As the opus numbers suggest, the five string trios are relatively early works. Beethoven had sent opus 3 to print in early 1796, and in the same year, he began his compositional work on the Serenade o...
The five string quartets in this volume are generally designated as Beethoven's 'middle quartets,' even though stylistically they do not all build a closed unit. More than three years lie between the...
More than a few experts and aficionados count Mozart's string trio in E-flat major K. 563 among his most magnificent compositions. This masterwork, entered into Mozart's own catalogue of works on 27 S...
Johannes Brahms's late chamber works are surely among the most splendid music ever written for the clarinet. In the last years of his life, Brahms seems to have become weary of composing - but fortuna...
'In the evening we played Robert's E-flat major Quartet for the first time ... and I was once again truly delighted at this beautiful and so youthful work', enthused Clara Schumann in 1842. In prepara...
No serious musician and no serious orchestra can ignore this new Urtext edition of a major work of concerto literature, since the music text frequently diverges from that of previous editions. All the...
This Trio's unusual scoring for horn, violin and piano prompted speculation early on about a possible background to it that had no connection with music. Brahms's biographer Max Kalbeck saw in it a la...
Max Bruch composed these eight, highly romantic pieces for his son Max Felix, a talented clarinettist. In order to enable the work to be played more widely, Bruch arranged the clarinet part for violin...
> First Urtext edition since 1955 > Dvorák's most famous string quartet After a twelve-year interval, Dvorák once again turned his attention to the string quartet in summer 1893. He had been musical d...
In June 1905, Ravel told a friend shortly before setting off on a long holiday: 'I was terribly busy because of a piece for harp commissioned by the Érard company. I was able to finish it after a fash...
In the Classical period, and well into the 19th century, piano trios were something of a musical fashion accessory. There was thus good reason for Beethoven also to engage with the genre, following th...
At the end of the 18th century, the town of Cádiz in southern Spain provided the backdrop for a Passion to mark Christ's hour of death; its focal point was the reading and interpretation of Christ's l...
When Dvořák suddenly became internationally famous in 1878 with his Slavonic Dances, he received, among other things, a request for a new string quartet from Jean Becker, the first violinist of the re...
At the first performances of this sonata, composed between 1920 and 1922, even close friends of the composer were perturbed: Following the intoxicating sounds of La Valse, the smaller scoring and mode...
This volume brings together Mozart's youthful attempts at this later so central genre of the string quartet: the astonishing 'Lodi Quartet' K. 80 by the only fourteen-year-old composer, the three 'Qua...
In 1919-20 George Gershwin was making a name for himself with Broadway songs and a first show of his own in New York. But he was already attracted to the world of classical music - a world he would en...
When it came to the genre of the string quartet, Beethoven was a relative latecomer. He was already 28 years old when he obtained the contract for the composition of the Quartets opp. 18 from Prince L...
The autograph score of the Quartets op. 17 was in the possession of the imperial police chief Johann Nepomuk Neuwirth, whose widow gave it to the Wiener Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in 1875. It is sa...
The preface by Christin Heitmann provides illuminating background information. Haydn did not assign the nickname 'Sun Quartets': it alludes to an edition of the time, in which the title page was decor...
Haydn allowed about ten years to pass before composing a new cycle of string quartets after opus 20: the so-called 'Russian Quartets'. This is the first series of quartets that we know he wrote with p...
The chamber music world has been eagerly awaiting this - all of Haydn's string quartets are finally available in Henle Urtext quality! The last edition to be finished contains the String Quartets op....
Masterly and full of new ideas': thus the Swedish ambassadorial secretary Silverstolpe when he first heard these pieces in 1797. Haydn's friend, the music historian Charles Burney, reported in 1799 th...
These are the last of the nearly seventy quartets in Haydn's oeuvre. Originally he intended to write a set of six quartets, as so often in the past, but at the time they were written, in 1803, Haydn's...
A must for all ambitious string ensembles! Because due to recent source discoveries, the musical text of this classic in the Henle catalog could be optimized in numerous details. The thoroughly revise...
The string quartet is generally considered as the chamber-music genre of the classical era: invented by Haydn, elaborated by Haydn and Mozart, and brought to its compositional peak by Beethoven. All l...
