My typeset of this work (i.e. the score) is now here (https://musescore.com/user/22214/sets/2045771). When everything is finalized it will be posted on IMSLP.
In the mean time those who are interested can look at it and listen to the synthetic realization at the link above. I'd recommend to read along; the system tends to suppress faster passages and over stresses accompanying voices. Just expand the score to cover the whole screen, button top right. Of course this is not more than a first impression.
I find it interesting how different the work is from the almost exactly contemporary Mendelssohn op. 12 and 13--in spite of the identical opus numbers (Hiller and Mendelssohn were friends at the time). On an older thread we find the opinion: "Hiller must be re-evaluated." This quartet IMO confirms the feeling.
Quartet 2 will follow in due time.
Excellent work! I'm sure Santo will be glad to snap it up!
It certainly seems to owe little or nothing to Mendelssohn, who by the same age (and a few years earlier) had already produced some of his greatest and most original chamber works. To my ears the first two movements of Hiller's quartet occupy a purely Mozartean sound world, without contributing much that's distinctive, let alone surprising! The andante poco agitato seems to be the most interesting of the four, although I can't help feeling its tread should have more of a 9-in-a-bar feel, so as to avoid giving the impression of a waltz. But I can see that might make the central section with its rather plain melodic progression against pizzicato arpeggios seem rather static. The finale I'm afraid I thought simply dire! By the way, shouldn't that be a Bb in bar 280 of violin I?
I hate to be negative but I've been in a similar situation as yourself when trying to argue the case for Macfarren's and Ellerton's quartets. I was eventually forced to accept that some works really are neglected for good reason!
Starting with M. 280: To my ear the natural does not sound incorrect, just surprising--and indeed more interesting than b flat. The source has a reminder natural sign (technically unnecessary, there is no b flat before in the first violin part) on that note. It is at least plausible that Hiller wanted it natural and put that sign there.
Personally I like the minuet best. It seems a new and interesting way to deal with the good old da capo form: The minuet (very stately and menuet-ish and old-fashioned for the 1830s) proper reminds in texture bit of Mozart's "Hofmeister quartet" in its rather thick texture with the quavers in the middle voices. The trio is essentially just rhythm and its parts are not repeated. The da capo section then is varied by incorporating rhythms from the trio into the accompaniment, making it less dense and more varied than the first time around. Moreover the harmony wavers forth and back between major and minor in a way I can't remember hearing before. The key signature says b minor, but the piece starts boldly in B Major. The second chord is the e-minor triad, the subdominant, but of b minor, not major. And so it keeps going, also melodically with the sequence e.g. ... g natural - a sharp - b - c sharp - d sharp: First the augmented second, tell tale sign of the minor scale, then shortly after that the d sharp, the tone that creates the Major third for B Major. I see this Major - minor mixing in other movements too, e.g. d sharp (suggesting e minor) appears often in the last movement (in G Major). BTW this last movement starts with the dominant seventh chord, not only not on the tonic, but on a dissonance with a non standard resolution (the seventh upwards).
As to the slow movement: I think if anything it ought to be even somewhat faster, Hiller calls it poco agitato and I think the sixteenths in the accompanying voices as well as the construction of the melody in short fragments (in the A part) suggest agitato and even anxiety. You can't make a computer deal with rhythm sensibly, but if playing you would aim at avoiding Waltz elements by playing those sixteenths very flat, not stressing the ones at all, rather getting an even line out of 6 or 12 of them as the case may be and let the first fiddler do the agitato stuff. I also think that a good violist and violinist can make that melody in the B section sing. And if the pizzicati temporarily give a Waltz character to it there is nothing wrong with that (when the violin repeats the melody, the other voices bow murmuring quavers in legato and with no discernible dancy-ness). BTW the repeat of the A section comes varied in a similar way again (with an entirely new line added in the first fiddle).
On the whole I think the quartet has qualities: Competent and sometimes original writing for the ensemble (the very beginning of the first movement for example with its two parts in horn fifths which are doubled in the lower octave is not something I have heard before), nice part writing, interesting harmony. If this is enough for it to be successful (and in what context, concerts, recordings or home quartet sessions?) I don't know. But it seems to me it is quite easy to find works inferior to this when clicking around in IMSLP.
