Franz Lachner's Piano Quintets

[petershott@btinternet.com]

One of my especial pleasures in the last couple of months has been to get to know Franz Lachner's six String Quartets. Utterly marvellous music, and I'll stick out the neck and declare them to be some of the greatest quartets of their time. Like all such masterpieces they don't seek to 'express' anything or to be 'about' something: like Haydn's quartets from an earlier age they are exuberant, exhilarating pure musical constructions, and exemplify sheer joy, wit, elegance and absolute beauty from beginning to end.

One serious puzzle I've got (not an unfamiliar puzzle on UC) is quite simply: why on earth aren't these quartets better known? (In my mind they stand higher than Schubert's including the last three, and Schubert is frequently performed in concert and I dare say if you piled up all the CDs of Schubert quartets the pile might be equal in height to the dome of St Paul's). In 40 years or so of quartet concert going in the UK I've never, ever, come across a performance of any of the Lachner quartets. Maybe there is somewhere a quartet apart from in Germany which programmes Lachner in their concerts - but I've never encountered one.

And no complaints whatsoever about the sole recordings of the quartets by the Munich based Rodin Quartet on the small, perhaps off the beaten track and (in the UK at least) hard to find Amati label. Wonderfully polished performances and excellent recordings (and copious detailed notes in the booklet).

Now to the real point of the post! I've just been looking at the website of the Rodin Quartet...and a wide beam spread across my features when I read that "in preparation" are recordings of Lachner's C minor and A minor Piano Quintets Opp. 139 and 145. I'm anticipating these recordings in the same way as the pious anticipate the hereafter: it's going to be pure bliss.

I've no idea as to whether the two quintets have been recorded, and are awaiting release; or whether the website is old and unrevised, and the recordings have been planned for some long time but are in fact no further forward. (Anyone happen to know these things?)

And then again I've never actually heard these two quintets.......but I'm pretty sure already that if recordings are released they will qualify as my most treasured acquisitions of a decade! (How about that for optimism!)

[eschiss1]

The 2nd quintet was recorded with Lachner's nonet in 1993 on Thorofon.  I think the first quintet has been recorded but am not sure where (well, it has now... )

[Mark Thomas]

Peter, you may not have grabbed an excellent performance of Lachner's equally excellent String Quintet op.121 in the archived downloads here.

[Alan Howe]

In my mind they stand higher than Schubert's including the last three...

Really? I can't agree with that, strong works though they undoubtedly are. Now, I prefer Draeseke's symphonies to those of Brahms, but would I say that they 'stand higher'? No. That'd be to confuse personal preference and estimation with the need for a more objective assessment...

[John H White]

Around a dozen years ago, when I first came into contact with these recordings, I was particularly struck with the A major quartet Op 76, which to me, sounded just like one of Schubert's late quartets. Maybe Lachner wrote it in memory of his good friend.
  Personally, in general, I prefer the style of his younger brother Ignaz's quartets also available from the Amati label played by the same quartet. His style seems less adventurous than Franz's, harking back more to Schubert, Haydn and Mozart.
  By the way, if you can't wait to hear the proposed CD release, you can go to the Noteworthy Scriptorium web site where you can pick up a copy of Noteworthy Viewer freeware and listen to my own transcriptions of the two piano quintets using Noteworthy software, providing you have a suitable midi sound card and audio output. I must admit that, having spent many hours copying out the scores, I am not greatly impressed with them compared some of his other works. I would say they are not in the same class as those of Schumann, Dvorak and Brahms. I'm  inclined to agree with Mark that the C minor String Quintet is probably his finest chamber work.