Continuing into another corner of classical music, what are your favorite pieces of chamber music, not including the already surveyed string quartets? The options are so vast. Any combination of two or more instruments will suffice. Oh the possibilities! From standard piano trios to oddball combinations. Anyway, below is a list of my favorites pretty much off the top of my head (except for Beethoven), so some works are omitted. This batch is pretty heavily tilted toward modern music; many post-Mahler composers seem to work better in smaller forms for whatever reason. Did ol’ Gustav scare them away from the symphony? (Incidentally, I have not really devoted much time to collecting many chamber works – rather I have focused my library building time and money on solo piano pieces, string quartets, and orchestral works – so I am not including many favored recordings. Many collectors far more experienced than me can better provide such information as well as some missing masterpieces.)
Beethoven – Septet; Violin Sonatas Opp 12/3, 23, 24, 47, 96 (Kempff / Schneiderhan or Ashkenazy / Perlman); Piano Trios Opp 1/1 (fine young Beethoven), 70/1 “Ghost”, 70/2, 97 “Archduke” and WoO 38
Bartok – Violin Sonatas 1 & 2; Contrasts; Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (a substantial oddball work I suppose); Rhapsodies for Violin and Piano (and the orchestral versions ain’t too shabby neither.)
Carter – Cello Sonata
Smetana – Piano Trio
Webern – Concerto (Is it a Nonet or does it need a conductor?); Quartet for Violin, Clarinet, Sax and Piano; Two Pieces for Cello and Piano; Four Pieces for Violin and Piano
Schubert – Octet; “Trout” Quintet (Schnabel / Pro Arte Quartet); Piano Trios Opp 99 & 100
Haydn – All eight notturni for the King of Naples
Mozart – The piano trios and those oddball combination piano quintets and quartets
Messiaen – Quartet for the End of Time
Brahms – All Piano Trios and Quartets; Clarinet Trio; Clarinet Quintet
Mendelssohn - Octet
Schulhoff – Hot Sonata for Sax and Piano; String Sextet; Violin Sonata No 2
Janacek – Violin Sonata; Concertino (hard to know how to classify this work)
Schumann – Piano Quintet
Korngold – String Sextet
Piston – String Sextet; Piano Quintet
Rawsthorne – Viola Sonata; Piano Quintet
Debussy – Violin Sonata; Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp
Dvorak – Piano Quintet; Piano Trios Opp 65 & 90
Ligeti – Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano; Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet
Boulez – Sur Incises
Posted on: 24 March 2002 by Rainer S
Excellent list! Missing:
Mozart - E-flat Divertimento for string trio (good recording, anyone?), Kegelstatt-Trio, duos for Violin and Viola (Kremer/Kashkashian)
Brahms - string sextets, viola sonatas (Primrose!)
Dohnanyi - 2nd Piano quintet (Tatrai quartet)
Shostakovich - viola sonata
Posted on: 28 March 2002 by herm
Odd BallsExcepting duo sonatas i can mention these:
Mozart: String trio 563 (two CBS recordings: Ma / Kashkasian / Kremer or, heavier, Rose / Zuckerman / Stern). Mozart labelled this piece Divertimento but in reality it's as heavy-weight as a Beethoven late string quartet.
Both Piano Quartets belong to the very best Mozart wrote. And the same goes for the quintet 452 for Piano and various gorgeous wind instruments and the to-die-for Trio for piano, viola and clarinet.
When Mozart wrote for an unmarketable combination like this you can be pretty certain you get as close to the composer as you possibly can, outside the piano solo Fantasies.
And then there's the Gran Partita for 13 Wind Instruments K 368. That's fifty minutes of music you can propel into outer space, being the best planet earth has to offer. (The other wind pieces 375 and 406 are unbeatable too.)
Brahms: The sextets are nice, especially the second (op 36). However, I think it's safe to say that after Mozart's String Quintets no one wrote more perfect (classical) String Quintets than Brahms. There's some pretty nifty viola work in the F major op 88, Rainer, and then there's the genial G major op 111. And by that time Brahms was ready for his encounter with Fraulein Clarinette.
The Ravel Piano Trio is great, and his fierce duo for violin and cello is very interesting too. It's so different from most Ravel we know.
For now I want to mention Gabriel Faure, who wrote three gorgeous late chamber works, i.e. the Piano Quintet (op 115) in c minor (Domus on Hyperion), and the elusive Piano Trio Op 120 in d minor (Rouvier / Kantorov / Muller on Denon) and the String Quartet Op 121 in e minor.
Just back from a Paris vacation (where I purchased a so far totally satisfying recording of Debussy's opera Pelleas and Melisande with Von Otter and Holzmair and the French Radio Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink, anno 2000, on the French Radio label 'Naive'), so maybe I'll be back with some more.
Herman
Posted on: 29 March 2002 by herm
More Odd Ballsone composer I forgot is Francis Poulenc.
I've mentioned his two stellar late works before, the sonatas for piano and clarinet and for piano and oboe, dating from the early sixties. There's no better music than this.
Poulenc's trio for piano, oboe and bassoon is among the best 'typical French' music (just like the Debussy trio).
Nielsen's Wind Quintet is pretty good, and then there's Stravinsky's Symphony of Winds, which grew out of a memorial commision for Debussy, who wrote one of the arch-oddball combo's, i.e. the Trio for flute, harp and viola, which has a late offspring in Toru Takemitsu's Tree Line (1988) for a larger chamber group with the same sonority.
Reger's Clarinet Quintet is one of the top three works in this genre (best with Leister and the Bogler Qt on Nimbus). The other two Cl Qts are, obviously, Mozart's and Brahms's.
And if the standard Piano Trio counts as an oddball combo, then I think we really need to mention Haydn, since that's the genre he not only 'invented' (just like the string quartet), but there's no composer who really beat him at the form in any consistent way.
The last ten or fifteen pieces in the Beaux Arts box (Philips) are unsurpassed - only Brahms equalled Haydn. But only with two pieces. I rest my case.
Herman
