by Richard Freed
[Richard Freed is Director of Public Relations at the Eastman School of Music and Consultant to the New York State Council of the Arts, New York Philharmonic, and many other organizations. He is a regular contributor to Saturday Review, Chicago Tribune, House Beautiful, and many other journals. His own program is broadcast from WEFM in Chicago every week.]
During the last twenty-five years or so there has been an enormous upsurge in chamber-music activity in the United States. The number of performing organizations has increased, and so has their audience, both "live" and via recordings. In the realm of the string quartet, as in that of the symphony orchestra, we find young American ensembles dominating the scene now, setting the standards by which others are measured. The artistry of the Juilliard Quartet, the Fine Arts Quartet, and the Guarneri Quartet is readily available to the record collector (and the La Salle Quartet, long admired by connoisseurs, has at last begun to make records). No less readily available, of course, are recordings by such outstanding European groups as the Quartetto Italiano, the Vlach, Borodin, Smetana, Drolc, Amadeus, and Allegri quartets, the Melos Ensemble of London, and the Vienna Octet.
The unforgettable Budapest String Quartet, too, remade much of its repertory in stereo before its remarkable 46-year career came to an end three years ago. The staples of the string quartet repertory are represented now by almost as many recordings as those of the popular symphonies and concertos, and "integral" recordings of the quartets of Beethoven, Brahms, and Schumann are undertaken by today's active foursomes, just as our prominent conductors give us "integral" recordings of the symphonies of these same composers.
Despite all this activity and all these recordings, there are still many thousands of people who love the Beethoven symphonies but who are "afraid" of the Beethoven quartets, who love Mozart's operas and concertos but who would not voluntarily seek out a performance of the G-minor Quintet. Astonishing as it may seem now, with so much music so accessible to so many listeners, many, many people who do respond to music are denying themselves what many others consider the essence of the musical experience because they fear they cannot "understand" or "appreciate" chamber music without special training or preparation. Listener X, who attends a performance of the Eroica or Tristan and Isolde with confidence and satisfaction, is afraid the Mozart Clarinet Quintet may be beyond him!
Oswald Spengler, who spent the last years of his life listening to the late quartets of Beethoven, cited certain of those works to illustrate the course of civilization in that most profound of philosophical works, The Decline of the West.
Beethoven's A-minor Quartet (Op. 132) is the device used by a character in Aldous Huxley's novel Point Counter Point to prove the existence of God. To be sure, some great philosophical depths, too vast for words, are probed in such works-just as they are in the Eroica and the Ninth Symphony. And, to be equally sure, there is gaiety as well as profundity to be found in chamber music, and dozens, perhaps hundreds, of shadings between those extremes. There is no more ingratiating music in any form, none more amiable in its demands on the listener, than the same Beethoven's utterly charming and utterly weightless Serenade for flute, violin, and viola (Op. 25). Some of the great works of chamber music may have been written in a consciously "philosophical" vein (just as some of the great symphonies, operas and ballet scores have been), but some were actually written to be used as dinner music. Schubert wrote many of his most beautiful works with no more involved object in mind than having something to perform at one of the "Schubertiads" held in his home, the informal gatherings at which he and his friends played new music at sight. One of Mozart's finest chamber works, the Clarinet Trio (K. 498) , has been referred to as the Kegelstatt Trio since the time it was first heard, because Mozart is said to have written it during an evening at a bowling alley. His numerous serenades and divertimenti are, for the most part, entertainment music pure and simple.
Many of those who are so certain they "would not" or "could not" enjoy chamber music have actually been listening to it and enjoying it for years. Mozart's popular Serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik, which most orchestras play frequently to show off their strings, was originally composed for string quartet and double bass. Some of Mozart's divertimenti for string quartet and two horns are also played by the entire orchestral string section now and then. Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings happens to be the slow movement of his String Quartet No. 1, arranged for a larger body of strings at the request of Arturo Toscanini, who himself made similar arrangements of movements of some Beethoven quartets and recorded the Beethoven Septet with full orchestral strings. Tchaikovsky's Andante cantabile, the Borodin Notturno, and the famous Minuet of Boccherini are still more examples of chamber music taken into the repertory of the string orchestra. None of these works is in any way less attractive in its original form. On the contrary, the original in every case has a spontaneity, a flexibility and an intimacy just not quite possible in the expanded versions, no matter how polished the playing. The emotional range and intensity of symphonic music, however, are available in chamber music; if the larger-scaled heroic gestures and grand coloristic effects are not, the compensation is that intimacy found only in chamber music.