Brahms had already composed over 20 string quartets (he confessed to a friend that he had burnt all of that 'stuff') before he finally presented his Opus 51 to the public. In the end only three surviv...
Spirited', 'dramatic', 'highly expressive', and 'masterly' are among the comments made upon Mendelssohn's String Quartets op. 44 nos 1-3. He wrote them in 1837/1838, at a very happy time: he had just...
Franz Schubert composed the song 'Death and the Maiden' in 1817, and in 1824 used that melody in the theme-and-variations second movement of his String Quartet in d minor D. 810. The song's popularity...
Mendelssohn's String Quartet op. 80 is one of his few 'autobiographical' works, a moving musical document of his grief over the death of his sister Fanny and his attempt to artistically process the pa...
Max Reger's two string trios stand alongside Mozart's Divertimento in E-flat major (K. 563) and Beethoven's op. 9 trios at the pinnacle of the genre. In their style and technical demands Reger has cle...
Attention, string quartet players: the long wait is over! Henle launches its series of late Beethoven quartets with op. 131 in c sharp minor and op. 132 in a minor, using the definitive urtext from th...
In the Mozart Year 2006, Henle will begin publication of all of Mozart's string quintets in a three-volume Urtext edition (parts and study scores). Volume II, comprising the best-known and most often...
No music lover can remain untouched by the emotional quality of this work, composed in Schubert's last year. The monumental weight of the outer movements, the intimate lyricism of the 'Adagio', as wel...
When Smetana completed his Quartet in e minor in dark and dismal colours in 1876, he had already been completely deaf for two years. Which musician is not familiar with the fateful passage in the four...
On 18 May 2006 a manuscript was auctioned at Sotheby's that made chamber musicians prick up their ears. Shortly before his death, Max Bruch composed three works for strings which he was no longer able...
> Inaccuracies in the first edition regarding the articulation and dynamics have been carefully resolved The quartet in a minor is one of the chamber music works with which Schubert wanted to 'pave th...
Although Schumann's first attempts at composing for this supreme form of chamber music in 1838/39 were only fragments, the three String Quartets op. 41 in a minor, F major and A major were written in...
The genesis of Mendelssohn's string quintets is closely connected to his friend Eduard Rietz and the latter's brother Julius. Deeply affected by Eduard's death in 1832, Mendelssohn exchanged the 'Minu...
Debussy's new string quartet received a very cool reception at its première in Paris in December 1893, performed by the famous Quatuor Ysaye. The critics were upset by its unusual harmonies and orches...
Fingering: Klaus Schilde The name Mahler is so closely associated with the symphony and Lied genres that it is little known how intensively he applied himself to chamber music during his studies. Of h...
Very few really important works have been written for piano quintet - alongside the famous works by Schubert, Schumann und Brahms, the quintet that Antonín Dvorák composed in 1887 certainly numbers am...
Brahms had in fact wanted to stop composing in 1890, but his encounter with the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld inspired him so much that he produced several works in a row for him over a brief period o...
The Fantasy Pieces op. 88 are Schumann's first contribution to the genre of the piano trio and date from his very prolific 'chamber music year' 1842. However, Schumann needed an unusually long time to...
Mendelssohn is considered a self-critical composer, who repeatedly reworked a number of his pieces until he deemed them worthy to be published. The path to his first Piano Trio was particularly rocky:...
For several years following composition of his first piano quartet, Dvořák's publisher Simrock pushed him to compose a follow-up piece in the genre. The work, written during a few short weeks in summe...
One needn't hesitate a second in assigning Schubert's two piano trios to his best works. Both were written no later than 1827, hence one year before the composer's death, and are typical works of his...
The origins of Brahms‘ g minor Quartet op. 25 go back to the 1850s, although the work was not finished until fall 1861. The composer held his new work in high esteem, even putting it on the program of...
In the classical era, and far into the 19th century, piano trios were what we might call 'fashion accessories'. It is thus no coincidence that Beethoven, following in the footsteps of Haydn and Mozart...
Piano trios belong among the great genres of Classical chamber music, and Brahms , too, turned his attention to this genre early on. He wrote his opus 8 in fall and winter 1853/54, thus at the age of...
Mozart's piano trios have been available in an established Henle edition in parts for many years. They have now been extensively revised by the editor and include the latest musicological findings. In...
