BaL 14.11.20 - Mendelssohn: String Quartet no. 6 in F minor Op.80

[teamsaint]

Is that from the rather nice 'Mendelssohn Complete chamber Music' on Brilliant Classics? It is a very good set, I reckon. One of the cello sonatas, with Christoph Eschenbach (piano) is particularly stunning.

Mine is actually from a 25 CD Mendelssohn box from Classic Mania. Are they part of Brilliant?

Anyway, that recording of the Cello Sonatas is in there,so have dug that out for a listen.

[Goon525]

Wasn’t sonata form the ‘landmark form’ of the 19th as well as the 18th century? (But not the 20th.) It may have mutated considerably by the time say Bruckner got hold of it, but it was surely still the dominant form almost throughout the 19th?

[jayne lee wilson]

Wasn’t sonata form the ‘landmark form’ of the 19th as well as the 18th century? (But not the 20th.) It may have mutated considerably by the time say Bruckner got hold of it, but it was surely still the dominant form almost throughout the 19th?

It had already "mutated considerably" in Schumann's (the 4th! The first great cyclical symphony, innovative in every bar, with respect to Berlioz...) and Mendelssohn's symphonic creations - and what about the exposition of Beethoven's 3rd? Try dissecting that along so-called conventional sonata lines.
Or the faux-repeat games of LvB Op59/1 and Brahms' 4th. Not to mention Haydn with his monothematic first and last movements, or the "2nd subject" appearing in the middle of the development (No. 45, and cf the Eroica...) . That cyclical structuring of symphonies like the Fantastique, or the Franck D Minor, also relate closely to use of of motifs in various Music Dramas....

And don't get me started on 18th Century Sonata-Rondo.... so "landmark" in this context seems very inapt to me. And in the Op.80 context a wrong emphasis.

Can't recall the source right now but I heard or read someone remark that Music was the C18th essential art form, Painting the 19th, and Sculpture that of the 20th. Crude & debatable reductionism perhaps - I would probably say 'Film" for the 20th - but very thought-provoking nonetheless...

[Goon525]

I just did something I rarely do (but it seems others here do a lot) and listened in quick succession to the Eroica Qt then the Ebène Qt. They’re both really good and I could live happily enough with either. Ultimately I felt the Ebènes characterised the music just a fraction more (and maybe had just the superior recording, particularly of the cello) but I could perfectly well understand someone leaning t’other way.

Neither quite equalled my memory (rose tinted spectacles?) of hearing it done live by the Belcea Qt at the Yehudi Menuhin School near Cobham a couple of years ago (great little concert hall, btw). Corinna Belcea really brought out the emotion in this great work. A shame they haven’t recorded it. I’d also welcome a recording by the Chiaroscuro Qt - I’d like to hear what Alina Ibragimova made of it.

[MickyD]

Having seen that some share my enthusiasm for the HIP Eroica Quartet version, I thought I'd also just flag up another excellent, older HIP collection of Mendelssohn chamber music for strings given by Hausmusik. I absolutely love their performance of the first Quintet. And both of the discs are now on a very cheap twofer - it can be had from about two quid from the River people.

[Leinster Lass]

Is that from the rather nice 'Mendelssohn Complete chamber Music' on Brilliant Classics? It is a very good set, I reckon. One of the cello sonatas, with Christoph Eschenbach (piano) is particularly stunning.

Yes, the Sharon Quartet's Opus 80 is included in the 10-CD Brilliant box set - coupled with the Op. 12 Quartet and 4 Pieces Op. 81.

[jayne lee wilson]

Having seen that some share my enthusiasm for the HIP Eroica Quartet version, I thought I'd also just flag up another excellent, older HIP collection of Mendelssohn chamber music for strings given by Hausmusik. I absolutely love their performance of the first Quintet. And both of the discs are now on a very cheap twofer - it can be had from about two quid from the River people.

It was on my mind today to mention the Quintets! Often overlooked. Thanks for so doing.

Op.18 is one of his greatest works, a masterpiece of any age, and not only of the quintet repertoire...
I recall it was Hans Keller, unstinting in his admiration for Mendelssohn, who made me aware of the A Major Quintet in a talk about the equally miraculous Op.13....Opus 80 apart, he never wrote greater chamber music - or perhaps music in any genre - than these two.

Op.87, exhilarating and elegiac by turns with another wonderful slow movement, was one of his last works, from 1845; so the two are like bookends to his creative career. But it was only published posthumously, a few years after Op.80, hence the odd Opus number.

L'Archibudelli have also recorded them well, but my favourite is probably..... yes, you guessed it: The Leipzig String Quartet, with Barbara Buntrock.

[Alison]

I’d have thought Sonata Form was still landmark in C19. What you did with it was what mattered.