While the string quartet may be the basic unit, the chamber music experience is by no means limited to the quartet, or even to strings. Some of the supreme masterworks feature the flute, oboe, clarinet, piano, or other instruments with strings. There are fascinating works for winds alone by composers from Mozart and Haydn to Hindemith and Alec Wilder, others for brass quintet, and even chamber music for percussion. A little more than fifty years ago the tradition of the harp quintet was born in France, and since that time many French composers have written for the combination of flute, harp, violin, viola, and cello; Debussy dispensed with the violin and cello in his Sonata No. 2, and Ravel added a clarinet and second violin for his uniquely beautiful Introduction and Allegro. Louis Spohr in his Nonet wrote for an orchestra in miniature (most of the instruments, but only one of each ), as Stravinsky did later in L'Histoire du Soldat ( for septet including percussion ), while Heitor Villa-Lobos exploited the manifold coloristic capabilities of a single instrument in his Bachianas Brasileiras Nos. 1 and 5 for an ensemble of eight cellos ( the latter with the celebrated part for solo soprano as well). Musicians themselves, almost without exception, feel chamber music is basic, elemental. Both virtuoso soloists and orchestral players play chamber music for relaxation, and many of them include it in their professional activity as well.
Many great orchestras sponsor chamber music ensembles drawn from their ranks, among them the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony. Heifetz, Rubinstein, Piatigorsky, Menuhin, both Serkins, and both Oistrakhs are among the virtuosi who perform and record chamber music regularly. The great violinist Arthur Grumiaux has formed a superb string trio with the violist Georges Janzer and the cellist Eva Czako. A half-century ago Pablo Casals, Alfred Cortot, and Jacques Thibaud performed and recorded together; today Casals plays chamber music with younger colleagues, and Isaac Stern, Leonard Rose, and Eugene Istomin spend a substantial part of every season playing as a trio, touring together and making records.
These performers find a unique involvement in chamber music, and the listener can hardly fail to find it, too.
Whatever one may seek in music-uplift, stimulus, solace, humor-the supreme characteristic of the chamber music experience is the intensity of involvement which makes even the listener a participant in something shared instead of just a spectator.
Audio buffs in general have tended to give less attention to chamber music than to orchestral and other large-scale material because many of them feel it cannot offer the same opportunities for testing or showing off a system. While a string quartet will not produce the power-handling challenge that comes from a full Straussian orchestra, or the tonal range encountered in The Planets or The Pines of Rome, the clean and lifelike aural image of four distinct stringed instruments can be an impressive demonstration or meaningful test for a well-designed speaker system.
More to the point, though, is the observation that a good deal of chamber music was intended for performance in what might be spoken of as a large living room or salon-in other words, a music room in a house instead of a big auditorium. Thus a good chamber music recording offers a top-flight system the possibility of creating the illusion of "live" sound, for a string quintet or piano trio really could be playing in ones living room; an orchestra could not possibly.
We have purposely avoided any reference to the historical development of the string quartet, changing styles over the years, and other matters which might smack of things musicological. The only point we feel worth making is that chamber music is an enjoyable experience. To this end, we have drawn up a list of fifteen recordings we feel might help those who have yet to discover the pleasures of chamber music. This is not intended to represent a "basic repertory," nor are the works listed here necessarily the "greatest" or the most important, though some of them fit those descriptions. This is simply a compilation-an admittedly personal selection-of works whose appeal is so direct and intense as to make them immediately habit-forming.
Some of this material is profound, some of it simply charming, and some of it (e.g., the greatest of all string trios, which Mozart chose to call a Divertimento, K. 563) manages to be both. The list, as may be seen at a glance, is not alphabetical and is not chronological; it is laid out in the sequence in which record purchase (or, at least, exposure ) is recommended. To avoid confusion, only a single recording of each item is shown in the list, but alternative versions of some of the works are discussed in the brief comments on the music in the remainder of this article.
Some readers may be surprised to find the first two items in our list included in such a collection at all, let alone leading it off, but the Bach and Stravinsky works only underscore the flexibility and scope of the category of music we are dealing with. The Brandenburg Concertos may be regarded in some quarters as orchestral music, for they are performed and recorded by symphony orchestras, but, properly speaking, the Brandenburgs are chamber music, to be played by a small ensemble, generally only one or two strings to a part. Moreover, "authentic" performance calls for a number of baroque instruments--violino piccolo and corno da caccia in No. 1, high trumpet in No. 2, recorder in Nos. 2 and 4, viola da gamba and violone in No. 6. A symphony orchestra may include a harpsichord in its Bach performances (as continuo, but rarely as solo instrument), but not the old wind and string instruments, and just as well, for their distinctive sounds would be largely lost under the weight of the large modern aggregation.