I wouldn't take serious issue with anything you say, but when there are so many pieces out there competing for attention we have to ask, who is a particular piece likely to appeal to? In Hiller's day as compared with our own there must have been many more amateur chamber music groups whose choices were restricted to the "classical" repertoire. Most of them probably weren't interested in stretching the envelope, and would have been satisfied with minor variations on the standard recipe enlivened with odd dashes of spice. For me (and the amateurs I play with) this is no longer enough, and for professional players the criteria of whether a piece is worth playing are governed by whether it will attract a highly discerning public. So in comparison with another very close contemporary, Emilie Mayer, I'm afraid for me on present evidence Hiller just doesn't cut it. I wasn't very impressed by his third string quartet Op.105 either...
I am looking at op 105 (from 1865 if memory serves) right now (not that I want to publish the score, it is already available for players, just for curiosity). And it seems that in 30 years all that had changed was a much larger scale, other than that the piece is not very much different from no. 1 and the smaller scale makes that one more rather than less attractive, (though the intermezzo of no. 3 with its repeated failing attempts at building a movement is quite witty).
As to what amateurs play I am afraid that while it's true that much of the standard repertoire is wonderful it is also true that a bit more curiosity can't harm. We played through a whole set of Donizetti once and none of them was as good as the Hiller. Or, at the special wish of the cellist we played through the entire Dvorak and none of the early ones is worth playing either. Yet I don't think that was a waste of time. One learns from failure too. We also kept trying the Brahms c-minor quartet and never got the second movement together (and the others much more al fresco than one would like). Sometimes something not quite so good, but also not so hard is enjoyable in a different way. But this is a different topic and has nothing to do with Hiller. Where I grew up Mozart was for professionals only, amateurs had to stay with Stamitz or Christian Bach and maybe I haven't completely recovered from this attitude.
Anyway my point is not so much that this quartet is music worth reviving (I doubt I'll ever play it myself), but that Hiller has some individuality as a composer, something that maybe not everyone expected. Sometimes even good art fails to survive.
Isn't there a unplayable doublestop in the viola part, somewhere in either the first or second Hiller quartet? I assume your edition redistributes the chord somehow, though that did not look a simple matter iirc.
Eric's memory is better than mine. I just went looking and found it on page 3 of the Op.13 viola part where he notates a simultaneous low C# and F#.
Of course, I love to explore the unsung repertoire as much as Double-A does. Unfortunately in the first half of the 19th century there seem to be very few neglected quartets that don't leave you feeling you'd rather be playing Haydn, any Haydn. Possible exceptions include Danzi, Romberg and Fesca.
And Reicha!!
Reicha? Purgatory!!! Don't tastes differ?
I hadn't heard of nor observed the unplayable double stop. By tuning down the G half a tone one could actually play it ;D. (One ought not to over-interpret errors like this--there is a parallel fifth in the Brandenburg concertos somewhere after all). However there are double stops in Hiller's quartets that a violinist probably would rather not have written. Playable but awkward.
A little surprised at the list of alternative names: Neither Fesca, Romberg nor Danzi would in my recollection deserve a lot of attention--or if they do Hiller deserves a hearing too (Reicha and especially Onslow have more to show for themselves IMO). Apart from the fact that they were all born 20 to 30 years before Hiller and belong to the Spohr / C.M. von Weber generation. Hiller belongs to the Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, even Liszt generation. (Which also means we don't have all that much sung chamber music from that generation, essentially just Schumann and Mendelssohn.) The comparison with Emilie Mayer (or Fanny Hensel for that matter) is historically more accurate. And there I agree and prefer both ladies over Hiller.
Of course in a thread about Hiller it's fatal to introduce the names of other composers, but I'm impressed by the excerpts of Johann Benjamin Gross's (1809-1848) third quartet on editionsilvertrust.com. His first two quartets (1833 and 1837, parts on imslp) might be worth sampling too. In an overview of string quartets of the 1830's Mendelssohn, Spohr and Onslow are clearly the dominant figures, venturing (perhaps a little tentatively) into the romantic era, but can anyone think of a work apart from Mendelssohn's Op.13 suggesting its composer was acquainted with Beethoven?
Tried Reicha's string quartets on Toccata?
