Joachim Raff - String Quartet No. 3, Op.136 (1866)

Описание: Joseph Joachim Raff (27 May 1822 – 24 or 25 June 1882) was a German-Swiss composer, pedagogue and pianist.

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String Quartet No. 3 in E minor, Op. 136 (1866)
Dedication: Der löbl Hellmesbergerschen Quartettgesellschaft in Wien

I. Allegro (0:00)
II. Allegretto con moto (12:14)
III. Andante con moto (17:23)
IV. Allegro con spirito (27:41)

Mannheimer Streichquartett

Details by Edition Silvertrust:
"Joachim Raff's String Quartet No. 3 in e minor was the first of a set of three Raff wrote during the winter of 1866-7 as he was recovering from a severe illness. It was dedicated to the famous Hellmesberger Quartet of Vienna in gratitude for their championing his works. Unlike his first two quartets, which showed the influence of Wagner and Liszt, his subsequent quartets show a clear break from their so called New German School of music. For one thing, the tempo markings and other directions are all in the standard Italian rather than the German which the Wagnerians favored. And the structure is clearly in the classical tradition. In the opening movement, Allegro, the restless opening theme, characterized by its triplet rhythm and Mendelssohnian effects. A second more lyrical subject, full of yearning, appears periodically to provide contrast. The second movement, Allegro con moto, is in the form of march-like heavily accented scherzo. Next comes an Andante con moto. It opens quite simply with a simple folk-like melody. What follows are a set of superb variations in which Raff shows his great compositional skill with shifts of articulation, rhythm and instrumental combinations. It even includes a clever fugue before it ends with a hymn. The bright finale, Allegro con spirito, with its nervous accompaniment is bustles along, full of good spirits."---Editor of The Chamber Music Journal

During the last ten years of his life and for the three decades following it, Joachim Raff (1822-1882) was regularly mentioned in the same breath as Wagner, Liszt, and Brahms as one of Germany's leading composers. The experts and the public judged him to be the equal to such past masters as Mendelssohn, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. Incredibly, by the 1920's his music had all but disappeared from the concert stage. It seems virtually unimaginable that a composer whose talent was recognized and whose music was admired by Mendelssohn and Liszt, could become a mere footnote, yet this is what became of Raff and his music for most of the 20th century.

The Hellmesberger Quartet was a string quartet formed in Vienna in 1849. It was founded by Joseph Hellmesberger Sr. and was the first permanent named String Quartet. It dissolved in 1901.

Violinist Leopold Jansa had started a string quartet in 1845. Hellmesberger took over from Jansa in 1849, retaining the other members. Its initial composition was:

Joseph Hellmesberger Sr. (1st violin)
Carl Heissler (2nd violin)
Matthias Durst (viola)
Carl Schlesinger (cello)
The quartet's composition remained "pretty constant until the mid-1860s".

At one point, the composition was:

Joseph Hellmesberger, Sr. (1st violin)
Adolph Brodsky (2nd violin), left Vienna in 1870
Sigismund Bachrich (viola)
David Popper (cello), from 1868 to 1870
Hellmesberger's son, Joseph Hellmesberger Jr., joined the quartet in 1870 to play the second violin and became leader in 1891.

Ferdinand Hellmesberger, the son of Joseph Sr. and brother of Joseph Jr., joined in 1883 to play the cello.

The Quartet played an important role in Vienna's musical life through the performance of quartets from Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, and Franz Schubert, premiering several of Brahms' and Schubert's chamber works.

It commissioned and premiered Antonín Dvořák's String Quartet No. 11, Op. 61, composed in 1881.

The programme of the opening concert on November 4, 1849 included Joseph Haydn's Quartet in C, Op. 76, No. 3, Spohr's Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 124, and Beethoven's Quartet in F, Op. 59 No. 1.

More exact member listing from the German Wikipedia page:
Violine: Joseph Hellmesberger sen. (1849–1887), Joseph Hellmesberger jun. (1887–1901)
Violine: Matthias Durst (1849–1865), C. Hoffmann (1865–1866), Dragomir Krancsevics (1867–1868), Adolf Brodsky (1868–1869), Dragomir Krancsevics (1869–1870), Joseph Hellmesberger jun. (1870–1875), Franz Radnitzky (1875–1876), Joseph Hellmesberger jun. (1876–1887), Julius Egghard (1887–1901)

Viola: Carl Heissler (1849–1855), Franz Dobyhal (1855–1868), Sigismund Bachrich (1868–1880), Josef Maxintsak (1880–1901)

Cello: Karl Schlesinger (1849–1855), Ägidius Borzaga (1855–1858), Bernhard Cossmann (1858), Heinrich Röver (1859–1868), David Popper (1868–1872), Heinrich Röver (1872–1875), Friedrich Hilpert (1875–1876), Reinhold Hummer (1876–1880), Joseph Sulzer (1880–1883), Ferdinand Hellmesberger (1883–1901)