Jacques Féréol Mazas (1782 - 1849): String Quartets op. 7

[Double-A]

Does Mazas count as sung or unsung? 

As a composer of violin etudes and duos for students he is certainly well established.  I have always liked his etudes and use them regularly for my daily practice sessions.  To me they are much better compositions than the other "classic" etudes (mainly Kreutzer and Fiorillo, Rode--I admit it--is too hard for me). 

His duos on the other hand (I know only a fraction of them) for all the melodic charm often present seem a little simple minded:  Most of the time one violin plays the melody, the other some simple accompaniment, than they switch roles, often literally repeating the music in sections of maybe 16 measures or so.  Maybe because they are written for children they tend to be much simpler harmonically than the etudes (where more advanced harmony must be used to provide opportunities for the training of intonation if for no other reasons).

Wondering what other compositions of his are around I checked IMSLP and found his three quartets op. 7 (parts from about 1822; together with the trios op.18 for 2 vln and viola they seem to be the only chamber pieces for more than two players in Mazas' output).  I don't think there is a modern edition available, so I typeset the score to get a better picture and I was struck by the quality of these fully grown up pieces.  Beyond the charm of his melodies we find:  Imaginative use of the quartet medium, the four voices mostly nicely individualized.  They are not quatuors brillants.  Being a violin virtuoso Mazas included virtuoso episodes for the first fiddler--sometimes truly virtuoso like a whole variation in double stops--but so did Haydn and even Beethoven.  These quartets remind me of Onslow--three quartets to an opus, each quartet with its individual character, similarities in the use of the medium, heavy use of chromaticism.  However only Onslow's earliest quartets were already published when Mazas composed his set.

These quartets seem to have been completely forgotten--are therefore clearly unsung--and I think they ought to be played.  I will post my finished scores and sets of parts on IMSLP when they are properly proof read and cleaned up (the copy of the old parts on IMSLP has not very good print quality and contains rather many errors--accidentals forgotten, incorrect dynamics, measures with too many beats in them, inconsistent articulation markings etc.--so a new typeset will help people who want to play). 

[eschiss1]

Thanks! In any event I believe that retypesetting/editing is useful and difficult work (I am not good at it- yet- but have some experience).

[minacciosa]

Excellent post. I've thought highly of Mazas' etudes, and knew nothing of other works. This makes me very curious to hear. I'll download parts and arrange a reading. Hanks for engraving them; maybe you can create sound files while you're at it.

[Double-A]

I use the playback option to check for errors; they usually scream out if you do that.  I have considered making sound files, have so far no experience in it.  But in order to sound anything even remotely like music they would have to be worked at measure by measure and so far I have been too lazy to do that.

I should mention that the copy on IMSLP is not complete (probably oversights when it was digitized).  I got in contact with the library it came from and the administrator promised me to fix the errors.  Until then some movements have only three parts and if you play them you have one person sitting out.  The first quartet is complete and will be posted first.

[minacciosa]

Let me know when you make it available. BTW, are you using Finale or another notation program? Finale can make sound files relatively simply with the included Garritan Instruments for Finale. They sound quite good.

[Double-A]

I am using Musescore (see musescore.org).  It does provide the option to export sound files.  Their quality is supposed to be determined by the sound font used, but I have done no work on that.  What I mean is actually rubato:  In those sound files "musicians" never take a breath, the music just goes on as if by metronome and that makes it dead.

[eschiss1]

Well, in my experience that's MIDI for you, unless I misunderstand you. (Even small rits.-- a tempi one has to program in very carefully in these things; when I used a copy of Finale to try to sequence the first movement of Schumann's first violin sonata, it took several tries to get maybe the most important such tempo change sort-of-right (just before start of recapitulation, of course), and I gave up on trying others.)

[minacciosa]

Finale's playback has come a very long way. I'll upload an example if there is interest.

[matesic]

Of course some pieces are naturally more "metronomic" than others, rubato apparently being an invention of the romantic period (I'm inviting debate here!). When multitracking myself playing string chamber music, the click track I play to is usually at least 95% metronomic, just the ritardando bars being progressively slowed. Certain pieces (e.g. most of Brahms's, but also some "unsungs" like Hermann Gradener) seem to invite distinct changes in the tempo primo, for example the second subject being taken slightly slower or faster than the first, but this seems to be the exception rather than the rule. So I don't actually think the maintenance of strict tempo is the chief reason synthetic sound files sound unmusical. Rather, it's the absence of subtle changes in dynamics, tone colour, accents etc - in short "humanity"!