Johannes Brahms's Piano Quintet is not only one of the mightiest works in its genre but a climax in his chamber music oeuvre. This new volume adopts the definitive text from the New Complete Edition o...
As with the g minor Quartet op. 25, the origins of opus 26 reach back into the 1850s. However, it assumed its final shape only in summer and fall 1861. While in her first evaluation of the work Clara...
Beethoven composed his Clarinet Trios op. 11 and 38 in 1798 and 1802/03. The op. 11 was given the nickname 'Gassenhauer Trio' because its third movement is a set of variations on a theme from Joseph W...
The composition cost him his sleep. In October 1842, when Schumann had finished his piano quintet in a short period of time, he was physically and emotionally drained. The work in no way reflects this...
Debussy composed this work in summer 1880 in Fiesole, Italy, when he was 18 years old. At the time he was the musical travelling companion of Nadescha von Meck, Tschaikowsky's famous patroness. Most o...
Joseph Haydn's nearly forty piano trios are available in five volumes from G. Henle. These are based on the Haydn Complete Edition, likewise published by Henle. This fourth volume contains the nine Pi...
Joseph Haydn's nearly forty piano trios are available in five volumes from G. Henle. These are based on the Haydn Complete Edition, likewise published by Henle. The fifth volume contains the six Piano...
The model for this composition was Beethoven's Septet op. 20, whose Divertimento character and six-part layout were adopted by Schubert, although he merely expanded the instrumentation by adding a sec...
Fingering: Klaus Schilde With part for clarinet in B flat/A Alexander Zemlinsky is mainly known for his operas and orchestral songs with their opulent late Romantic orchestration. His earlier, inspire...
Ever since Mozart encountered the clarinet in Mannheim in 1778 he loved the instrument's warm and expressive tone. His friendship with Anton Stadler, the clarinetist in the Royal-Imperial Court Orches...
Did Mozart intend this work to be a duo for two bass instruments, or - as the simple basso-like manner of the second part suggests - a sonata for bassoon and keyboard instrument? We will probably neve...
The three Duos for Clarinet and Bassoon WoO 27 stylistically belong to Beethoven's earliest creative period. Due to their lively character, the skilful play with timbre, and the fact that they are not...
Mozart wrote the five Divertimenti for Wind Sextet between the years 1775 and 1777 when he was living in Salzburg. The Italian title is reminiscent of simple 'light' music, but the pieces' melodic ing...
His present pieces must convince both connoisseurs and others alike of the unbiased opinion that Beethoven will in time become one of the greatest composers in Europe', thus wrote Joseph Haydn, when i...
When he was a mere 18 years old, Richard Strauss composed the highly Romantic, one-movement Serenade for Wind Instruments, op. 7. Extremely popular among wind players to this day, this work recalls in...
Late in the evening on his name day in 1781 Mozart was on his way to bed when he suddenly heard familiar sounds coming from outside: the six musicians who had given the première of his Serenade in E-f...
What might have occasioned Mozart to rework his original Serenade for sextet into a version for octet (with two oboes) only a few months after he had completed it? Was there an 'external” cause? Once...
Reicha published a total of 24 wind quintets for the 'classical' scoring of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon; op. 88 no. 2 is one of the best-loved and most played. 'If it were possible to surp...
Leoš Janá?ek composed his Suite for wind instruments Mládí (in English youth) in 1924, so when he was over 70. Numerous sources still survive for this work, making it difficult to establish the defini...
Tchaikovsky spent the summer and autumn of 1880 at his sister’s country estate in Kam’ianka, Ukraine, where he sought peace and relaxation. But after a short time the desire to work took hold of him a...
The serenade flourished in Mozart’s era, but with Brahms the genre experienced a new surge in popularity in the 19th century. Dvořák’s cheerful and relaxed op. 22 came into being in 1875, during a ver...
Elgar’s Serenade for Strings was composed in 1892 and represents the first of his works with which the 35-year-old composer was truly satisfied. Whether, as often claimed, it derives from three pieces...
Alban Berg's String Quartet can be considered to be one of the founding works of the Second Viennese School. Already composed in 1910 and first published in 1920, it was the last composition the 25-ye...
Mozart's 'Kleine Nachtmusik' is surely one of the most popular works of so-called classical music. Although his manuscript is not completely free of corrections, it is still undoubtedly one of Mozart'...