Programme notes invariably refer to how the form was expanded, rethought rather than kicked wholly into touch.

Sonata form isn’t a single model.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I’d have thought Sonata Form was still landmark in C19. What you did with it was what mattered.

Programme notes invariably refer to how the form was expanded, rethought rather than kicked wholly into touch.

Sonata form isn’t a single model.

Exactly. Mahler and Elgar used sonata form. As did Wagner in Gotterdammerung.

[gurnemanz]

It was on my mind today to mention the Quintets! Often overlooked. Thanks for so doing.

Op.18 is one of his greatest works, a masterpiece of any age, and not only of the quintet repertoire...
I recall it was Hans Keller, unstinting in his admiration for Mendelssohn, who made me aware of the A Major Quintet in a talk about the equally miraculous Op.13....Opus 80 apart, he never wrote greater chamber music - or perhaps music in any genre - than these two.

Op.87, exhilarating and elegiac by turns with another wonderful slow movement, was one of his last works, from 1845; so the two are like bookends to his creative career. But it was only published posthumously, a few years after Op.80, hence the odd Opus number.

L'Archibudelli have also recorded them well, but my favourite is probably..... yes, you guessed it: The Leipzig String Quartet, with Barbara Buntrock.

I had certainly overlooked them until I got the Raphael Ensemble version on Hyperion only a few years ago (post-Keller by a long way). I've just listened again with great pleasure to this profound and elegant music-making. Thanks for giving me the nudge.

I have three Raphael discs: also Brahms Sextets and Korngold Str Sextet coupled with Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht -all highly recommendable.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Exactly. Mahler and Elgar used sonata form. As did Wagner in Gotterdammerung.

And it is for that reason , along with Mid to Late Beethoven and Brahms that it would not be un reasonable to describe sonata form - with all its myriad artistic possibilities- as the dominant ‘form’ of the 19th century . Though it all depends what you mean by sonata form.

[jayne lee wilson]

I’d have thought Sonata Form was still landmark in C19. What you did with it was what mattered.

Programme notes invariably refer to how the form was expanded, rethought rather than kicked wholly into touch.

Sonata form isn’t a single model.

Exactly Alison, as I've recently (#48 above, and often in the past) made clear. But Loges called it "THE landmark from of the 19thC", which makes little sense if you consider musical history, to wit my recent references to this specific symphonic form which came to maturity and was developed in many sophisticated ways, during the 18thC. That is when it became an essential part of symphonic structuring.

Words matter and we must try to use them precisely.
(....and the metaphorical use of "Landmark" is not all synonymous with "dominant" for reasons I should not need to point out here.)

If you then consider as I described above, that Op.80 (like other Mendelssohnian masterpieces e.g. Op.18) follows no conventional subject-oriented lines and doesn't even bother with an exposition repeat, sorry to repeat myself but I ask again: why single out this work for that comment? It would show more insightful sense to point out (to those oft-mentioned "listeners") how freely it uses this form. To simply say that it uses it, in the way she did, seems entirely redundant and unhistorical. And wrongly emphasised about this so-innovative of all composers.

"THE landmark form of the 19thC"? You'd have a stronger argument for "cyclic"... From Schumann (the startlingly original, symphony-in-one-movement, 4th), Berlioz, and of course Schubert (Wanderer Fantasy) to Liszt, Saint-Saens and Franck (and of course Mendelssohn himself e.g. in the 3rd and 5th Symphonies and Op.13 etc; and even, at a push, Brahms in Symphony No.3...)

Any definition of "sonata" will be open to much question and debate. The Italian derivation goes back to sonata for (instrumental) playing, cantata for singing. But in 18thC and later symphonic structures, it probably starts with the essential inclusion of and distinction between statement and development....
"Cyclic" works tend to thematic recurrence or reference, in every easily recognisable forms as major structural....landmarks . Obvious similarity here to the Wagnerian leitmotif.

By the way EA, I am all ears to hear more from you about sonata form in Gotterdammerung....when and where does this occur?

[Alison]

I think her specific point about the form of this work was that so much emotion is contained within it.

I’d say you would be less harsh on a reviewer from the Gramophone panel, Jayne!

[Goon525]

I think her specific point about the form of this work was that so much emotion is contained within it.

I’d say you would be less harsh on a reviewer from the Gramophone panel, Jayne!

I do happen to agree with Jayne that the use of the word was unnecessary and added nothing; but I do think we’ve reached the point where mountains are being made out of molehills.

I’m also curious to hear about sonata form in Gotterdamerung!

[Bryn]

I do happen to agree with Jayne that the use of the word was unnecessary and added nothing; but I do think we’ve reached the point where mountains are being made out of molehills.

I’m also curious to hear about sonata form in Gotterdamerung!

Then there's Cage's set of 16 Sonatas following the form filled by Domenico Scarlatti.