[Double-A]

Rubato:  I am meaning small and subtle effects, e.g. the following:
-  Minuet and trio:  Before the trio a breather is necessary, an extra-rest of maybe up to a quaver long.  Otherwise it sounds as if the music stumbled over its own feet by practically falling into the new section (this does not apply if a composed transition is present).
-  Similarly at the end of phrases a little breather--enough to let a wind player or singer take breath--helps to clarify  the structure of the piece and also the mark a clear new beginning.  The necessary time is mostly taken away from the last note of the preceding phrase, sometimes also added in as extra-time. 
-  To mark a subito piano or subito forte you have to hesitate a little bit before playing the first note in the changed dynamic.  This will do two things: heighten the effect of the surprise and a the same time, luckily for musicians, make the dynamic change easier to execute.
To achieve these in a sound file you have to either make the final measure a certain small value longer or reduce the final note by a small value, i.e. make a double dotted quaver plus a rest out of a crotchet for example or expand the final measure from 3/4 to 13/16 or 7/8 etc.
If you then also adjust the length of notes to reflect the many nuances between legato and staccato that exist (say in repeated quavers as accompanying figures which need to be longer and softer than staccato but ought to have some air between them nonetheless) you might get something quite acceptable, but it is a lot of work to change each of a string of quavers into a double dotted semiquaver plus rest.
Doing the grand things, ritardandos, fermatas and the like which occur only a small number of times in one piece is comparatively quick I'd imagine.  But it is really the small and subtle things like breathing--which you will do almost "automatically" when you play your instrument--which make the music live.

[matesic]

You're completely right of course. These effects are a lot easier to realise by playing than by programming, praise be! For string and wind instruments I don't think any music notation/replay software is ever likely to pass the Turing test, but I've come close to being fooled by some piano simulations.

[Double-A]

The typeset of op. 7/1 has now been posted on IMSLP.

[Double-A]

A short description of this quartet (in e-minor) may wet somebody's appetite (one may dream).

It consists of the usual four movements.  The first in sonata form features a slow introduction whose main rhythm resurfaces surprisingly at the beginning of the development section.  Its first theme is very Mazasien (I hope you forgive this adjective): legato in flowing quavers with a large ambitus (lots of string crossings, a difficulty that is addressed in several of the etudes).  The second theme begins in the second violin, then, as if by happenstance the two violins find themselves playing in octaves.  The two violins play in octaves fairly regularly, reminding me of Arriaga, who was using the effect even more often.

The Minuetto is in second place and is a true minuet albeit a rather fast one.  It is my favorite among the four, simple, but of a sort of simplicity that is hard to create, in a wistful e-minor with a much brighter trio in E-Major.

The Adagio in A-Major which follows is in somewhat truncated sonata form:  The first theme is followed by an outbreak in forte with lots of demisemiquavers and some modulation (might be called a premature development section).  It ends up in e-minor before the second theme--not much different in character from the first--appears as per the rulebook in E-Major.  The development is short.  In the reprise the first theme is played by the second violin (poco forte while the rest of the ensemble plays piano) while the first presents a counterpoint at higher pitch.  Then the outbreak recurs, but this time with the first fiddle repeating the first theme in fortissimo over an accompaniment made up of demisemiquavers.  About halfway through the melody the music stalls, then moves directly (no more second theme) into a coda in piano, a long pedal point on E leads diminuendo to the final A-Major chord.

The last movement , Allegretto, is in 6/8 in rondo form.  The main theme keeps switching between hemiolas and regular 6/8 rhythm.  Four very similar virtuoso episodes in the violin are possibly one too many and a cut might improve the effect of the movement which begins in e-minor and ends in E-Major.

[matesic]

It certainly looks worth a hearing. Like Double-A, I also found Mazas's violin studies much more enjoyable than Kreutzer's, which on the "no gain without pain" principle probably did my technique no good at all.

[matesic]

I'm struggling to come to terms with the metronome marks. In your transcript the agitato non troppo presto of the first movement feels right at 96 minims to the minute (the sextuplets are a bit of a challenge!), although Mazas actually gives 96 for a crotchet pulse. I think your tactful correction of what is probably a publisher's mistake is the right decision. But what to make of "minim 27" for the Minuetto is a complete mystery! Even a dotted minim at that tempo would be nowhere near allegro. Crotchet =144 seems about right to me. In the adagio non troppo the mark of 104 for a dotted quaver clearly suggests the pubslisher didn't know what Maelzel was all about. For the final allegretto, 112 dotted crotchets is surely too fast, pretty well unplayable. I'd go for about 84. I'm also finding a few little transcription errors that I'll make a list of.

But a nice job of work, well worth the effort!