# Which chamber music genre do you prefer



## ScipioAfricanus

I have developed love for the Piano Trios lately. Before that it was the string quartet.


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## JAKE WYB

I like the presence of piano to introduce texture and definition to the string sounds - string quartets have too much focus higher up the register and always sound to me squeaky - string quintets are certainly mushy and lack in colour however vaughan williams & schuberts quintets do it well.

Piano quintets are therefore my favourite idiom - they tend to get the special one off inspirations wheras the string quartets get more music the piano quintets often get the cream - Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Dvorak, Shostakovich (though schubert dvorak and shostakovich have just as great quartets admittely)

Id like to have seem more *harp *chamber music - it sounds perfect for chamber music - why I like Bax's so much


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## World Violist

I voted for both string quartets and quintets... somewhat because I don't like being in a "piano ____" ensemble because it's just wrong as far as intonation is concerned, and also just because intonation almost by definition is bad in any ensemble including piano and strings. There's nothing quite like hearing what should be a leading tone sounding about an eighth tone flat, or whatever it is.

As for string quintets being mushy, I have to disagree; they're only mushy if the composer can't write to its strengths. Schubert's C major quintet is one of my favorite pieces of chamber music. This might have something to do with my preference for violas that are mistaken for cellos--by cellists, on occasion.

Why I also voted for the string quartet; I just performed the first movement of the Ravel quartet a couple of days ago. This should be rather self-explanatory. Also, the quartets of Edmund Rubbra I've found to be immensely satisfying on both an emotional and intellectual level. When a composer is more contrapuntal than coloristic, I think the string quartet is one of the most perfect combinations ever devised. Even color-focused composers (like the aforementioned Ravel) bring about wonders with four string players.


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## Head_case

> When a composer is more contrapuntal than coloristic, I think the string quartet is one of the most perfect combinations ever devised. Even color-focused composers (like the aforementioned Ravel) bring about wonders with four string players.


I guess you would appreciate Taneyev's string quartets (I-IX) then.

Colour palette soundscapists like Ravel are more tangible for me though. If you enjoyed playing Ravel's summery beauty, then the impressionist coloration of Joseph Jongen's string quartets, and Pierre Bonnal's recorded string quartets are a treasure trove of less popular French/Belgian works to fathom.

No surprise - voted for the string quartet medium. The piano is an exceptionally irritating instrument for me. After listening to trios by Smetana; Suk; Dvorak; Ravel; Faure; Debussy; Arensky; Shostakovich, and piano quartets by Dvorak; Faure; Noskowski; Zelenski or piano quintets by Faure; Bacewicz...I come to the same universal conclusion:

the piano arrests the string quartet! 

The string quartet does much better, more loose and muscular in flexing its tempo than a plink-plonk prattling piano dom dum dumbing along. Granted - Faure's piano quartets and quintets are sublime and could never be conceived without the piano, however the rest I can live without.

Did I mention that I really hate the piano as an instrument? 

Now a harpsichord trio, harpsichord quartet or harpsichord quintet - that would be something.


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## Earthling

JAKE WYB said:


> Id like to have seem more *harp *chamber music - it sounds perfect for chamber music - why I like Bax's so much


Yes, those Bax chamber pieces with harp are lovely! Also for flute, viola and harp: Debussy's _Sonata for flute, viola and harp_ and Toru Takemitsu's _And Then I knew 'Twas Wind_.

While I don't have a lot of harp chamber music, I certainly have a soft spot for it!


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## Earthling

Head_case said:


> the piano arrests the string quartet!


I do feel the piano tends to crowd out the other string players.

I voted (a few days ago?) for string quartet. I like the homogeneous texture, the economy of four string instruments giving a warm, full bodied sound.

The string quartets of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Faure, Debussy, Ravel Vaughan Williams and Shostakovich I especially enjoy.


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## jurianbai

it's string quartet. classical music is a complex music with many voices, but in orchestra there are many instrument doing similar score, so the additional instrument/voice is only for make up a volume. in chamber music, each instrument is doing his own part, I feel it is more easy to see the different between one instrument to other since they do their own role.

in string quartet the timbre/color of voices is similar, 2 violins, and 2 violin-like instrument only difer in range (cello , viola). with this setup, composer kept in strick to sing relying solely on composition skill since everything sound exactly very similar. so the piece has no help from instrument's unique voices, so this ensemble will be very different if the setup is like a harp, a flute, a guitar etc. put together, composer can 'hide' and 'cheat' in exposing only the instrument's unique voices.

but in paradox, this very simple and similar voice, in practise challenged the composer to goes berserk in composition skill. Bartok's string quartet maybe the recipient of his most crazy composition skill (I am not talking about 'enjoyable'.. other topic), as well as Shostakovich. And recently like Szymanowsky also gone this category. A bit earlier Schubert's and Beethoven's are also an example.


