Emanuel Aloys Forster: Six String Quartets, Op. 21 (Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era) - Softcover

9780895798343: Emanuel Aloys Forster: Six String Quartets, Op. 21 (Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0895798344 ISBN 13: 9780895798343

Publisher: A-R Editions, 2016

Emanuel Aloys F�rster (1748–1823) was among the most significant composers of Viennese chamber music at the turn of the nineteenth century. The three sets of six string quartets that he published are exemplary works in the genre at that time, fine examples of the intellectually and emotionally engaging nature of classical string quartets. Yet these works are not part of the standard chamber music repertoire, nor are they much discussed by musicologists, except in terms of the supposed “influence” between F�rster and Beethoven. Thus our assessment of this important composer in general, and his contributions to Viennese string quartet culture around 1800 in particular, is hampered by a narrowness of vision. As shown in this new edition of F�rster’s op. 21 (1803), F�rster remained close to the overall design for string quartets that Haydn and Mozart had set, with some experiments in form and movement order in quartet no. 3. In other respects they present increasingly experimental writing. The harmonic innovations in quartet no. 4, for example, are especially striking; they require an excellent performing ensemble to render them effective. F�rster also explored the special effects that are achievable by a string quartet, as in the Adagio con sordino from quartet no. 4. Hymnlike adagios that unfold in elaborate, ornamental lines also become increasingly prominent in op. 21, his final published set of string quartets.

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