Unsung String Quintets

[saxtromba]

There are gazillions of well known string quartets, but not so many well known string quintets (Schubert, Bruckner, Brahms, a few others).  I can certainly think of ones which should be better known (Rubinstein, e.g.), but I'll bet there are others I've never even heard of.

Recommendations?  I'm looking for the combination of either 2 violins, viola, and two violoncellos, or 2 violins, 2 violas, and violoncello, not the string quartet plus double bass versions (e.g. Hummel) or piano quintets.

Thanks.

[eschiss1]

I don't know if they should remain unsung or not, but there's nine manuscript string quintets (and 3 quartets) by an almost completely unknown Italian Romantic composer named Giuseppe Mascia (1808-ca.1870?) over at IMSLP (uploaded from scans from an Italian source.)  I've typeset (not very well) the first movement parts of one of them and will get back to them, but meanwhile...
Eric (note: to find scores, parts, and recordings of string quintets at IMSLP go to Category:Quintets and click on "Category Walker", then get more specific about the type of quintet you want. Takes a little while to learn, but it's a big site and may have some of the things you want though of course not everything. Just a suggestion. I'm an editor and admin there so of course a little biased - but did want to make the suggestion as one approach to the problem - out of many. Continue of course!)

[petershott@btinternet.com]

A far less scholarly reply than the one offered just now by Eric. But welcome again, Saxtromba, and ignore at your peril Op. 4, 29, and 104 by a chap called Beethoven (though Op 104 is an arrangement of his Piano Trio Op. 1/3).

Apologies - that's rather an 'obvious' answer (and Beethoven is hardly unsung). But worth the risk of your yawning at me for these are quite stunning string quintets! (And heard less often than they ought to be).

Peter

[eschiss1]

Well, I hoped "a few others" included Beethoven and Mozart especially (and Boccherini), but it's true, Beethoven's op.29 is still much too undersung! Aren't opp.4 and 104 both arrangements? Anyway...

[ahinton]

There are gazillions of well known string quartets, but not so many well known string quintets (Schubert, Bruckner, Brahms, a few others).

Not forgetting Mozart...

I can certainly think of ones which should be better known (Rubinstein, e.g.), but I'll bet there are others I've never even heard of.

Recommendations?  I'm looking for the combination of either 2 violins, viola, and two violoncellos, or 2 violins, 2 violas, and violoncello, not the string quartet plus double bass versions (e.g. Hummel) or piano quintets.

Well, I can think of a (literally) "sung" one but apparently it wouldn't be for you as it's for string quartet and double bass; I should also get a slapped wrist for shameless advertising, I guess (although that would be preferable to slapped writs)...

[Alan Howe]

Taneyev's in G major, Op.14 - for two violins, viola and two cellos, available for download here (it's in three movements)...

http://www.amazon.com/Sergei-Ivanovich-Taneyev-Quintet-Allegro/dp/B000YTPQVA/ref=sr_1_cc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1296584790&sr=1-2-catcorr

[John H White]

Franz Lachner's dramatic 2 cello string quintet in C minor takes a lot of beating, as I'm sure Mark will confirm.
     

[FBerwald]

Just 1 reply -

Glazunov - string quintet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I don't think I'm going to get either slapped wrists or writs if I assert that in my view the Quintet referred to is an utterly astounding work of tremendous worth and value. I discovered it quite by accident, and it changed my view of what is of permanent significance in late 20th century music (so much merely glitzy or clever or 'novel' music went out the window). To use a Nietzschean word, the Quintet 'detained' me, and each time I listen to it other more apparently attractive works are rendered more 'merely cosmetic' and less satisfying to the mind if not the ear.

A compulsory experience for all, including Saxtrompa, and while he sets aside just short of 3 hours to indulge in it we can think up more quintets for him to try.

One absolutely trifling point of no consequence whatsoever, but maybe its creator can be drawn out. Why a 'quintet' when it is written for 5 instruments plus (in its final lengthy movement) a soprano where those instruments do not 'support' or 'accompany' the soprano but where the voice is an integral part of the musical texture and language? Much more so than, for example, the voice part in Schoenberg's Quartet 4. Because of that I've always thought of this quintet as in fact a sextet - and I hope in a way that's a tribute to its composer!

Peter

[Mark Thomas]

Yes, I'll happily second John's nomination of Franz Lachner's String Quintet. It's a very strong piece indeed, so good in fact that I'm afraid that I'm now going to upset John by saying that it's the best piece of Lachner's which I've heard! Unfortunately, I don't think that there's a commercial recording.

Not quite in the same league, but still a very worthwhile listen, is Klughardt's String Quintet - a newish MDG CD has both it and the excellent Piano Quintet.

[ahinton]

I don't think I'm going to get either slapped wrists or writs if I assert that in my view the Quintet referred to is an utterly astounding work of tremendous worth and value. I discovered it quite by accident, and it changed my view of what is of permanent significance in late 20th century music (so much merely glitzy or clever or 'novel' music went out the window). To use a Nietzschean word, the Quintet 'detained' me, and each time I listen to it other more apparently attractive works are rendered more 'merely cosmetic' and less satisfying to the mind if not the ear.

A compulsory experience for all, including Saxtrompa, and while he sets aside just short of 3 hours to indulge in it we can think up more quintets for him to try.

One absolutely trifling point of no consequence whatsoever, but maybe its creator can be drawn out. Why a 'quintet' when it is written for 5 instruments plus (in its final lengthy movement) a soprano where those instruments do not 'support' or 'accompany' the soprano but where the voice is an integral part of the musical texture and language? Much more so than, for example, the voice part in Schoenberg's Quartet 4. Because of that I've always thought of this quintet as in fact a sextet - and I hope in a way that's a tribute to its composer!

Peter

I hardly know what to say in response beyond thanking you profusely for your most kind words. To answer your point, however, when the first ideas of the work dawned upon me it was not immediately obvious where the whole was going or that it could not find its final resting place without a high soprano joining the journey (although this fact did become clear to me failry soon after the work got under way). By Schönberg's fourth quartet you mean of course his magnificent second and, inevitably, the example of that work was hardly absent at the time that I worked on my quintet - but perhaps the best way that I can account for the line-up of my quintet is that I sought to conceive it for five - and later on six - singers, of whom five play stringed instruments; most fortunately for me, the performers in that recording are all wonderful singers. I hope that this makes at least some sense!

Best,

Alistair

[eschiss1]

Possibly my own favorite among unsung string quintets is that composed in about a month in 1874 by Josef Rheinberger. There is a good description of it on Silvertrust's site here. Brahmsian generally but even more passionate, I think.
Eric

[Glazier]

A strong contender must be the Koessler, of which you can hear some good extracts on Silvertrust.
What a splendid slow movement.

[saxtromba]

Another quintet I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet is Ethel Smyth's Op. 1, a Brahmsian five movement work with some very beautiful sections. It was recorded on CPO a while back, along with her much lengthier string quartet.

[eschiss1]

Another almost completely unsung one you may never hear (though three of his 70-odd string quartets have been recorded and uploaded to IMSLP- I still haven't heard the quintet myself...) - John Lodge Ellerton's opus 100 in F minor (pub.in or about 1849 by Johann André. (The parts to the quintet have been uploaded here to IMSLP though so who knows.)

(I wonder who Otto Hohlfeld is? His string quintet op.1 in F major shows up there - pub. by F. Kistner around 1876, republished by Merton Music recently.  Interesting opening too-- two bars presto, then 29 bars elaborated Adagio followed by an Allegro moderato...)