Presents
Carl Frühling
Piano Quartet in D Major, Op.35-World Premier Edition
Carl Frühling (1868-1937) was born in what was then known as Lemberg, the capital city of the province of Galicia, a part of the Austrian Habsburg empire. (Today it is in Ukraine and known as Lviv). He studied piano with Anton Door and composition with Franz Krenn at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. Door had studied with Carl Czerny and was a close friend of Brahms while Krenn was considered one of the leading composition teachers of the day, having taught Mahler, Rott, Zemlinsky and Janacek. Upon graduating, Frühling was awarded the Liszt Prize for piano performance in 1889. For many years he enjoyed a career as an accompanist to some of the most important instrumental soloists and vocalists then performing, including such stars as Pablo Sarasate, Bronislav Huberman and Leo Slezak. He often served as pianist to the Rosé Quartet, then Vienna's premiere string quartet. In the wake of the First World War and its catastrophic effect on Austria and Vienna, his career was virtually destroyed and, sadly, he and his music were soon forgotten. He composed in most genres and left several first rate chamber music compositions besides this wonderful piano quartet. Frühling was only able to interest publishers in a few works, largely due to the rise of anti-semitism in Vienna at the time he was composing. Frühling was Jewish. After his death, most of his manuscripts were eventually lost. The Piano Quartet was among them. However, manuscript copies of the work have turned up in recent years. One in the New York Public Library which had been in the private collection of the famous Flonzaley String Quartet and another in the Mills Music Library of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. We obtained a copy of the that manuscript from which our senior editors, Garik Hayrapetyan and Raymond Silvertrust have created a piano score and string parts which, to the best of our knowledge, is the first time this work has ever been commercially published.
New York Public Library has dated its copy of the manuscript as 1909 or 1910 as the date of composition. However, this is probably incorrect. His Piano Quintet, one of the few works published during his life time, came out in 1894 and obviously was composed either in that year or shortly before. While it is not impossible, it seems rather unlikely that Frühling only wrote 5 works in the next 16 years. Judging from the style and comparing it to his Piano Quintet, it appears likely that this work was composed no later than 1900. The big, opening movement, Allegro moderato, begins in a leisurely, pastorial mood. It is joyful and lyrical conjuring images of viewing a beautiful landscape from a hilltop. All is peaceful and calm. The second movement, a nervous Scherzo, quasi presto, is a very different affair, rhythmically tense and exciting until a more lyrical second subject is introduced, however, the frenetic rhythm still is in the background. The languid trio section provides a strong contrast. In third place is a melancholy Larghetto. The upbeat finale, Vivace, is lively and jovial.
We are proud and plesed to have rescued this fine piano quartet from the oblivian from which it has languished for more than a century. It unquestionably deserves concert performance but is not beyond amateur ensembles.
Parts: $39.95
