eight is enough

[calimac]

I know there are more momentous things to be lacking, but for the longest time one thing I was lacking was a really good recording of Mendelssohn's Octet. This is one of my favorite works of chamber music (twice as much stringy goodness as your standard quartet!), but I rarely listened to it at home because I didn't care much for the recordings I had. And it's peculiarly rare that two quartet ensembles sit down together and play it.

Now comes this month's BBC Music Magazine with a performance by the Royal and Psophos Quartets, whoever they may be, and it's pretty good. While the first movement is less vehement than ideal - I like the first violinist to sound as if at the very limits of endurance at the end of the exposition (and recap) - it's still pretty good, and the scherzo is the absolute perfection of Mendelssohnian airiness. I'm listening to it for the third time.

Paired with a solid, straightforward version of Schubert's Trout Quintet. I hardly needed another one of those, but it's nice to have all the same.

Comments

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

My favorite recording of the Mendelssohn Octet is a 1959 recording by the Janacek and Smetana Quartets, in a 5-CD collection of the Janacek's recordings for DGG and Westminster (which latter is now owned by Universal). If you want lots of surpassingly fine recordings of music by Dvorak and Janacek and Smetana themselves, this is a great set.

My second favorite recording is a 1968 recording by the same two quartets, on a single Supraphon CD, coupled with the Suk Trio's Beethoven "Archduke." I've a feeling that you would enjoy either of these superb recordings of the Octet (and the respective additional items, of course).

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I only ever seem to hear the scherzo from the octet, and I love that, so I went over to the Classical Music Archives and downloaded a recording by the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra. I hope they're not doubling the parts or anything like that. I also saw and got a piano trio and two cello sonatas. Are you familiar with those? (I'm not, yet.)

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

I'll bet I'm not the only person who prefers the Mendelssohn Octet be played on the proper eight string instruments, Verdi's String Quartet played on four, and Tchaikovsky's "Souvenir de Florence" played on six.

Oh, and Shostakovich never wrote any piece called a "chamber symphony."

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I'm not a purist. Nobody who owns as many works like "Ancient Airs and Dances" and the Capriol Suite and the Hoffnung Concerts as I do could be.

I judge tinkerings with music on one criterion: do they sound good? Some orchestral renditions of chamber music do. (Mahler's "Death and the Maiden" Quartet.) Some don't. (The pseudo-Shostakovich Chamber Symphonies.) That's all.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Okay, I listened to it, and now I'm going to delete it from my iPod. It had that buttery sound you get in modern orchestras playing baroque music. I never could make out an individual instrument, just choirs of them, sawing away in unison. Where Mendelssohn's version would have the distinctly delicious texture of, say, a piece of cheddar on a cracker, this one was velveeta on Wonder Bread.

Which is to say, it's a string orchestra version. Bawstards.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

On the plus side, I realized that I do know the first movement of the Octet. I listened to the trio after that, and it was the real thing, happily.