BaL 23.10.21 - Mendelssohn: Octet

[Lordgeous]

Indeed!

[pastoralguy]

My only experience of live performance was hearing an Octet from the Cleveland Orchestra play it at an Edinburgh Festival concert years ago. It was broadcast live on BBC Radio3 and there was a frisson when the leader broke his e string at the end of the first movement’s exposition. Very quick string change! Fabulous performance!

[ardcarp]

I know this isn't really the place for personal reminiscences, but there's one coming. (Look away now. )

My father was a good violinist. He would invite other musicians to our house for chamber music evenings. As a five- or six-year-old, the classical repertoire (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) was something I just took for granted. However on one occasion Dad got an octet together to play the Mendelssohn. For some reason I was attracted into the 'front room' where the players were disposed in a sort of semicircle. I sat cross-legged in the middle and was absolutely blown away. It wasn't just the sound of the octet but the way the parts moved around the semicircle which I found absolutely magical. I must have been in something of a trance, because at the end of the complete play-through I was still sitting there motionless. One player remarked something along the lines of 'Wasn't he a good boy', which rather suggests my usual manner was anything but 'good'. I still think the Octet is one of the most remarkable achievements for a 16-year-old composer, but that apart, it holds a very special place in my list of 'Desert Island' must-haves.

[silvestrione]

I know this isn't really the place for personal reminiscences, but there's one coming. (Look away now. )

My father was a good violinist. He would invite other musicians to our house for chamber music evenings. As a five- or six-year-old, the classical repertoire (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) was something I just took for granted. However on one occasion Dad got an octet together to play the Mendelssohn. For some reason I was attracted into the 'front room' where the players were disposed in a sort of semicircle. I sat cross-legged in the middle and was absolutely blown away. It wasn't just the sound of the octet but the way the parts moved around the semicircle which I found absolutely magical. I must have been in something of a trance, because at the end of the complete play-through I was still sitting there motionless. One player remarked something along the lines of 'Wasn't he a good boy', which rather suggests my usual manner was anything but 'good'. I still think the Octet is one of the most remarkable achievements for a 16-year-old composer, but that apart, it holds a very special place in my list of 'Desert Island' must-haves.

Wonderful memory! And it is relevant in that it implies a lot I think about what a successful recording has to achieve.

[Lordgeous]

Another memory: Mendlessohn was a particular favourite of George Malcolm's so the ASMF got a small ensemble together to play the Octet's first movement at his Westminster Cathedral Memorial Service.

[Padraig]

I might be on the lookout for a CD. I have two double quartet versions on cassette via radio -Janacek/Smetana and Kreuzberger/ Eder. I did hear it live once - I thought it was at a Chamber Prom in Cadogan Hall, but I still have the programme for the only week I spent there and there is no such mention?? The Jerusalem Quartet and the Pavel Haas Quartet both featured that week (2009).

I have to add to the rave reviews already expressed for this stunning Mendelssohn celebration.

[Ein Heldenleben]

It doesn’t get enough live outings for obvious reasons . I’ve only (almost ) heard it once - at a Royal Albert Hall Prom in 1976 played by the Chilingirian and Lindsay String Quartets. I say ‘almost ‘ because I was up in the gallery.
The second half was Janet Baker in Das Lied Von der Erde. Now that I could hear !

[LeMartinPecheur]

I've been going to chamber concerts since about 1972 and hadn't heard the Octet live till 2004 after I moved to Cornwall. I've now heard it there six times, mainly from ad hoc ensembles at the St Endellion Festivals (3) and at the late Dante Quartet's festivals (2).

I've now moved from Cornwall and wonder if I'll ever get another chance!

[edashtav]

I've been going to chamber concerts since about 1972 and hadn't heard the Octet live till 2004 after I moved to Cornwall. I've now heard it there six times, mainly from ad hoc ensembles at the St Endellion Festivals (3) and at the late Dante Quartet's festivals (2).

I've now moved from Cornwall and wonder if I'll ever get another chance!

I’ve been attending the Bournemouth Chamber Music Society’s concerts for some years where it has been a popular choice - I think I’ve heard it twice.

[BBMmk2]

I don’t have this! Shock, horror!

[french frank]

The Emersons' box set of the string quartets has a 'bonus' CD which has the very early quartet in Eb major (no opus number), and the octet played by the Emersons and … the Emersons. It was an experiment which actually works quite well. Eugene Drucker has a note on how they worked on making it sound like eight different players, not just by using eight instruments or or rearranging the seating, nor by layering one quartet on the other, but more interestingly by analysing the score to see where various parts would respond to each other, as they did in normal rehearsal, sometimes just in twos or threes. The result was good enough to release, if not competition for the best (though I don't suppose it was released separately anyway).

