|
|
Soothing Stuff 8
In my Room
Music of a more intimate scale.
Composers tended to love chamber music, pouring their most intimate thoughts into music of great simplicity and depth.
However, this music has always been the neglected problem child of the classical money-makers, such as the record companies.
With few big tunes and a lack of the spectacle, chamber music has struggled commercially.
Chamber music is, simply, music written for performance in a chamber, or room. The bigger, and more palatial the room, the better.
Nevertheless, any room should suffice as the musicians are few;
chamber music usually involves anywhere from two to ten or so players.
Mostly, however, chamber music calls for two (typically, "sonatas"), three ("trios"), four ("quartets"), or five ("quintets") players.
The formal titles usually give away the instruments required.
For example, a piano trio is usually for a piano, a violin and cello,
a string quartet is invariably for two violins, a viola and a cello.
However, there are other kinds of trios (eg., clarinet, string) and quartets (eg., piano)
and it all becomes very complicated when you are dealing with quintets, sextets, septets, octets or nonets.
Here is a selection of some of the more famously restful moments in chamber music.
- Beethoven – Septet in E flat major, op.20 – 3. Tempo di minuetto
- Borodin – String Quartet No. 2 in D major – 3. Notturno: Andante
- Franck – Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major – 1. Allegretto ben moderato
- Mendelssohn – Octet in E-flat major, op.20 – 3. Scherzo: Allegro leggierissimo
- Mendelssohn – Piano Trio No. 1 in d minor, op.49 – 2. Andante con moto tranquillo
- Mozart – Clarinet Quintet in A major, K 581 – 2. Larghetto
- Mozart – Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat major, K452 – 3. (Rondo) Allegretto
- Schubert – Piano Quintet in A major, D667, "The Trout" – 4. Thema. Andantino - Variazioni I-V – Allegretto
- Schubert – String Quartet No. 14 in d minor, D810, "Death and the Maiden" – 2. Andante con moto
- Tchaikovsky – String Quartet No. 1 in D major, op.11 – 2. Andante cantabile
|
|