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## Camilla

I play in a string quartet, so I do have a passion for those. However, recently I have been listening to a lot of piano trios. They are so beautiful. I play piano also, but never with strings.


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## Head_case

Welcome Camilla 



> it's string quartet. classical music is a complex music with many voices, but in orchestra there are many instrument doing similar score, so the additional instrument/voice is only for make up a volume. in chamber music, each instrument is doing his own part, I feel it is more easy to see the different between one instrument to other since they do their own role.
> 
> in string quartet the timbre/color of voices is similar, 2 violins, and 2 violin-like instrument only difer in range (cello , viola). with this setup, composer kept in strick to sing relying solely on composition skill since everything sound exactly very similar. so the piece has no help from instrument's unique voices, so this ensemble will be very different if the setup is like a harp, a flute, a guitar etc. put together, composer can 'hide' and 'cheat' in exposing only the instrument's unique voices.


Well said Jurianbai.

That pretty much sums it up for me


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## maestro267

You should have included an 'Other' option. I would've voted for 'Percussion music'


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## Camilla

Head_case said:


> Welcome Camilla


Thank you


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## ahansen_cello

I said piano trios because they allow the most even composing among the different instruments. At any given moment any instrument can have the melody (not counting very early piano trio works where the cello mostly played the bass line, which was freakin' doubled by the piano anyway!).


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## jhansen_violin

Was it wrong that I voted for all of them? The poll let me, so I did...I couldn't choose because I thought of all of the really amazing repertoire I was leaving out! 
I love the chamber music of Shosti. Though I haven't had many opportunities to perform a lot of it, the times that I did were incredible musical experiences. They all have such amazing emotional depth. 

With composers like that, how can you choose a favorite instrumentation?


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## Sebastien Melmoth

The Piano Quintet is an interesting genre because a string quartet can hold its own against a piano; other piano+ genres have balance issues which composers and performers really must consider.

For me the String Quartet is the most interesting chamber genre; yet left out was the String Sextet.


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## World Violist

Oh darn, string sextet! Whatever happened to Tchaikovsky and Brahms, not to mention Schoenberg, with all their masterful contributions to the genre? Too late, though, I suppose.


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## Head_case

> I love the chamber music of Shosti. Though I haven't had many opportunities to perform a lot of it, the times that I did were incredible musical experiences. They all have such amazing emotional depth.
> 
> With composers like that, how can you choose a favorite instrumentation?


Not so much favourite 'instrumentation', but the chamber _form_ which best represents the expression of the composer's own _inner form_.

In your example of Shostakovich, the string quartet genre was esteemed by Shostakovich throughout his life; it's development; its trends along his life's journey ... and the motifs which pervade the string quartet cycle from the very first, to the very last - this developmental trend ... this characterisation of the composer's interiority is that key which enables many of us to adhere to the string quartet form.


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## Head_case

> The Piano Quintet is an interesting genre because a string quartet can hold its own against a piano; other piano+ genres have balance issues which composers and performers really must consider.


This is what I find problematic about piano quintets: they are very much in the vein of the piano _against_ the string quartet.

Gabriel Faure's piano quintets are exceptional for me in this respect. His seamless mastery over the form in his two concise piano quintets is just mindblowing: flawlessly woven piano into the fabric of the string quartet.


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## TSHare

"the piano against the string quartet"

HC,

So true for piano quintet's on the piano + string quartet model (particularly Schumann, Brahms, Shostakovich). But would you say this is equally true for piano quintets that do not employ a traditional string quartet, like Hummel's or Schubert's Trout?

For the record, I voted for Piano Trio, Piano Quintet and String Quartet because there are numerous works in both genres that I could not possibly live without.

As for piano quartets, I love the Schumann, the Brahms 1 & 3 and Quatuor pour la fin du temps.

Schubert's string quintet is stupendous but it is the only work in that genre I really Love; Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvorak string quintets are more in the realm of Like Very Much.

p.s. I am new here. Nice to meet you all.