In autumn 1895, after returning from New York once and for all, Dvorák took up his former position as teacher at the Prague Conservatory. This clearly had an inspiring impact on him because in the spa...
The Sextet in B-flat major was already judged to be 'one of the most beautiful works by this young composer' after its initial performances in early 1861. It was popular with both public and press, an...
Brahms's First String Sextet became very popular after its publication in 1861, yet his publisher Simrock still hesitated when the composer offered him a second such work in 1865, 'in the same cheerfu...
After Volumes IV and III of the series with Mozart's complete string quartets appeared as Henle Urtext editions in early 2017 and 2019 respectively, Mozart expert Wolf-Dieter Seiffert now presents Vol...
Each of these four-movement works is a real jewel. Mozart worked hard on these six string quartets, and dedicated them to none other than the 'inventor' of the genre himself: Joseph Haydn. They were f...
Finally, the time has come: over the next few years all of Mozart's 26 string quartets will be published by Henle in an Urtext edition of both score and parts. All previous editions have left much to...
Redolent of the work of Dmitri Shostakovich in its musical language, Evgeny Kissin's String Quartet op. 3 comprises four strongly contrasting movements: on the heels of the stately 'Adagio liberamente...
While he was still in Bonn, perhaps in 1792 the year he departed for Vienna, Beethoven wrote this Duo for Violin and Violoncello. We do not know whether he ever completed his work as only the beginnin...
Alexander Zemlinsky's music was long unjustly overshadowed by what was regarded as the 'more progressive' Second Viennese School. Although Zemlinsky was close friends with its protagonist Arnold Schön...
Schubert's composition of a new string quartet begun in December 1820 was, alas, never to get beyond the first movement; the heavily reworked autograph breaks off at the outset of the second movement....
Although Dvorak's stay in America (1892-95) was very successful, the composer suffered a good deal from homesickness. He had begun the string quartet in A flat major in New York, but continued with it...
Composed in autumn of 1881, Opus 61 is the last of Dvořák's 'middle' quartets by chronology for which Beethoven and Schubert served as the most significant models. Beethoven's influence, from thematic...
Béla Bartók's six string quartets, composed between 1908 and 1940, are 20th-century milestones of the genre. His First String Quartet is closely linked to his unhappy love for the violinist Stefi Geye...
Bartók's Second String Quartet was composed - with several long interruptions - between 1915 and 1918, after he had spent several years almost solely devoted to collecting folk music. The melody and r...
The String Quartet no. 3 is the shortest of Béla Bartók's six Quartets, and was also composed in a remarkably short time. He wrote the score in September 1927, and in the following December it won him...
Even before his String Quartet no. 3 appeared in print in 1929, Bartók was already working on a fourth in the summer of 1928. This five-movement work is arranged symmetrically around a highly expressi...
'Harmony, bliss, music of Raphaelesque beauty! and yet in its simplicity, how wonderfully artistically everything is done.' This is how Theodor Billroth enthused about the first String Quartet op. 88...
As with its companion work op. 88 from 1882, Brahms's second string quintet was supposed to be completed in the relaxed atmosphere of a summer in Bad Ischl, but eight years later. The work's first tec...
In setting Richard Dehmel's poem 'Verklärte Nacht' (Transfigured Night) in his op. 4, the young Arnold Schönberg pursued the intention, as he himself said, of 'attempting those new forms in chamber mu...
The music world associates Verdi's name so obviously with his operatic output that his contributions to other genres can easily be overlooked. His only chamber work owes its existence to an enforced b...
The Weinzierl castle in Lower Austria, which still stands today, can be considered to be the birthplace of a chamber music genre, which is firmly established in our present-day repertoire. The young H...
Six works belong to opus 9 - the first group of Haydn's string quartets of which we know. The composer also went new ways as far as form was concerned: whereas he had still adhered to the five movemen...
The volume opens with something unusual: opus 42 is a single work, short and surprisingly easy to play; Haydn described it as 'something small and with only 3 pieces'. The Quartets op. 50, including t...
The quartets were dedicated to the violinist Johann Tost, who was the second principal violinist at the Esterházy court during the 1780s. His business sense led him to sell twelve quartets - opus 64 w...