As works combining many of the most attractive features of both orchestral and chamber music, the Brandenburgs constitute an ideal "first step" into the latter realm, and the late Karl Ristenpart's stylish, energetic handling of these scores is sui generis. His tempi are invigoratingly brisk, but never headlong; rhythms are vibrant but rock firm. This is joyous music-making, on the part of the conductor and every one of his brilliant associates. Even those who think they know the Brandenburgs are likely to sit up wide-eyed almost as soon as the First Concerto begins, for Ristenpart decided those triplets for the horns were really meant to be heard and Martin Oheim and Oskar Wunder, who play the corna da caccia in this performance, decorate the aural landscape with exuberant fanfares that sound for all the world like glorious ad libs between the familiar solo phrases. No other conductor has brought this out as Ristenpart did, and there is similar excitement all through the set, all within the framework of unquestionable musical integrity.
( For those to whom these concertos may not be familiar, the variety within the six works may be suggested by a rundown of the instrumentation. The First Concerto, in F major, is for violino piccolo, two corna da caccia, strings, and continuo. No. 2, also in F, is for violin, oboe, alto recorder, high trumpet, strings, and continuo. No. 3, in G, is played by nine strings and harpsichord.
No. 4, in the same key, and No. 5, in D, are concertos in the modern sense, the former featuring the violin and two recorders as soloists, the latter for solo flute, violin, and harpsichord, with strings and continuo. The final concerto, in B flat, is a dark-hued work for string sextet and harpsichord, in which the strings are two violas, two viole da gamba, cello, and violone.) In its original form, Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat ("The Soldier's Tale") is a setting of a fantastic Russian story about a soldier, a violin, and the devil, for seven instrumentalists, dancers, and reciters, with a French text by the Swiss poet C. F. Ramuz. Stravinsky prepared a concert suite of the nine musical sections, preserving the original instrumentation of violin, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, double bass, and percussion. The music is filled with vitality and is amazingly varied in character, with moments of exquisite delicacy and of the most grotesque irony. A strutting march, a gentle pastoral, a tango, a waltz, and a "Ragtime" dance occur in the sequence, whose final number ("Triumphal March of the Devil") ends with an extended drum solo.
The composer's own recording of this suite, the second item in our list, is on a record which includes another Stravinsky chamber music masterpiece, the Octet for Wind Instruments, and, for good measure, the Movements for Piano and Orchestra (with Charles Rosen) and two very short chamber works, the Double Canon for string quartet and Epitaphium for flute, clarinet, and harp. The same Stravinsky-conducted recording of L'Histoire is also available on another Columbia record, paired with the orchestral suite from his Pergolesi-derived ballet Pulcinella (MS-7093). L'Histoire has also been recorded in its complete form, with spoken parts, most notably on Philips PHS 900-046, with Igor Markevitch conducting the septet and with Jean Cocteau and Peter Ustinov heading the dramatic team. Leopold Stokowski has done the complete version for Vanguard, and his performance, with Madeleine Milhaud, Jean-Pierre Aumont, and Martial Singher, is offered in both French ( VSD-71165) and English ( VSD-71166) ; the Markevitch is only in French, but comes with full bilingual text.
Schubert's "Trout" Quintet is probably the most beloved work in all chamber music, for reasons plain enough to every ear. It is good-natured in the extreme, extravagantly blessed with good tunes, and rich in harmonic and rhythmic inventiveness. The performing ensemble is piano and strings-not the usual string quartet, but a single violin, viola, and cello, plus double bass, a combination giving the work an endearing "both-feet on-the-ground" tonal framework to complement its abundant good humor. The sobriquet "Trout" comes from Schubert's use of his famous song Die Forelle as the basis of a set of variations in the fourth of the work's five movements (it turns up again in the high-spirited finale) . There has never been an unsatisfactory recording of the "Trout" Quintet, and every one available now can be guaranteed to please. Naturally, some are bound to please more than others, and none other quite so much as the magical version from Marlboro led by Rudolf Serkin, a performance of such exhilarating spontaneity that there is no question of "interpretation," only of supremely apposite feeling. Fine sound, too. If the word must be used once in this discussion, let it be this record that is designated irresistible.