I've only heard excerpts of the Reicha quartets on Toccata, which seem to be of just the earliest sets, Op.48 and Op.49. Clearly I should give them a proper chance, but in the case of the Op.49 (one of the few on imslp) it's mainly the appearance of the lower parts that causes my spirits to sink. In Cobbett, Rudolf Felber writes that he eventually became more adept at part-writing. However, Cobbett himself points to the "divergence of opinion which obtains among critics". Good luck to the Kreutzers if they really are going to record all 20. Meanwhile I'm pleased to have played through the second quartet of Johann Benjamin Gross.
Ah, well, you're missing out, then...
Quote from: matesic on Wednesday 27 April 2016, 09:39
... but I'm impressed by the excerpts of Johann Benjamin Gross's (1809-1848) third quartet on editionsilvertrust.com. His first two quartets (1833 and 1837, parts on imslp) might be worth sampling too. In an overview of string quartets of the 1830's Mendelssohn, Spohr and Onslow are clearly the dominant figures, venturing (perhaps a little tentatively) into the romantic era, but can anyone think of a work apart from Mendelssohn's Op.13 suggesting its composer was acquainted with Beethoven?
I'd like to modify this question: Can you think of a work suggesting the composer was acquainted with
late Beethoven? And indeed where are these works? It seems to me for example (maybe I am listening incorrectly?) that Brahms' entire chamber music is in the tradition of middle Beethoven--and that would be a generation after Hiller and Mendelssohn.
I think it is important to keep the generations apart: Spohr and Onslow were "hit" by Beethoven's late quartets in mid career and both rejected them as "crazy". This seems a fairly normal reaction by contemporaries to a revolutionary novelty they had not produced themselves. But Mendelssohn and Gross (and Hiller) were young whippersnappers when the late quartets appeared and must have been fascinated. And it seems to me that Gross's excerpts on the Silvertrust web site show that he also tried to react to them and not just by naming the slow movement "Cavatina" (Mendelssohn "quoted" the Cavatina in op. 12). I am very impressed by what I heard and want to learn more about Gross whose name I have never encountered before.
As to Reicha he has a set of 6 flute quartets (flute plus string trio) two of which I believe are on Youtube. There the part writing is very good indeed. Apart from the four Mozart they may well be the best pieces available for this combination (my own first serious attempts at chamber music were with the four Mozart flute quartets, so I am a little partial to the combination).
Here are a few that show influence of Late Beethoven
Karl Weigl String Quartet No.3,
Friedrich Kiel String Quartet No.1
Alexis Castillon String Quartet No.1
Wilhelm Stenhammar String Quartet Nos. 3 & 4
Heinrich von Herzogenberg String Quartet No.5
Ferruccio Busoni String Quartet No.2
Paul Scheinpflug String Quartet
Felix Weingartner String Quartets 3 and 2
We're in danger of getting off topic here...
I was actually thinking of the 1830's! Interestingly, Gross's second quartet (1837) seems to show none of the Beethovenian (and Mendelssohnian) influences that he evinces in the third quartet (1843). After Beethoven's death it seems to have been more than a decade before anyone (except the 18-year-old Mendelssohn!) dared to venture onto ground which was hallowed for some, a minefield for others. But thanks to Santo for his list of brave ones including several I don't know.
QuoteAfter Beethoven's death it seems to have been more than a decade before anyone (except the 18-year-old Mendelssohn!) dared to venture onto ground which was hallowed for some, a minefield for others.
Well, that's true in virtually all musical genres...
Quote from: Alan Howe on Thursday 28 April 2016, 10:10
QuoteAfter Beethoven's death it seems to have been more than a decade before anyone (except the 18-year-old Mendelssohn!) dared to venture onto ground which was hallowed for some, a minefield for others.
Well, that's true in virtually all musical genres...
I don't quite understand. Surely there is no second group of works quite like Beethoven's late quartets and sonatas. I find it interesting that Mendelssohn--after boldly tackling late Beethoven as a teenager--retreated to the "safety" of middle Beethoven with his op. 44. Even lectured his sister about it in a letter.
But I'd like to add some random observations on Hiller's quartets no 1 and 2 before the thread has run its course (which included some vey worthwhile deviations from the original topic).
