Piano quartet (Mahler)

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The piano quartet in A minor, of which only the first movement has survived, along with sketches for a Scherzo, is the only surviving chamber music work by the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) and dates from his student days in Vienna.

Origin and dating

During his studies at the Vienna Conservatory from 1875 to 1878, Gustav Mahler wrote several chamber music works that - with the exception of a quartet movement in A minor for violin , viola , cello and piano - are considered lost or destroyed. In 1876 he received first prize in composition for the first movement of a piano quintet , and again in 1878 for a scherzo for piano quintet. It is unlikely, however, that the first movement of the quintet, which was also heard at a concert in Iglau in 1876, was a version of the existing quartet movement in A minor. In 1896 Mahler mentioned to his friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner a piano quartet that was composed at the end of his studies, performed in the house of the doctor Theodor Billroth and sent to Russia for a competition, where it was lost. It can be assumed that the surviving sentence comes from this, although the surviving autograph bears the year 1876 (possibly later added), which does not correspond to Mahler's end of studies two years later. Together with other indications, however, a work dating between (end) 1876 and (at the latest) 1878 is likely. The designation "I. Movement ”in the title and the sketches in the inner cover for a further movement in the Scherzo character (albeit in G minor) indicate that Mahler had at least planned a multi-movement work.

Printing and reception

The autograph was in the possession of Alma Mahler-Werfel and is now in the Pierpont Morgan Library , New York. The broadcast of a performance on Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk in March 1932 is documented, played by Erich Itor Kahn and members of the Amar Quartet . Thereafter, the quartet movement fell into oblivion and was only rediscovered about forty years later by Peter Ruzicka , who in 1973 arranged for the printing by Sikorski-Verlag (including the sketches for the Scherzo). In 1997 the quartet appeared as Supplement Volume 3 in the Gustav Mahler Complete Edition by Universal Edition .

The quartet movement with violin, viola, cello and piano has a playing time of around 10 minutes, follows the sonata form and is initially called “Not too fast”. Peter Ruzicka characterized him as follows: “The sonata movement's end, sinking into a gloomy A minor, negates any convention of externality that would have been expected in a sixteen-year-old. In general, this key, which played an important role in Mahler's work (and also in one of the youth symphonies), can certainly be seen as an unconscious anticipation of what is to come. [...] The thematic invention gains its own personal profile; Form and gesture clearly point to the roots of Mahler's musical consciousness at the time: to Brahms, Schumann and Schubert. "

The Russian composer Alfred Schnittke quoted Mahler's quartet in his own piano quartet from 1988, as well as in the "Concerto grosso No. 4 - Symphony No. 5" written in the same year, the latter using motifs from the Scherzo fragment in G minor.

In Martin Scorsese's 2010 film "Shutter Island" , the play is played in a scene showing the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp .

The Austrian composer and conductor Gerhard Present has arranged arrangements of Mahler's Rückert songs as well as the songs of a traveling journeyman for voice and the same piano quartet.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information on Universal Edition
  2. ↑ cit. n. introduction to the work atkammermusikfuehrer.de, Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz
  3. ^ Christian Storch: The composer as author - Alfred Schnittke's piano concertos. Böhlau, Cologne / Vienna, 2011. ISBN 978-3-412-21418-0 , p. 155
  4. ↑ Work details
  5. ↑ Work details

literature

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