PsB
Citizen of Nowhere™
I have been listening again to Onslow's Op. 54, 55 and 56 quartets and I do think they are lovely and worth discovering for anybody who likes 19th century chamber music.
George Onslow (1784-1853) was the son of Edward Onslow (a British aristocrat who had arrived in France in 1781 to escape a spot of scandal and settled in Auvergne) and of a local lady, Marie Rosalie de Bourdeilles de Brantôme (you couldn't invent it). He was the grandson of George Onslow, the first Earl of Onslow. For obvious reasons the family spent some time in Germany during the French revolution but returned to France after the Jacobin interlude. Dussek and Cramer were among his piano teachers, and his interest in composition came after hearing an opera by Mehul. Reicha became his teacher in 1808. Musically at least he seems to have been more influenced by what was going on in Germany than in France. He spent most of his life in Clermont-Ferrand, with occasional trips to Paris during the winter. Being a man of independent means, he could afford to compose whatever he wanted, unaffected by popular taste and demand, and chamber music represents the bulk of his considerable output.
He was described by an over-enthusiastic contemporary as a French Beethoven, but his music is perhaps closer to Schubert's. It is well worth discovering anyway. "In the opinion of Robert Schumann, only Onslow and Mendelssohn approached Beethoven's mastery of the quartet form." From the excellent wiki on the subject. His early work (1810 onwards) bridges the classical and early romantic periods and started gaining recognition in Germany between 1815 and 1820. It took the Paris music world a few more years to recognize his greatness...
The opus 54, 55 and 56 quartets were composed after Onslow had heard Beethoven's Op 131 and 135 quartets. The experience was apparently a destabilizing one for him. While he rejected the works as "extravagant" he was nevertheless challenged to renew his writing for the quartet form. Between 1830 and 1834, he wrote nineteen quartets and quintets with a couple of symphonies thrown in for good measure. The 3 quartets on this CD are from the later part of this burst of creative energy, and they are lovely. There are some very intense slow movements, great melodies and amazing contrasts between parts. The young musicians of Quatuor Diotima sound excellent, and the recording engineers have done a great job, too. (The CD also includes good and copious liner notes - that I have raided to write this - and was a Diapason d'Or when it was released.)
Although Onslow enjoyed good recognition during his lifetime his music went out of fashion immediately after his death; he has been dismissed as a bit of a lightweight ever since. These are the only quartets of Onslow's output that I have listened to: maybe the early stuff is indeed sub-standard, but this CD makes me want to look for more.
George Onslow (1784-1853) was the son of Edward Onslow (a British aristocrat who had arrived in France in 1781 to escape a spot of scandal and settled in Auvergne) and of a local lady, Marie Rosalie de Bourdeilles de Brantôme (you couldn't invent it). He was the grandson of George Onslow, the first Earl of Onslow. For obvious reasons the family spent some time in Germany during the French revolution but returned to France after the Jacobin interlude. Dussek and Cramer were among his piano teachers, and his interest in composition came after hearing an opera by Mehul. Reicha became his teacher in 1808. Musically at least he seems to have been more influenced by what was going on in Germany than in France. He spent most of his life in Clermont-Ferrand, with occasional trips to Paris during the winter. Being a man of independent means, he could afford to compose whatever he wanted, unaffected by popular taste and demand, and chamber music represents the bulk of his considerable output.
He was described by an over-enthusiastic contemporary as a French Beethoven, but his music is perhaps closer to Schubert's. It is well worth discovering anyway. "In the opinion of Robert Schumann, only Onslow and Mendelssohn approached Beethoven's mastery of the quartet form." From the excellent wiki on the subject. His early work (1810 onwards) bridges the classical and early romantic periods and started gaining recognition in Germany between 1815 and 1820. It took the Paris music world a few more years to recognize his greatness...
The opus 54, 55 and 56 quartets were composed after Onslow had heard Beethoven's Op 131 and 135 quartets. The experience was apparently a destabilizing one for him. While he rejected the works as "extravagant" he was nevertheless challenged to renew his writing for the quartet form. Between 1830 and 1834, he wrote nineteen quartets and quintets with a couple of symphonies thrown in for good measure. The 3 quartets on this CD are from the later part of this burst of creative energy, and they are lovely. There are some very intense slow movements, great melodies and amazing contrasts between parts. The young musicians of Quatuor Diotima sound excellent, and the recording engineers have done a great job, too. (The CD also includes good and copious liner notes - that I have raided to write this - and was a Diapason d'Or when it was released.)
Although Onslow enjoyed good recognition during his lifetime his music went out of fashion immediately after his death; he has been dismissed as a bit of a lightweight ever since. These are the only quartets of Onslow's output that I have listened to: maybe the early stuff is indeed sub-standard, but this CD makes me want to look for more.