Mendelssohn: Piano Sextet Op. 110

This is a wonderful recording of Mendelssohn’s Octet, written when Mendelssohn was only 16, in 1825. Its a remarkable work, assured and vibrant. This recording really captures this, and manages to convey both lightness and vibrancy, in a seemingly effortless performance.

Recording locations: Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, September 1968 (Mendelssohn, Borodin), October 1968 (Kreutzer, Berwald), November 1972 (Rimsky-Korsakov)

This recording forms part of a series of 10 reissues celebrating the glorious Decca recordings from the 1950s-1970s of the Wiener Oktett (Vienna Octet), made up of key principals from the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Five titles were released in September and the remaining five are released this month.

In addition to recording standard chamber music repertoire, the Vienna Octet refreshingly explored the byways of chamber music, and this collection brings together five rarities of chamber music. The recordings were originally released in the early 1970s and the Rimsky-Korsakov Piano Quintet was recorded in the very last sessions of the Octet. Both, the Borodin and Mendelssohn are early works by the composers, but were published posthumously – the Borodin, published in 1938, shows influences of Mendelssohn and Schumann. Mendelssohn’s Sextet for piano and strings was written in the spring of 1824 when the composer was in his mid-teens and published twenty years after his death.

Conradin Kreutzer is not to be confused with his more famous namesake, Rodolphe Kreutzer (French violinist and composer, dedicatee of Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata). Conradin was a German composer writing several works for stage as well as a substantial corpus of chamber music. His magnificent Grand Septet is based on the instrumentation of Beethoven’s Septet and was first recorded by the Vienna Octet in 1951. 17 years later they revisited it and it was issued on LP coupled with the Berwald Septet included here.

The high opus number of the Piano Sextet Op.110 is misleading. The work originated before the third piano quartet but was first printed in the complete edition of Mendelssohn in 1868. Unusually the instrumentation includes two violas and double bass. This is a live recording from the Munich Opera Festival.

Two of Mendelssohn’s chamber works, the Piano Sextet for Piano and Strings and the Octet for Strings are interpreted here by the ensemble I Solisti Filarmonici Italiani.

Mendelssohn was perhaps the most precociously gifted of all composers. As a child prodigy he stands out from other famous examples such as Mozart, Saint-Saëns, and Britten as he reached musical maturity so quickly – probably only Korngold can rival his precocious abilities. The two works on this CD are prime examples. Both were composed in the years 1824/5 when Mendelssohn was in his sixteenth year. The sheer effortlessness of the Octet, its textures, and the seamless way he writes for the 8 players has never been surpassed. Mendelssohn’s inspiration to compose a work for 8 string players was probably inspired by the Double Quartets of Spohr. However, the older composer deliberately wrote for two groups of 4 players, and made little attempt to meld the 8 into an orchestral unit.

The sextet is almost a piano concerto, and the dazzling writing he gives the piano illustrates not only Mendelssohn’s prowess as a virtuoso, but also how well he had studied his older contemporary’s music, especially Hummel and Moscheles.