[Bryn]

The Emersons' box set of the string quartets has a 'bonus' CD which has the very early quartet in Eb major (no opus number), and the octet played by the Emersons and … the Emersons. It was an experiment which actually works quite well. Eugene Drucker has a note on how they worked on making it sound like eight different players, not just by using eight instruments or or rearranging the seating, nor by layering one quartet on the other, but more interestingly by analysing the score to see where various parts would respond to each other, as they did in normal rehearsal, sometimes just in twos or threes. The result was good enough to release, if not competition for the best (though I don't suppose it was released separately anyway).

The TiVo blurb on QOBUZ is pretty damning with faint praise. Suggesting that their Mendelssohn just about passes muster, whereas their Bartok, Beethoven and Shostakovich fail to make the grade. I will have a listen, later.

[MickyD]

For those of you interested in acquiring the Hausmusik recording, it can now be found on a twofer, along with the other recordings of Mendelssohn that the group made. There are some ridiculously low price offers from sellers on the river people site at the moment.

[french frank]

The TiVo blurb on QOBUZ is pretty damning with faint praise. Suggesting that their Mendelssohn just about passes muster, whereas their Bartok, Beethoven and Shostakovich fail to make the grade. I will have a listen, later.

Well, at least it cost nothing (I assume)! It is made very clear that it was an experiment that they wanted to try out. Don't really have the equipment to judge much on the audio quality. I thought the liner comments were interesting about the interplay of the various voices.

[jayne lee wilson]

Mendelssohn Octet Op.20…

Essential Mendelssohnian listening should include the original 1825 Octet (we usually hear the 1832 Pubished Revision), which has many subtle differences, and several strikingly obvious and structurally significant ones…..

The 1st movement development is far longer and more adventurous than the revision (anyone familiar with the 1832 published score will be pricking up their ears from at least the end of the exposition). It focusses on the 2nd subject-group and never develops the main theme at all. Not only that, but the music itself is no less fine and even more exciting than the revised version, which seems to have been made for the publisher’s and/or performers’ practicality and convenience. (Very Brucknerian…).

In the andante (an unusual movement, sort-of-sonata-without-development), Mendelssohn, (having brought the 1st subject of the 1st movement into its development in the revision) cuts the 1st subject recap in the revision; a shame given its depth and beauty…but your preference could go either way.
The last two movements are much closer to the revision; more a case of a few changed notes and (often very) foreshortened phrasing in the later version. The 1832 finale is cut by some 37 bars, but this isn’t structurally significant or noticeable in performance (unless you concentrate really hard - which of course you should.… ).
Two recordings (both on Qobuz): the Eroica Quartet & Friends offer the Octet alone, on the stream/download label Resonus (2011).
Anima Eterna Brugge, (members-of) led by Chouchane Siranossian (now there’s a name to conjure with…), have the Octet c/w the equally fascinating original Op.64 Violin Concerto (dir. Jakob Lehmann) on Alpha (2018)…. CD widely available.
Both are very good in Op.20. Initially, I came to prefer the Eroicas for their unaffected phrasing, greater warmth and poise; a more engaging and balanced sound than the wilder, freer, more soloist-led Animas; but the latter's vibrancy and passion grew on me the more I heard them (devoted Mendelssohnians need to hear both, of course...).
The Resonus Notes are far better though, going into great detail about the original Octet and its history.

*****
A coupling just waiting to happen, that other explosion of precociously original brilliance, the Enescu Octet Op.7, makes a perfect and poetically apt c/w for the Mendelssohn. Two recent groups for this one: best of them is the Gringolts/Meta4 on BIS (2020), one of the best ever of the startling, thrilling Enescu and a Mendelssohn Op.20 which seems at once the faithful musical servant - yet revealing every movement afresh. Sonics? Well its BIS, so not so much outta this world as on another planet……..supernaturally audible detail.

Riveting achievement which just has to be heard.

***
Much more to be said about the musically culminatory Op.20, especially its place in that remarkable sequence of early chamber and orchestral masterpieces (including the 1st Symphony and String Quartets 1 & 2) and how it relates to them (often very closely - especially the Op.18 Quintet, perhaps an even greater achievement)……but that is another story for another day….

(see Gramophone 11/2020 for a very adventurous "What Next?" piece on the long and deep influence of the Mendelssohn, and several other Octets from the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries, from Spohr to Michael Hersch......)