Apart from his harmony Hiller has a tendency to obscure the reprise--or sneak it in--in sonata movements (unlike say Haydn or Beethoven who often make it a key event and carefully prepare the ground for it), and also to shorten the recapitulation. Another feature is a somewhat fussy concern about getting markings right: Tempo markings like "Andante poco agitato" or Adagio quasi andante" are one example. More uncommon in the 1830's is the density of dynamic hairpin markings: Sometimes greater than Reger's (and Reger put in so many hairpins it is almost impossible to execute them all).
To summarize: My personal judgement about Hillers's op 12 and 13: They are good, well written quartets, they do show some originality, especially in harmony. They also seem to be modeled on Haydn (ins spite of the differences pointed out earlier--not on Mozart IMO) more than on any more contemporary models and are quite old fashioned (as opposed to conservative like Mendelssohn or Brahms) for Hiller's time in many ways. At any rate Hiller's personal style--at least in the quartets--differs vastly from Mendelssohn's. And while these two quartets are good they lack that lastly intangible quality of greatness. Op 105 by comparison is rather a disappointment as already mentioned. (BTW the extra note in that unplayable double stop could be given to the cello with no problems. It may be smarter though to just omit the c sharp as it occurs in both violin parts anyhow.)
I have the theory that every composition is as good as its best possible interpretation. If correct this means that somebody could come along at any time and prove in practice that these works--or any other composition we all thought was mediocre--are in fact great.
As a onetime-scientist, I understand the importance of not believing too strongly in your own theories, so I'm assuming yours is presented in the nature of a debating point! One would expect a musician of Hiller's eminence to display a high degree of technical competence and imagination, which is clearly demonstrated in the piece I listened to today (the G major piano quintet Op. 156). So I confess I'm surprised to find his string quartets so disappointing. The notation error in Op.13 is unimportant, but you mention his fussy concern about getting tempo markings right. Why, then, are we in disagreement about the intended tempo (and consequently mood) of the Andante poco agitato of Op.12 - did he not possess a metronome? To me this suggests an underlying uncertainty of what he was trying to convey. I'm inclined to think he was one of many who in the context of string-quartet writing found themselves tongue-tied by the spectre of Beethoven.
As I implied previously, the first two movements of Op.12 struck me as little better than pastiche and the finale as wholly uninspired. To be convinced that this is a "good, well-written" quartet I might well need to hear it in its best possible interpretation, but without more immediate evidence of originality, ingenuity or virtuosity I doubt it will ever attract players good enough to discover its hidden depths.
I won't say anything more about Hiller, just about my "theory". Disclosure: I am a scientist myself.
The "theory" originated in a radio discussion about Heinz Holliger (I can't remember when, on which station, even in what language I heard it). The summary of it was that Holliger was forced to look for pieces by minor composers by the narrowness of the repertoire for oboe. And that he was able to play them in such a way as to make them worth listening to. And I thought: Maybe it is the other way: By playing them that way he proved that they were well composed.
Using this in my last post I intended to add a dash of irony, but it did not seem to come through; I guess I ought to have put "theory" in quotes.
I for one am very glad you are making more Hiller available, double-A. I was listening this afternoon to Balakirev's first piano concerto and was struck by how strongly influenced he was by Hiller (if one didn't know Hiller one might think the influence was mostly Chopin, but actually it's not).
The unplayable viola double-stop is perhaps a clue, but does anyone happen to know what kind of players the quartet was written for? Put another way, who was still gathering to play string quartets in 1830s Paris? Mostly amateurs? Mostly professionals? Mostly nobody? Onslow was very productive. Anyone else?
I'd hypothesize that this first quartet was aimed at amateurs. Technically it is quire a bit less demanding than the contemporary Mendelssohn quartets. As to the role of the string quartet in the musical life of the time maybe Spohr's (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45997) autobiography supplies some details (the copy on Gutenberg Project is a (bad) old English translation; the book is tedious at times but full of interesting details if you are interested in the musical life of the era). The custom of the permanent professional quartet we have been used to is at any rate still way in the future in 1830.
