Chamber music

[russda_man]

I'm getting some instruments together to form a piano quartet or quintet. I am looking for some music. I've never tried chamber music before, so I'm not up on the repertoire. Does anyone have any suggestions? Someone said Beethoven and Mendelsohn are good. Thanks.
Russ.   

[faulty_damper]

Mozart - Piano Quartet in G minor, K478.  This quartet is very musically pleasing so it is worth trying.  Since Mozart uses motives rather than long winding melodies, it's easier to build the structure of the piece.

Ensemble-wise, it's probably more accessible to new players.

[indutrial]

Martinu wrote two piano quintets and a piano quartet, all three of which are excellent. I would also recommend Faure's piano quartets and Milhaud's later piano quartet, op. 417 (1966). Being a huge fan of French and Parisian musics from 1875-1950 (later romanticism through neo-classicalism) I listen to absolutely tons of chamber music.

As far as other quintets, I would highly recommend checking out Grazyna Bacewicz's 2 piano quintets. Both are pretty stunning and inventive contributions to the modern repertoire from a composer whose work sports a real "timeless" cross-genre quality.

These works are probably damned difficult compared to the more standard suggestions that are bound to come forth. In any event, you should check them out just because they are awesome.

[webern78]

Martinu wrote two piano quintets and a piano quartet, all three of which are excellent. I would also recommend Faure's piano quartets and Milhaud's later piano quartet, op. 417 (1966). Being a huge fan of French and Parisian musics from 1875-1950 (later romanticism through neo-classicalism) I listen to absolutely tons of chamber music.

I generally tend to find both Martinu and Milhaud to be somewhat boring, but that's me i guess.

Faure is of course excellent, and just as good (and better in some ways) are the works of his pupil, the Romanian Enescu. The latter is excruciatingly difficult thought.

I also second Mozart's piano quartets, which are small masterworks. Beethoven only wrote one quartet and it's pretty bland, wouldn't bother with it. Schumann and Mendelssohn wrote some good pieces, then you have Brahms, which wrote two piano quartets and two quintets which are among the finest in the genre, though they are pretty tough to perform.

Then you have Reger, Taneyev, Chausson, Shostakovich (early one but it's good), and among more contemporary composers, Schnittke wrote a quartet and a quintet both of which are excellent. And if you want to try something truly esoteric, Kapustin wrote a Piano Quintet which is a real riot, and probably fun as hell to play.

You could also expand the repertory a bit by performing some piano trios, if that's an option.

[slobone]

The Brahms piano quartets are great pieces, especially #1 and #3. I don't think Schubert wrote anything for that exact combination, but there's always the Trout if you can find a bassist. Or the two trios.

And I second Fauré, you can't do better than that.

But what level are you at? I've always been told that the piano part in most chamber music is the hardest part.

[michel dvorsky]

Nice to see the Taneyev piano quintet get a mention.

The Dvorak A Major is great too.

[ahinton]

Faure is of course excellent, and just as good (and better in some ways) are the works of his pupil, the Romanian Enescu. The latter is excruciatingly difficult thought.

Good to see plugs for Chausson and Fauré, who are indeed excellent. If you can find another violinist, Chausson's Concert for violin, piano and string quartet is a real must; as to Fauré, for all his characteristic understatedness, he exerted quite a wide influence at one time, especially over French composers. Enescu has much to offer but, as you say, some of his work is pretty tough to bring off.

Then there's two fine piano quintets by Bloch, there's Bax and Bridge in England (Bridge's second piano trio being one of the very finest since the Archduke, along with the Tchaikovsky and the Ravel, I think - and, as it happens, Bridge played viola in the première of Fauré's C minor piano quartet).

To return to France, there are interesting (though far from well known) piano quintets by de Bréville and le Flem (the latter of which dates from 1911 although its composer died only 24 years ago at the age of 103), but the real star among French piano quintets is surely that of Florent Schmitt; it's as difficult to play as it seems to have been for him to compose (it took him 7 years) and its three movements occupy more than 50 minutes, so it's on an even more ambitious scale than those of Brahms - it's actually dedicated to Fauré and is, for me, one of the peaks of the piano quintet literature from any era.

While on the subject of piano quintets that took their composers an inordinately long time to write, the world record must surely be held by Medtner, who began his only one in 1904 but did not complete it until 45 years later, not long before he died; it isn't his finest work (although sadly I think that he believed that it was so) but it's still got a lot going for it and is well worth investigating.

Now if only Chopin had survived as long as his near-contemporaries Liszt and Alkan...

Anyway, back to work (on a piano quintet, curiously!...)

Best,

Alistair

[indutrial]

Another very nice quintet that I heard performed a few years ago was Tansman's Musique a Cinque, which is a relatively recent typesetting from the Eschig-Salabert-Durand catalogue. The quintet is very reminiscent of Tansman's last two string quartets (7 and in terms of the harmonic and rhythmic approaches. I believe that one part of the quintet was actually fully-incorporated into #8 if I remember correctly. The piano part, I can only imagine, is probably just about as difficult as most of his other music for that instrument. I don't play piano or any of the bowed string instruments, but I'm certain that his work is on the tricky side, especially since he was partial to writing swift toccata sections and crazy scherzos in a lot of his works, all the while employing dense modal and polytonal harmonies and rhythmic accents that often have little to do with the time signature written. I mean, it's not Carter/Wuorinen/etc.. difficult, but it definitely requires a stacked set of players.

[camstrings]

ABRSM in UK do an ensemble syllabus. They are graded in 3 levels. You might get some ideas from there.

[tompilk]

the brahms g minor op. 25 piano quartet is just... amazing...

[russda_man]

I am semi-professional, and have a place at the Royal Northern College of Music (not boasting!), so I I'm good enough, but it's been a fair few years since I done chamber music! Thanks for your information!
Russ.

[russda_man]

Thank you for all your information. You have opened my eyes! Brahms seems to be mentioned quite often, so I will try that. And Faure. I would be interested in late 20th century works too. Thanks again.
Russ.

[mike_lang]

And Fauré.

YES!!!