Works For Piano, played by Moritz Ernst, soundbites available here and Complete String Quartets from RTÉ. More on the composer
here, here and here.

[semloh]

Thanks for alerting us to this. It's certainly an interesting release. The soundbites are attractive enough but the acoustic (or is it the piano itself) is rather harsh and a little too reverberant given the gentle nature of the music in some of the soundbites. It sounds to me as if it was too closely miked.

I wonder if any UC members have heard the string quartets.

[Wheesht]

I agree that the sound is a bit too reverberant.

There don't seem to be any soundbites of the string quartets recording (easily) available – or I haven't found them.

[eschiss1]

Some of the quartets can, I think, be heard thanks to matesic at IMSLP.

[nielk]

Hello, I've just seen this thread as a visitor and finally joined the network – something I have wanted to do for a long time. I am Swan Hennessy's biographer, the author of Bird of Time. The Music of Swan Hennessy (Mainz: Schott Music, 2019). Ask me anything you want to know about this composer
As for the two recordings discussed here, I have been responsible for both in one way or another. It's a pity that the RTÉ ConTempo Quartet's recording is not available as snippets. But the real thing is still there to buy through many channels. Both the recording quality and the interpretation are light years better than the one on IMSLP. Don't form your opinion on the quartets on the basis of those poor recordings, please.
As for the piano music, likewise the interpretation by Moritz Ernst is incomparably better than other recordings you can find on Youtube. Whether or not there is "too much" reverb on the recordings is, of course, a matter of taste.
Finally, a third CD has been issued in late December 2020 (literally on Christmas Eve) on the Polish label Acte Préalable. For a change, I had nothing to do with it. It contains two solo piano works and several works for viola and piano (only the last one, the Sonatine celtique, Op. 62, is originally a viola work, the others were originally written for violin. There are snippets here for you to listen to: https://acteprealable.com/produkt/ap0490/

[semloh]

nielk, a sincere welcome to UC! And, thank you for your important contribution on Swan-Hennessy. I expect many UC members will want to know more about him. I certainly hope we hear more of his music, as these soundbites are most attractive - miking aside.

[nielk]

Thanks for the warm welcome, semloh,
In the meantime I have provided the two Polish musicians who recorded the last Hennessy CD with more suitable music, and I can report they plan to return to the recording studio later this year.
I also look after Hennessy's article on Wikipedia, so that gives a first overview for anyone who's interested. A longer article with a focus on his 'Celtic' side is available in the 2018 issue of the open-access Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland: https://www.musicologyireland.com/jsmi/index.php/journal/article/view/176/176
Any remaining questions, let me know.

[Wheesht]

Thanks a lot for all this interesting information. I look forward to reading your article in full, so far I have just had a quick look at the first couple of pages, but have already found something of interest to my research, namely the reference to the Stuttgart Festschrift. The composer Carita von Horst (1864-1935) was a student, under her maiden name, Caroline Partello, at roughly the same time as Hennessy – I'm intrigued.
First though, I'll get hold of the Hennessy recordings.

[eschiss1]

As to matesic, he has said before (here) that his renderings are meant to be stopgaps that give an idea. Some of them are of works that have since been recorded but generally not many.