Chamber Music

[Paul]

I'm new here. The work people have done on this site looks highly commendable to me. I might be allowed an opinion, having written about music for forty years, with an emphasis on orchestral.

Nonetheless, my current project is of the chamber sort, about which I see not much on this site. Correct that if I'm wrong.

For those interested, www.quartetweb.org is what I refer to, a scholarly resource about the string quartet, both compositions and performers. If anyone's interested, I'll be interested.

[Mark Thomas]

Hi Paul and welcome. UC is a broad church and we do have threads on vocal, chamber and instrumental music here and there although, as you say, orchestral music tends to predominate. That's not by design or diktat, though, and personally, I'd welcome a more even spread but it merely reflects the interests of most people here.

Nice site, btw.

[Sydney Grew]

Interesting site; looks promising - thanks. A couple of minor teething troubles:

1) "Registring on this site" - according to the O.E.D. it's "registering."

2) Clicking on that, as suggested, gives me, at least, the following error message:

[quote: ]

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Notice

Message: Trying to get property of non-object

Filename: controllers/site.php

Line Number: 23

[end of quote]

- I am using "Firefox".

[Paul]

I'll look into the error. Meanwhile, "Registring" and "Registering" are both common.

I'd like to know more about you, notably because you have the name of a critic from a hundred years ago.

[Alan Howe]

Meanwhile, "Registring" and "Registering" are both common.

So is "definately", but "registring" is "definitely" wrong...

[Sydney Grew]

It is already a most valuable site, though. I looked up several obscure composers, and they are all there, and a lot of detailed information is provided, where obtainable. Now would it not make the site wonderfully complete if there were an actual performance provided with each and every entry, which users could click on? I wonder whether ensembles could be found willing to play through every work and post the result as a flac file? A good opportunity for a young up-and-coming group to make an indelible name for themselves, I would think.

Of course there are many more quartets. than there are for instance symphonies, and probably life is too short to get to know them all. Holmboe over twenty, Myaskowsky thirteen . . . there must be many thousands. When investigating a new composer, as a kind of test I always look up how many symphonies he wrote, how many string quartets., and how many pianoforte quintets.

Incidentally, I prefer the spelling "quartette"; it is the one favoured by Wilde and many other pre-war writers. The modern word "quartet" always strikes me as being a mere truncation or abbreviation, rather like "op" for "opus," and I would be glad were the longer form to be re-introduced. On the present forum, though, I usually write "quartet." with a full point, simply so as not to "frighten the horses" and make an issue of it.

It is noteworthy isn't it that most of the great composers in their youth - from Mozart to Britten and beyond - played the viola in a string quartet.

[Paul]

Definately but not desparately a seperate opinion here.

The spelling quartette looks to me trying to be more French than the French (a habit known to Albion dwellers of Wilde's generation and a little later), when it isn't confused with Quartette, the German plural. Another time we may get into why it's said that "The Kronos Quartet have recorded..."

Meanwhile, to read QuartetWeb's "Regist(e)ring on this site" (spelling now changed) isn't possible. I have alerted my web person, who is probably asleep. It will be fixed before long.

there must be many thousands.

That's definitely true. In his book, Francis Vuibert listed more than 26,000 of them from Haydn onwards, then said that after it had been printed, he discovered another thousand composers, most from the late 19th century. Not going back that far, my site may some day contain 26,000 compositions from the 20th century alone. Nonetheless, its aim to include recordings and premieres makes it different from Vuibert's book, some of whose inaccuracies in composers and compositions I've corrected.

One of the more interesting discoveries I've happened upon in this venture is why the quartet group who commissioned one of the famous quartets of the last half of the 20th century never played it. (Guesses welcome.) Lastly, there isn't likely another public reference to the string quartets of Milton Adolphus that's even close to accurate. One day in 2010 I found the manuscripts of his complete works, up to opus 200 and including 13 symphonies. His quartets I've examined (a handful) are expert, imaginative, and witty in some cases, viz. well worth hearing. Not a note of any is recorded, although most of them may have been played once.

For orchestral music, this composer provides an answer to the excellent party question, "Whose Symphony No. 8 is in B minor?"