Music Chat: The 19th Century in Chamber Music

Seven composers (Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns, and Fauré) between them offer a survey of the entire romantic 19th century in a glorious range of chamber music. We find sonatas, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets, septets, octets, and a delicious selection of shorter works that fall into o specific category. Start your collections with these boxed sets, and get ready for a lifetime of musical pleasure.

[spqr]

IMHO Schumann's string quartets are indispensable! Highly neglected works that should have more advocates.

[quinto]

Thanks again David! You're so darn helpful for expanding my musical taste and cd collection

[carlconnor]

Yes! Dvorak is a great, great, great
composer of chamber music. The piano quintet #2 in particular is one of my favorites. That serenade is gorgeous! I’ve never heard it before. Triangle. I mean, the man was one of a kind. I love your love and championing of Dvorak’s chamber music; indeed, his music in general!

[davidaiken]

I greatly appreciated this review, not least for your advocacy of three composers whose chamber music is vastly underrated: Mendelssohn, Dvorak and Fauré. Without diminishing my love of 19th Century orchestral music, my musical "home territory" during this period has always been chamber music. I was totally ignorant of Fauré's stature as a chamber music composer until I saw "Sunday Afternoon in the Country, " a French film from the 1980's that effectively utilized some of his chamber works for the soundtrack. A charming film, by the way, which francophiles everywhere owe it to themselves to see. I have the Alpha set you recommended, but there is also a very fine Brilliant box that contains most of the same repertoire as the Alpha, PLUS the String Quartet. Thanks, Dave for this important review; I hope it promotes more serious listening to chamber music.

[kimjy]

That Faure box set you recommend was one of the most satisfying purchase in a long time. You get to have almost all of great chamber music by Faure, a wonderful performance through and through, absolutely great sound quality, and they cost about 19 bucks. I bought it about 2 years ago and I'm still excited when I think about it. XD

[rasmusblomberg]

Finally! This is definitely a list I (and I'm sure many others) have been looking forward to for a while, thank you!

[Plantagenet]

What an interesting talk, as usual. Thank you so much for showing recordings I would never think of looking at, let alone listening too!

[Don-mdwn]

I had been wondering when you were going to cover this extensive repertoire, which is some of my favorite music, and this big overview was a great way to start. I don't know any Saint-Saens chamber music and ordered that Nash Ensemble recording. The piece you played from Dvorak pushed me off the fence on the 2 Supraphon boxes to get the first piano quartet and quintet and the other stuff in them that is rarely recorded. As always, thanks for the video.

[eugenebraig]

I enjoyed this, as always. My own collection of a little sparse on the non-plucked chamber music, so this overview was especially useful. Of Saint-Saëns's chamber music, I'm also totally in love with the Fantasie for violin and harp, op.124.

For what it's worth (not a whole lot), the arpeggione is essentially a bowed guitar complete with frets.

[orfeocookie]

Fabulous chamber composers, all of them.

[olegroslak]

If someone hasn't done so already, please allow me to be the first to congratulate you on reaching >5, 000 subscribers, and also for now hitting >10, 000 views on each of your top 3 most popular videos! Still 1/1, 000 what they should be, but great things come from small beginnings.

You know, of all the value I get from these videos, near top of the list is just helping me to decide what to listen to today (with >30, 000 cds strewn about my condo, trust me, this is a very real problem).

Keep up the great work, I say, and here's to the next milestone of 10K plus subscribers and 100K plus views. I've been a long time Classics Today reader and subscriber, but this stuff is on a whole other level in terms of both depth and breadth of content. May you never slow down!

[francoisjoubert]

I just bought the Saints-Saens and what a surprise. Didn't expect a TRUMPET in chamber music. Thanks for making my Sunday morning - greetings from Pretoria, South Africa. My Great Dane Axel does not like it at all, and is snoring through the whole thing.

[AlexMadorsky]

When people think of Saint-Saëns (and they really ought to think of him more than they probably do), people rarely think of him as a master of chamber music. More’s the pity. His bassoon sonata in particular moves me greatly, and the septet is so brilliantly orchestrated I’m surprised no one ever ripped off that exact instrumentation. I’m willing to wait a few more centuries.

[jakobpetropoulos]

David, I bought the 2 Dvorak boxes after your recommendation, I just wanted to share with you and all your viewers that I am amazed. Great great music. I have spended hours and hours of listening pleasure. Thanks so much, I am planning to buy your book on Dvorak as well. Take care my friend.

[simonvaughan]

I agree with you about Dvořák's Bagatelles: they may be "trifles", but they are also masterpieces. The best performance I've heard is by Domus (using a harmonium) on the defunct Virgin label, were they are coupled with the piano quartets of Suk and Martinů (also masterpieces).

[richangell]

Great video, glad to see Saint-Saens underrated chamber music getting some attention, I would like to find a good recording of the 2 string quartets to delve into. Next, how about a similar video on 20th century chamber music? Thanks!

[johnfowler]

You might want to consider a video on Nineteenth Century Russian chamber music: Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, maybe even Rachmaninov/off. Brilliant Classics has a nice 25 CD box (which also includes the Twentieth Century)

[cappycapuzi]

Ack! David recommended a period instrument recording. I am SHOCKED! I read recently that some think Mendelssohn's music is superficial though I don't agree. I listened to a couple of Mendelssohn piano quartets this morning. The Emerson recording of the Brahms piano quintet you mention is fabulous. Often they are too fast, but here they give the music some space. I luv chamber music, especially in the morning....it's so conversational. While I respect and enjoy the immense string quartet tradition, I have noticed I really enjoy chamber music which includes piano the most. More color. Wonderful chat. Your passion is evident!

[dianelewis]

I've been waiting for this chamber music video. Thanks, very much.

[Sulsfort]

This talk immediately inspired me to put on my disc with the Fauré piano quintets (with Jean Hubeau & the Quatuor Via Nova).