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Reinecke Quartet in D Opus 211
Submitted by Yoel
Epstein 12/19/03:
This is one of those pieces that makes one wonder why amateur chamber
musicians, who play four to eight quartets a week, keep cicling around the
same 150 pieces. This Reinecke is a great piece, a gem, worthy of playing
again and again just like the quartets of Borodin and Tschaikovsky. The
first movement has a theme that I am still humming to myself, a day later;
the scherzo is funny and charming; the last movement delightful. The slow
movement was a little hard for us to make sense out of, probably because
it has a lot of strange harmonic progressions and our intonation is not
the best. Interesting parts for everyone, including second violin.
I would rate it intermediate - it is listed as a 3 on the Merton scale,
and I think that's about right. We would actually consider working on this
piece and performing it one day. Published by Merton.
Submitted by Doug
Bedggood 12/19/03:
My quartet has also tried this work. We were all so impressed by the
potential beauty that we could see (but not yet hear correctly) that we
all took our parts home to get the technicalities out of the way so we can
concentrate on the music. Next year we are to get 'serious' about it. The
first reading alarmed us a littleas we (I) were not hearing chords right
(much "feeling" for the sound), second reading and it started to come to
life and disclose its beauty. Still not sure of the slow movement.
I have been rehearsing Reinecke's trio for clarinet, viola and piano.
We got caught out neatly when first reading the second movement which has
two beats in the bar for piano and three beats for the other two. After
organizing a one beat per bar count it fell into place wonderfully. This
work is fabulous so as soon as his quartet arrived from Theo Merton's I
couldn't wait to try it.
I have head from Theo that he has 142 new/old works in his next list,
plenty for us to review.
I will write about the Vanhal quartet after we have played it a few
more times.
Doug NZ
Submitted by Jonathan
Newmark 12/19/03:
I have performed two Reinecke trios, the one for oboe, horn, and piano,
and the one for clarinet, horn, and piano. I find that Reinecke writes
well-crafted works which remain within what I might call a narrow
bandwidth. They are pleasant but not in the least pathbreaking. They
appeal to those looking for late Romantic, German works which do not push
the limits, either technically, emotionally, or musically, the way Brahms
constantly did. Reinecke also wrote scads of music and I suspect he
repeated himself quite a bit. The piano parts I've played tend to use the
same figurations over and over. That's not a severe criticism, of course;
so did Bach, Gershwin, Ravel, and lots of other fine composers. My piano
teacher was Carl Reinecke's great-great-niece.
Karl Reissiger String Quartet Op 111 Number 3
Submitted by Yoel
Epstein 1/10/04:
Karl Reissiger String Quartet Op 111 Number 3
This is mediocre music at its best: nothing of real import, nothing really
original, and completely without pretensions. It is the perfect music to
read through after an aggravating day of meetings with querulous staff
members or irate customers.
The first movement (Andante - Allegro Brillante) is pleasant to play and
completely unmemorable. It has some nice pre-Disney modulations in the
style of "Some Day My Prince Will Come." The second movement, Andantino con
moto, is a theme and variations. The first variation is actually a bit
tricky - we had to play it a couple of times to get it right - the others
are unremarkable. The scherzo is charming and witty, as is the last
movement, a Rondo grazioso with a pompous and superfluous ending.
The Merton publication has measure numbers written into the first and last
movements, and the middle movements really don't need them, as there are
lots of landmarks if you get lost. In sum, this is a piece that we will
probably read through again in another five or ten years.
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