The Beethoven quartet in our list is the first of the three so-called "Rasumovsky" quartets. It has no introduction, but begins straightaway with a theme of unpretentious nobility, stated by the noblest of instruments, the cello. The theme itself is strikingly similar in shape to that of the first movement of the "Archduke" Trio to come, but with an even greater tension and thrust. It pursues its lofty course with majestic self confidence, straightforward and virile.
The second movement is a magnificent scherzo, a rustic dance with a sweeping, soaring second theme. The slow movement, deeply felt and reflective, leads without a break into the finale, a warmhearted treatment of a Russian folk-song.
(Andreas Kyrilovich Rasumovsky, who commissioned the three quartets that brought him immortality, was the Russian ambassador in Vienna during Beethoven's first twenty-five years there and, as an accomplished amateur violinist, an active chamber music player. Each of the three "Rasumovsky" Quartets includes a citation of a Russian folksong; the one in the Scherzo of the E-minor is the melody Mussorgsky used in the Coronation Scene of Boris Godunov.)
Beethoven was to write still greater quartets later in his life, but none in which his sheer joy in his own creative powers and the breadth of his compassionate spirit are projected more effectively. Of current recorded performances, the one by the Fine Arts Quartet on Concert-Disc conveys these qualities most successfully. It is available on the single disk indicated, or as part of a very economical three-record set of all five "middle-period" quartets (Op. 59, Nos. 1-2-3; Op. 74; Op. 95), SP-506/3.
Almost as movingly performed, and more handsomely recorded, is the four-disk RCA set of the same five works played by the Guarneri Quartet (VCS-6415), also a good buy. ( The nine-disk Everest set of all the Beethoven quartets by the FAQ is to be avoided because of inconvenient side layout and compressed sound; the Concert-Disc format is quite economical enough.) Mozart's Quartet in B-flat major, K. 458, is known as the "Hunt" Quartet because of the "hunting-horn" figure with which it opens. In addition to that cheery motif, the first movement is characteristically prodigal in its offering of themes. The Minuet which follows has a particularly beguiling trio, and the slow movement, just tinged with melancholy but not really sad, is suffused in mellowness. All the most attractive qualities of the three preceding movements seem to be summed up in the robust finale.
For so popular and substantial a work, there is not quite the selection of recordings one might expect. The version listed, by the Amadeus Quartet, 'is a stylish account of the music, and is paired with an equally attractive performance of Haydn's "Emperor" Quartet, one of that master's very finest (its slow movement is a set of variations on a tune which has come to be known under several titles, including The Emperor's Hymn and Deutschland fiber Alles). A reasonable alternative, and at half the price, is the Allegri Quartet performance on Music Guild MS-864, with another Mozart quartet, the "Dissonant" in C major, K. 465. For those who do not insist on stereo, the three-disk mono "Vox Box" containing the "Hunt" and its six immediate predecessors, all played by the Barchet Quartet (VBX-13), is worth looking into. The Barchet have recorded all the Mozart quartets; not all of them came off equally well, but the seven in this collection are all played beautifully and the "Hunt" in particular is one of the best ever recorded.
From its first bar, the Schumann Piano Quintet brims over with energy; themes seem to tumble out after one another in a rush of spontaneous exuberance. The balance between the piano and the string quartet is that of a real partnership, and the effect of any decent performance of the work is unfailingly refreshing. There are many decent performances on records, but the Serkin Budapest version has more to offer than its rivals. On the record listed it is paired with one of Brahms's most interesting and unusual ( and least-heard)
works, the Horn Trio; it is also available as side four in Columbia's two-disk set of the Brahms string quartets with the Budapest Quartet (M2S-734 ). Another good version on a single disk, by Christoph Eschenbach and the Drolc Quartet, shares a Deutsche Grammophon record with the last of Schumann's three string quartets (SLPM-139144 ). The beautiful, sensuous, imaginative quartets of Debussy and Ravel are offered together now on no fewer than eight different records, and they make an eminently sensible package. They are the finest chamber works composed by Frenchmen and, despite the distinctions scholars like to point out between these two composers' styles, their string quartets are remarkably similar in structure and character. Both were written by young men ( the Debussy at thirty-one, the Ravel at twenty-seven), and it is youthful passion that informs them both.
Anyone who enjoys The Afternoon of a Faun or Daphnis and Chloe will find these quartets more than congenial.
