Theodor Fröhlich Piano Quartet, Scherzo -- Really by Fröhlich?

[Double-A]

It seems I need some advice.  I have been typesetting this quartet, composed 1835, from Fröhlich's autograph (digitized by the Basel university library) for IMSLP.  Right now I am bogged down in proof reading but the scherzo keeps bugging me.  From the beginning I had a feeling I had heard this music before.  It is somewhat reminiscent of Weber's "Invitation" but that's not it.
If anybody has time on their hands or is curious enough:  Could you have a look at the score (my typeset--not quite finalized) and see if it rings any bells?  Especially the section beginning at measure 60.
Let me know if the second link works for you.  I'd appreciate any ideas.

[matesic]

The link works fine for me, unless there's supposed to be a MIDI stream? I doubt many of us can "hear" this from reading the score - I certainly can't!

[eschiss1]

The melody-line there does ring a bell, I agree.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I know just what you mean - but I can't place it. Maddening!

[Double-A]

Here is an mp3.  It is not very good; I don't seem to get the balance right.  So the best way is still to look at the score while listening.  I think the most suspicious section (44 seconds in) is reasonably clear if you disregard the horrible pizzicati.

So far my feelings are confirmed, already a success of this post.  Thanks everybody!

[matesic]

Now I hear music! Unfortunately it doesn't ring any bells with me...

[Alan Howe]

Nor with me.

[Adrian Harrison]

How about the Scherzo of Schubert's violin sonata in A major D574?

[Double-A]

Clever!  I wouldn't have looked in Schubert but stylistically he is a possible candidate.  There clearly is a similarity in the first section of the scherzo with its triadic rises.  But it isn't close enough to merit a plagiarism flag.  The section I am more interested in is actually the one that starts at M. 60 where there are falling/rising scales over a waltz (or Ländler) rhythm.  I just think I have heard that--and quite precisely that--somewhere else and don't know where.  Maybe I am wrong and the similarity is more generic.
BTW it seems the accepted opinion that Fröhlich did not know Schubert's work.  I doubt that about the songs which were successful and published in Schubert's lifetime (On the other hand:  Fröhlich was a pupil of Zelter and Zelter was Schubert's antipode when it comes to songs, so who knows?).  This sonata though was only published after Schubert's death (1851 according to IMSLP) and Fröhlich was "sequestered" in Aarau in 1835 (when the piano quartet was composed) and killed himself a year later. 

[eschiss1]

Were Schubert's piano laendler- which it might also be from- more successful of performance and publication (I wonder...)
What typesetting program are you using btw?

[Double-A]

Looking at many of Schubert's Ländlers (or Walzer or Deutsche etc.):  They all seem to be very short, 2 x 8 measures most of them and no bigger than 2 x 16.  The section in question needs more space than that.

btw -- Musescore

[eschiss1]

not sure I'd heard anything by Fröhlich's before - I assume the Fröhlich whose symphony was recorded awhile back was the _other_ one. There is an intriguing CD set of (the Swiss) Theodor Fröhlich's 4 string quartets (1826-32 or so) streamable over NML, which I'll go listen to soon. Thanks and hope your project's gone well...
Even if it is a copy of a work by someone else, remember that such things can be unintentional- for a composer to hear something in a concert and later think they wrote it themselves, especially in the days without easily available scores (relative to now) was an easy thing.

Even this poetaster of a once-would-be-composer here had a melody running in my head for quite some time which I couldn't place, mistakenly was sure was early-20th-century French, decided I must have thought up myself, then found out by chance was a theme from an early Beethoven cello sonata I'd only (at that time, back then, half a lifetime ago) heard once before-- oops. (I'd already started sketching a piece of my own beginning with a variant of the tune, even. In the right key (G major), I think, which is a neat coincidence considering I don't have absolute pitch. ... though I do have ok musical memory (of sounds, not necessarily of the context), sometimes, even up to pitch, which may be why.)

[Santo Neuenwelt]

Based on the MP3, it sounds like imitation Carl Maria von Weber, or possibly Carl Gottlieb Reissiger or even Czerny, all of whom would probably have done a much better job with the material, thin as it is. In any event, it certainly sounds derivative as do the quartets of which we have on CD.

[Double-A]

Weber was indeed my first idea.  My question is:  Is it "imitation Weber" as you so elegantly put it or is it downright stolen--intentionally or not?

There is already a plagiarism suspicion around Fröhlich: a mass in Fröhlich's handwriting in his estate (often performed by church choirs) which is however by Prussian composer Johann Gottlieb Naumann.  It differs in some details from the Naumann version we know now but Fröhlich could just have used a different source (or else he may have made minor changes; this wasn't frowned upon at the time).  The remark "by Theodor Fröhlich" is in a different handwriting, so Fröhlich may be guilty or not--he may just have used it for study purposes or copied it for one of the choirs he conducted.

As to the string quartets:  I know two of them quite well (having transcribed them but never gotten around to properly proof reading them--one never gets around to the boring jobs, no?) and I think the Rasumowsky people don't really bring out the best in the music everywhere.  Having said that:  They are all from Fröhlich's time in Berlin (studying with Zelter and Marx) and have features that betray a beginner:  Figurations for the violin that are near unplayably uncomfortable, weird bowings (The variation movement that begins the g-minor quartet) or the fugue he inserted instead of a development section (after a perfectly regular exposition) in the first movement of the f-minor quartet.  BTW (some of) the recordings are on youtube (or were until recently anyway).

As to the piano quartet:  I believe it is his last chamber work and it is definitely more assured, feels more mature and has fewer errors in it. (I once counted the octave and fifth parallels in the g-minor quartet and there are definitely too many.  It is not clear to me how Zelter (known as a pedant) could have overlooked this so I assume he never saw the quartets though they were written while Fröhlich was studying with him--weird but Fröhlich suffered from what we now probably would call clinical depression and maybe other issues). 

I do like the scherzo (in a performance with humans it would of course sound much better than my poor mp3) and the second movement while the outer movements suffer from being too long and also from some bombast in the piano part.

[eschiss1]

string quartets: the recording notes doesn't/don't give so much earlier a year? (1826-1832 or so?)