One of these octets was written in the 1860s, the other sounds
as if it was but in fact dates from sixty years later. One was
written when its composer was a graduating student, the other
by an old man months from death. One looked forward to a career,
the other looked back over one.
The musical epicentre of Europe in the second half of the nineteenth
century was Leipzig. Many composers studied there at the Conservatoire
which Mendelssohn established in 1843. Within four years he
was dead but his appointed staff together with his and their
pupils carried on teaching using his methods until the end of
the century. The kudos was enormous. Young composers (and performers)
came from far and wide to study there and observe (or perform
if they were good enough) rehearsals and concerts with the city’s
orchestra at the famed Gewandhaus. Many came from Scandinavia
but not everyone was happy when they got there. Grieg for example
hated his time spent there from 1858 when he was just fifteen.
He found the teaching stultifying and the Mendelssohn-worship
oppressive. Svendsen, on the other hand, seized every opportunity
to run rings around his teacher Carl Reinecke. Unlike other
composition students, Svendsen forged ahead regardless of whether
or not he received Reinecke’s approval and produced a
string octet, string quintet and his first symphony during his
students years, so even his conservative and sceptical teacher
was forced to concede that ‘these works were written with
great skill, … rarely have I met a student who has developed
as quickly as Svendsen’. On the other hand, Grieg, writing
in 1881, commented, ‘In contrast to Svendsen, I must say
that I left the Conservatoire just as dumb as I was when I was
there. I had learned a bit to be sure but my own individuality
was still a closed book for me’. Svendsen’s octet
for strings won him first prize and a performance at the graduation
concert on 9 May 1866. Far from disappearing without trace as
a ‘Jugendwerk’ it went on to receive outings in
New York (1871), London (1877), Paris (1878), Naples (1880)
and St Petersburg (1885). It was praised by the violinist Sarasate
as well as Tchaikovsky, who enjoyed the capricious melodies
of the scherzo when he heard it in 1874 and dubbed it
‘the most magical work to emerge in the last decade’
and the pizzicato passage at bars 13-20 here sound remarkably
like the later (1892) Nutcracker ballet. Svendsen was
hailed above Brahms as the coming man but it did not last and
he spent the last 28 years of his life working in Copenhagen
as a conductor. One can readily understand Reinecke’s
attitude to his pupil’s taking such an independent stance;
it would have been hard for master to outshine pupil as far
as this octet is concerned. It bears all the hallmarks of a
mature composer, oozes confidence, doesn’t bother to tick
the right boxes (not a fugue in sight for the examiners to pick
over) and has a scherzo which requires eight virtuosi.
At the end of his life, Bruch returned to chamber music. In
his youth he wrote two string quartets and a piano trio, in
mid-life a piano quintet and at the end two string quintets
and an octet. The violinist Willy Hess encouraged him to write
these final three as had other violinists Ferdinand David, Joseph
Joachim and Pablo de Sarasate other works throughout his long
life of 82 years. There is therefore a bias towards the first
violin unlike the Svendsen octet. Bruch’s music is amazingly
energetic and virile for a man of his years. Photos of him at
that time show a Methuselah-like bearded and bespectacled old
man. At climactic moments towards the end of the development
in the first movement and shortly thereafter in its coda, one
senses the music of a young man in a passionate outburst frustrated
that it is being played by only eight musicians. Bruch writes
a valedictory Adagio in Schubertian mode, which could
have been one of his songs or the famous string quintet. The
focus throughout is on beauty of melody which he always considered
paramount, starting with the slow movement of the G minor violin
concerto half a century earlier. Like the second symphony (1870,
Op.36) there is no scherzo in the octet though the finale has
the style of one if not its structure. Its second subject’s
melody is a dream and once heard never forgotten. Indeed that
could be said of the whole work together with the two string
quintets, all three now published and recorded.
Bruch’s octet is billed here as a concerto for string
octet, which is misleading. While it is a reworking of a string
quintet from a year earlier in 1919 (no longer extant) his handwriting
states quite clearly Octett. Not Max but his daughter-in-law
Gertrude wrote ‘concerto’ on the parts she copied
for the BBC projected broadcast in October 1937 - only the A
minor quintet was selected. She also wrote Oktett whereas
Max wrote the old-fashioned Octett so it’s easy
to establish who wrote what. It was probably misconstrued as
such simply because, like a concerto, it is in three movements
and not four. Regarding the alternative ‘string orchestra’,
again this had nothing to do with Bruch but was probably a marketing
ploy by its projected publisher Eichmann - he never did publish
it - to give it wider dissemination.
My other issue, and it’s a more serious one, is the unaccountable
use on this recording of a second cello instead of a double
bass. Without it the sound is quite wrong and a colour ingredient
lacking, while the texture loses the dimension of the lower
octave line. The result is akin to an organ being played on
manuals only without pedals. This is not a double string quartet
- like Mendelssohn’s. The eighth line of the score - now
in the Vienna State Library since its discovery and sale at
auction after my biography was published in 1988 - is clearly
marked ‘Basso’, the seventh line is clearly ‘Violoncello’.
There can be no doubt as to its necessity - I refer the reader
to the recording made by Ensemble Ulf Hoelscher on CPO 999 451-2.
Svendsen’s octet is well served by the players who make
up the Tharice Virtusoi The scherzo walks a tightrope at times
thanks to a tempo which fizzes along but the result is outstanding
and the disc worth buying for that movement alone - the rest
of the music is very attractive and not to be dismissed as a
hear-once new work. Accolades aplenty are due elsewhere. Their
technical achievement is exemplary, accuracy of ensemble impeccable;
they have a wonderful sense of style and play this music with
relish and romanticism.
Only that inexplicably absent double bass in Bruch disappoints.
Christopher Fifield
Tharice Virtuosi 