The Quartetto Italiano performances of both the Debussy and the Ravel are vigorous, sensual, and aristocratic in just the right proportion, and always compellingly musical. The Vlach Quartet, on Artia ALS-7204, and the Drolc Quartet, on Deutsche Grammophon SLPM139369, are hardly less impressive, and the Concert-Disc by the Fine Arts (CS-253) is a genuine bargain.
The clarinet assumed an unexpected importance for both Brahms and Mozart near the end of each composer's life, and each responded to the artistry of a particular virtuoso (Anton Stadler in the case of Mozart, Richard Muhlfeld for Brahms) by creating some of his finest works, including a quintet for clarinet and strings which stands very near, if not at, the top of the list of his chamber music. Anyone discovering the Brahms or the Mozart Quintet will be curious about the other, and no one is likely to be disappointed by either of them. Both works are ideally suited to the clarinet's own character: generally mellow and by turn bucolic, humorous, melancholy, and in the case of the Brahms, passionate.
The Brahms Quintet is conspicuously darker than the Mozart, cast in autumnal tones as if in a spirit of conscious farewell; tenderness and gentle melancholy prevail. The Mozart, in contrast, is a sunny work with few clouds on its horizon and with an abundance of infectious tunes.
Neither work is lacking in depth, or in realization of the coloristic possibilities of this combination of instruments. Each, incidentally, ends with a set of variations.
Gervase de Peyer and his Melos Ensemble colleagues easily carry off top honors for their recordings of both the Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets.
The Mozart is especially recommended because it is paired with an equally splendid account of another Mozart masterwork for clarinet, the Trio in E fiat. There is an attractive low-priced alternative, however, in the form of a Mace record on which Heinrich Geuser and the Drolc Quartet play the Clarinet Quintets of Mozart and Weber (MCS9028) . It is hoped that some or all of the records recommended here will give the newcomer to chamber music some idea of what he has been missing and encourage him toward further exploration on his own.
This list is a "Starter" collection of chamber music records:
1. Bach: Brandenburg Concertos, complete. Karl Ristenpart conducting the Saar Radio Chamber Orchestra, with Jean-Pierre Rampal, flute, Pierre Pierlot, oboe, Hans-Martin Linde, recorder, Helmut Schneidewind, trumpet, Georg-Friedrich Hendel, violin, Robert VeyronLacroix, harpsichord, and other soloists. Nonesuch HB-73006 (2 discs)
2. Stravinsky: L'Histoire du SoldatSuite; Octet for Wind Instruments; Double Canon for String Quartet; Epitaphium for flute, clarinet, and harp. Chamber groups conducted by the composer (with Movements for Piano and Orchestra) . Columbia MS-6272.
3. Schubert: Quintet for Piano and Strings, A major, D. 667 ("The Trout," Op. 114 ). Rudolf Serkin, piano; Jaime Laredo, violin; Philipp Naegele, viola; Leslie Parnas, cello; Julius Levine, double bass. Columbia MS-7067.
4. Beethoven: Quartet in F major, Op. 59, No. 1 ("Rasumovsky" No. 1). Fine Arts Quartet. Concert-Disc CS-255.
5. Mozart: Quartet in B-flat major, K. 458 ("Hunt"); Haydn: Quartet in C major, Op. 76, No. 3 ("Emperor"). Amadeus Quartet. Deutsche Grammophon SLPM-138886.
6. Schumann: Quintet for Piano and Strings, E-flat major, Op. 44. Rudolf Serkin, piano, with the Budapest String Quartet; Brahms: Trio for Piano, Violin, and Horn, E-fiat major, Op. 40. Serkin, with Michael Tree, violin, and Myron Bloom, horn. Columbia MS-7266.
7. Debussy: Quartet in G minor, Op. 10; Ravel: Quartet in F major. Quartetto Italiano. Philips PHS 900-154.
8. Mozart: Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, A major, K. 581; Trio for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano, E-flat major, K. 498. Gervase de Peyer, clarinet, with members of the Melos Ensemble. Angel S-36241.
9. Brahms: Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, B minor, Op. 115; Reger: Scherzo from Quintet in A major, Op. 146. Gervase de Peyer, clarinet, with members of the Melos Ensemble. Angel S-36280.
10. Beethoven: Trio in B-fiat major, Op. 97 ("Archduke") . Eugene Istomin, piano; Isaac Stern, violin; Leonard Rose, cello. Columbia MS-6819.
(adapted from: Audio magazine, Apr. 1970)
Also see:
Getting Hooked on Chamber Music -- part 2 (Oct. 1970)
Remasters of Living Stereo (Aug. 1993)
How to read an orchestral score (Dec. 1972)
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