I take it all back! Having written off Hiller's finale as uninspired, I think I now perceive where he was coming from. In 1834 what recently published masterpiece had an (allegro molto) vivace movement in a similarly unrelenting 6/8 rhythm, without a single semiquaver for variety? Once I had Beethoven's Op.131 in mind, suddenly the piece sounded completely different. OK, some passages still remind one of a music-hall tune, but it appears Hiller's youthful thinking may have been even closer to Mendelssohn's (in his Op.13 quartet) than we assumed. Now I shall have to find out how it plays!
On the other hand there is a longstanding tradition going back into the baroque of just such movements as final movements (Beethoven's serves as "scherzo"). 6 out of the 12 sonatas op 2 by Vivaldi for example close on such a movement (called Giga or Gigue). Haydn has finales like this (the E flat quartet from op 33, G Major from op 64 etc.) and Mozart as well (string quintet in G major (?)). Indeed Mendelssohn has quite a few final movements of this type.
We almost seem to have exchanged positions on the merits of this piece! If Hiller was merely reflecting classical models (which I previously assumed, based on the earlier movements), I'd say he was doing so incompetently. At this date I'm not sure what pieces of Mendelssohn might have served as his model - surely not Op.12? But if, on the other hand, he was struggling to embrace a radical new ethos of string quartet writing...well, you might award him only 4 marks out of 10 but I was quite surprised by how my response to what I was hearing was transformed by that change of mindset. I wonder if any of Hiller's other music from this period suggests similarly high ambition?
Well. I was never as "bullish" on these quartets as you seemed to be "bearish". You had a point--I just felt you were overstating it and felt compelled to defend the piece as much as I judged possible.
I do think you need some more evidence to show that Beethoven was indeed present in Hiller's mind for the last movement of the quartet. Which is why I brought up the tradition of 6/8 final movements. Mendelssohn's op 12 (at least partially) and op 44/1 (this one is indeed somewhat tedious too) are examples, quoted more to show that the tradition was alive and well at the time, not that there is a Mendelssohn model for the Hiller movement--Hiller didn't need it given the tradition.
Beethoven's movement is quite different from the Hiller: More transparent, more dialogue between the instruments, dynamics used more effectively, especially with those accents on the weak beat; it has a light touch. Hiller's movement in comparison sounds compact and a little monotone. I do think the beginning with its harmony makes a good opening statement and is quite original (I don't know all quartets by Spohr and Onslow, let alone Reicha, so there may be models in there somewhere though). Of course the movement goes on too long.
Another idea that came to me: What originality Hiller displays here--and there is some there demonstrably in all four movements--somehow moves sideways, orthogonal to history. Maybe because his goal was just to find ways to write pieces in the Haydn/Mozart (more Haydn than Mozart IMO) spirit without repeating their style precisely rather than find a way to express the needs of an entirely new age the way say Schumann or Berlioz did.
And even more speculatively: This--moving sideways--may similarly be the case for Reicha who is generally described as a brilliant theoretician with all sorts of innovative ideas (he was also an extremely successful teacher; a 19th century equivalent to Nadia Boulanger almost). But IMSLP is a miserable source for Reicha's quartets (the parts for most or all of them are available from Merton music so if you want you can play them) and I haven't really had a chance to look into him more thoroughly.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as Schuppanzigh used to say. Under the fingers I found Hiller's finale somewhat gauche and unadventurous in its part writing, but musically inventive and enjoyable. There's a strong echo of Mendelssohn in the second subject and yes, I still believe Hiller may have been recalling Op.131 in an imperfectly digested way. Like quite a few others, he may have just been doffing his cap to the master. I'm not sure I'll get around to the other movements, but here at least is the finale.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/7rf8a9xowpboguv/hiller_sq1_mvt4.mp3
I didn't look hard for transcription mistakes but should mention a few - in bar 51 the pause is missing from v2, va and vc; in bar 47 v1 the last note should be G#; in bar 316 v1 the Bb should be C#; in bar 340 v2 the C should be C#.
I agree that Hiller should probably be seen as a forward-looking composer whose misfortune was not to progress as radically or in the same direction as the romantic "greats". I'm currently transcribing F.E.Fesca's Op.1 quartets, and they too I can envisage as building on Mozart and Haydn, contemporary with but completely independently of Beethoven.