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## Head_case

Hi there,

I'm hardly the most objective about the piano as a chamber music instrument. I just don't enjoy its sullen homogenous tones. Any instrument whose notes can't undergo bending is hard enough to appreciate, but the piano seems to be the epitome of utter tonal homogeneity (i.e. no matter what is played, it always sounds like a piano  ) 

I quite like the Trout Quintet - the Aeolian String Quartet and Amadeus Quartet recordings are the ones I'm familiar with on LP. There are some fantastic string quintets out there, including Taneyev and the ones you've mentioned. I can count the ones I enjoy off my hands, whereas the string quartet field is phenomenally richer in repertoire. Absolutely no doubt - there are some gems in other fields - piano trios..flute and string quartets .... harpsichord and string quartet etc. But overall, it's the string quartet medium which innervates my musical taste.


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## Enjoying Life

String Quartet

I agree that the piano usually distrupts rather than compliments. There are a few piano pieces I like but for depth, emotion and tightness I have to go with the string quartet.

There just is nothing that takes hold of me like they do - my mind is stretched, my emotions are impacted.

A quintet just seems to lose some of that and the effect just seems to be less instead of more.


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## Ukko

*Ooh! Some questions arise.*



World Violist said:


> I voted for both string quartets and quintets... somewhat because I don't like being in a "piano ____" ensemble because it's just wrong as far as intonation is concerned, and also just because intonation almost by definition is bad in any ensemble including piano and strings. There's nothing quite like hearing what should be a leading tone sounding about an eighth tone flat, or whatever it is.


This reply is several months after the fact, because I just got around to reading the thread.

I was aware that a string ensemble doesn't have to mess with equal tuning, and that pianos are almost always tuned that way, but never put the two circumstances together. The confluence raises some interesting possibilities.

For one, would a piano in one of the 'well-tuned' configurations that fit the music still be "just wrong", WV?

For another, think of the piano+strings works composed during the Classical period - have we been hearing them 'wrong' all this time?

For yet another, have any composers, after that time somewhere in the 19th Century when equal tuning became common, made deliberate use of the minor dissonances that occur in a piano+strings work?

As Mr. Johnson used to say, "Veddy interesting."


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## World Violist

Hilltroll72 said:


> This reply is several months after the fact, because I just got around to reading the thread.
> 
> I was aware that a string ensemble doesn't have to mess with equal tuning, and that pianos are almost always tuned that way, but never put the two circumstances together. The confluence raises some interesting possibilities.
> 
> For one, would a piano in one of the 'well-tuned' configurations that fit the music still be "just wrong", WV?
> 
> For another, think of the piano+strings works composed during the Classical period - have we been hearing them 'wrong' all this time?
> 
> For yet another, have any composers, after that time somewhere in the 19th Century when equal tuning became common, made deliberate use of the minor dissonances that occur in a piano+strings work?
> 
> As Mr. Johnson used to say, "Veddy interesting."


I can answer two of these questions somewhat...

If a piano is properly tuned to a given key, it would be perfectly fine as long as the music didn't modulate... so yes, it would still be pretty miserable. The fact is that you can't tune a piano during a performance, so it will be out of tune, guaranteed. The space between one note and the octave above doesn't allow for twelve equally spaced notes to be in tune with each other, which requires for pitch bending that is allowed in string instruments and is impossible in the piano. This incompatibility is what I find particularly bad about piano+string music; chords don't "lock" the way they need to in order to make acoustic (and eventually musical) sense.

As for the last question, I'm really not sure. Something would tell me that somebody has to have, but I honestly have no clue.


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## Lenfer

String Quartets


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## Taneyev

Lenfer said:


> String Quartets


Same. I've recordings of about 200.


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## regressivetransphobe

Piano trios, for the intimacy and variation in color. I like the contrasting elements, I don't find it disruptive.


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## Philip

_post removed_


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## Ukko

World Violist said:


> Oh darn, string sextet! Whatever happened to Tchaikovsky and Brahms, not to mention Schoenberg, with all their masterful contributions to the genre? Too late, though, I suppose.


Yeah, and then there is Mendelssohn's amazing octet; Beethoven's septet, very popular in his time. Chamber music includes chamber orchestras, eh? Maybe the survey needed a 'forces cutoff'?


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## haydnfan

I voted for all of them because they are all awesome!


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## unpocoscherzando

I voted for the string quartet. None of the other choices can compare in terms of the quality and quantity of the literature, excepting arguably the piano trio. Also, whereas the string quartet has continued to be composed for frequently (and well) even to the present, the other forms mentioned have to a somewhat greater extent 'fallen by the wayside' as of late. While in principle this means nothing, it may speak to a certain 'timelessness' of the string quartet, a certain wonderful balance and interplay of forces with which any lover of the form is familiar.


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## Klavierspieler

I went for Piano Quintet. I would have voted for String Quartet, but I'm a pianist.


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## Manok

Thats like asking me which is my favorite child. I like them all. Each has their own different flavor, and every composer treats them differently.


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