Thieriot String Quintet in G/etc. (Toccata)

[Alan Howe]

First thing to say about this release: the booklet alone is worth the purchase price. It has a lengthy biography of the composer as well as the usual expert analysis of the music.

Then there's the late (1914) String Quintet in G major. It's a magnificent piece - more lyrical than Gernsheim's equally late work for the same forces (2 violins, viola, 2 cellos), but if anything plumbing greater depths, certainly in the opening movement.

Thieriot, along with Gernsheim, is one of the romantic era's most distinguished unsung composers - of that I'm more convinced than ever. What isn't clear is just how much of his music has survived; apparently, the Russians took boxes of his works to Leningrad/St Petersburg in 1946 where they were later discovered in a flooded cellar in 1983. They were returned to the Hamburg State and University Library in 1991 and catalogued in 2000 by Mathias Keitel.

This is a link to the first page of works held at Hamburg:
https://katalogplus.sub.uni-hamburg.de/vufind/Search/Results?lookfor=Thieriot&type=AllFields&searchbox=1&limit=20

Various of Thieriot's works have been published by AlbisMusic and Amadeus (Winterthur).

[eschiss1]

I don't recall anyone here ever reviewing that Gernsheim CD. I listened to the first movement of that E-flat quintet (so far) and was very impressed (though its close connection to late Brahms could be what you're referring to, for all I know...) That said, looking forward to giving the Thieriot work a try.

[Alan Howe]

Hi Eric: here's a link to the (brief) thread about the Gernsheim works you mentioned:
https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,9196.msg94244.html#msg94244

[semloh]

A 3rd volume in 2036   That hardly capitalizes on any commercial success with the previous two - and some of us may not be in the land of the living by that date! 

[eschiss1]

May I hope that's a typo for 2026, though your last statement is unfortunately still true

[Alan Howe]

It wasn't a typo - just a projection forward from the gap between vols. 1 and 2. Put it down to the British sense of irony...

[Ilja]

I don't recall anyone here ever reviewing that Gernsheim CD. I listened to the first movement of that E-flat quintet (so far) and was very impressed (though its close connection to late Brahms could be what you're referring to, for all I know...) That said, looking forward to giving the Thieriot work a try.

Being impressed by Gernsheim (the four symphonies under Köhler to be precise) is what got me into the Unsung to begin with, and I've come across anything by him that I considered below-par. What I've heard from Thieriot elicits similar sentiments. It's be so great to have the symphonies in decent recordings.

[Alan Howe]

I agree. I suspect, however, that Thieriot may turn out to be the more important composer, although at this stage that's only a guess.