I look forward to having my prejudices about Reicha dashed when I finally hear some of his quartets all the way through. As you know, the Merton Music catalogue is now available from Ourtext. 90% of Merton editions were placed on IMSLP before the transfer of ownership but some were left out by mistake, and I was unable to persuade the proprietor of Ourtext to surrender up the remainder. At around £5 for each set of parts, why don't I just buy a few?
Going off at something of a tangent, I admit, but does anyone know the whereabouts of the MS of the Symphony in G "Im Freien" (British premiere 1852)?
Listening to your recording makes me wonder why I missed the Mendelssohnian second theme. It is so obvious when you play it. The piece sounds not nearly as good with playback.
I still think maybe the movement overstays its welcome somewhat.
A little sleuthing confirms that the main theme of Hiller's finale is very closely related to the second subject of Op.131's allegro molto vivace (letter E) - 4 sequential notes are actually identical. Although in a different meter and key with the last note transposed up an octave, Hiller's second subject (second phrase) bears more than a passing resemblance to Mendelssohn's Op.12 (first movement, second subject), where I remember our late lamented second violinist once got a public attack of the purlies. In both cases the phrase is immediately repeated. And could that be Death and the Maiden I hear in bar 33? Not quite, but Hiller's influences are becoming abundantly clear!
Hrm. Could choose worse influences, and originality, especially per se, is much overrated...
Do you think in this case Hiller may actually have been advertising his avant-garde listening tastes? I agree there's many a good tune still to be played on an old fiddle (not the best metaphor, but it will have to do!), but the record shows that a composer is most unlikely to be remembered by posterity unless he or she also develops an original "voice", deliberately or not. I believe that may be the crucial missing factor for many of the unsungs.
The first quartet by Ferdinand Hiller was not received with universal acclaim when I posted it on IMSLP . After some hesitation I decided to typeset and post the two remaining Hiller quartets anyway: Hiller's music more generally enjoys a rather good reputation and it seems worthwhile looking at his entire output of quartets. The second quartet is now on IMSLP (http://imslp.org/wiki/String_Quartet_No.2,_Op.13_(Hiller,_Ferdinand)) (after long procrastination on proofreading and formatting). It is also here (https://musescore.com/user/22214/sets/2515021) (though the computer realization is rather awful).
Short description: The second resembles the first quartet in its essentially classical design (four movements of the "correct" length, total playing time approx. 19 min), striving to write four interesting parts, but also looking to find new textures for the quartet sound and showing some originality. Compared to his two almost perfectly contemporaneous colleagues Mendelssohn (born 1809) and J. B. Gross (1811; Hiller also 1811) he is the most conservative. His first two quartets are also technically least demanding for players, easier than most Haydn quartets (if you are coaching amateur quartets you may consider one of them. They might do better with it than with Mozart).
The first movement, moderato, is in sonata form in ⅜, pretty in an almost 18th century way but not particularly interesting.
The second movement in G-Major, allegro capriccioso in 2/4, serves as a scherzo or rather intermezzo. Its main melody resembles strongly the ones Mendelssohn used in his intermezzi in op. 12 and 13. But it does not follow the traditional da capo form like Mendelssohn's movements. It starts out with a short repeated section--what one expects from such da capo movements. The theme is interrupted by a motif consisting of four accented crotchets on the same pitch. The second part begins very much still in the da capo mold with the four crotchet motif showing up regularly in one voice or another. But then a hesitation occurs--rather than the expected repeat--and the music launches into a fugato on that four crotchet motif. For the rest of the movement we hear the four-crotchet-motif take over the music, which eventually ends on it. This piece is quite original and a lot of fun. To me the best of the four movements.
The third movement, also in G, adagio quasi andante, is a rondo with three themes--one solemn in Major, the second sad in minor, the third more joyous in Major. All three themes undergo some transformations along the way. At the end we get the opening theme reduced to a skeleton in pizzicato, followed by a somewhat unusual final cadence.
The last movement, allegro molto, now back in b-minor, is a sonata movement. There is a hectic atmosphere almost throughout with a first theme with lots of rests giving an impression of breathlessness, triplet accompaniments, accents in secondary voices, dynamic contrasts. The second theme is quieter but still has forward momentum. The end comes surprisingly in piano--and in B-Major like Hiller's classical models. Quite effectful as a finale.