Emanuel Aloys Forster (1748-1823)

Started by snyprrr, July 01, 2009, 06:39:19 PM

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snyprrr

This is your punishment for the Eybler thread! ;D
Who IS this guy ??????

He wrote @45 SQs, and wotnot I have forgotten, but his Amazonography is astonishingly bad... three listings of the same String Quintet, 3 Opp.,2-cd on NCA. These, I believe, were written around 1802.

I defy anyone to show me proof of this guy's existenz! $:)

SonicMan46

Snyprrr - well, I think you already know the answer!  ;) :D

There are so many composers in the 18th to early 19th century period who wrote SO MUCH music, much lost or at least unrecorded that the amount is just astounding - many of these composers have been discussed previously in individual or general threads, but the 'pickings' are often quite slim, unfortunately!  :-\

Concerning the composer under question, I have a sole CD (which you mentioned) shown below - an excellent disc, and I'm sure much of his other music would be as enjoyable, if recorded - Dave  :)


snyprrr

String Quintets:

Are they happy, are they sad? That's a 2-cd set, right? They must be some meaty bits, huh? NCA is one strange, interesting label.

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: snyprrr on July 02, 2009, 08:01:27 AM
String Quintets:

Are they happy, are they sad? That's a 2-cd set, right? They must be some meaty bits, huh? NCA is one strange, interesting label.

They are neither. Classical Era music is not written for the emotion, other than what YOU bring to the table. They are very nicely written though. The guy had some talent.

Yes, NCA was a new label to me. This is a nice little set, nicely packaged too. :)

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

DFO

I prefer Josef Bohuslav Foerster ;)

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: DFO on July 02, 2009, 08:35:11 AM
I prefer Josef Bohuslav Foerster ;)

Only seen his name, carlos, I would like to hear some of his music. :)

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

DFO

You can begin with some works for violin and piano by Ivan Zenaty and Josef Hala on a czech Vltava CD: son.op.10, son.quasi fantasia op.177,Ballata op.92 and Fantasia op.128. Lovely works in the best Czech romantic tradition.

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: DFO on July 02, 2009, 01:14:40 PM
You can begin with some works for violin and piano by Ivan Zenaty and Josef Hala on a czech Vltava CD: son.op.10, son.quasi fantasia op.177,Ballata op.92 and Fantasia op.128. Lovely works in the best Czech romantic tradition.

Thanks for that. I certainly will, if I can find it. You seem to have a lot of disks where the total pressing was, like 14... :D

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

DFO

Well, more or less...I think that my Cd with the String quartet op.1
by Hermann Scherchen is probably the third or fourth ;)

SonicMan46

#9
Well, since virtually no 'introductory' bio information was provided on this composer from the OP, just a little summary from the liner notes of the 2-CD set (shown below) which I've been listening to this evening; sorry for the delay, but the month is July, I have 'new' radiology residents, several showing up in my section today - they do take time away from my classical music enjoyments!  :-\  Maybe, only us 'teachers' can relate to this experience?  :D

Emanuel Aloys Förster was born in 1748 (just 5 yrs after another fav here, Boccherini) in Silesia (part of Poland now?).  But from the liner notes, he arrived in Vienna between 1776 (hey, July 4th!) and 1779 (Mozart came to stay in about '81), and apparently stayed there until his death in 1823, as a teacher, composer, and chamber music player; pretty much a 'freelance' musician like Mozart & Beehoven.

As mentioned, he was quite prolific, composing 48 String Quartets (where are these?) & 4 String Quintets (on the 2 disc set below); in addition, he wrote numerous other works, including Piano Sextet & Octet, apparently some of the first such compositions out of Vienna at the time!  I've not really done extensive research on his output - i.e. has it been researched thoroughly & how many works did he write - since he seemed to be a 'chamber music' composer, this output would be of much interest to me!

Now, I'm about finishing listening to the 2nd disc of the set below - this music is extremely enjoyable; as stated by Gurn, these composers at the time had to MAKE a living - they were not composing for some 'future' recognition and glory, they needed MONEY (or its equivalent) - not sure if Förster had a family to support, but I'm sure much of his tremendous output was directed to staying alive, supporting dependents, and making a reputation for himself.

The music on these two discs is pretty much in the style of writing of the time, kind of a transition between the high classical styles of Mozart & Haydn into the early Romantic period of Beethoven & Schubert - if this is your 'pot of gold', I can't imagine that these discs would disappoint -  :)




snyprrr

It's a bird.

                It's a plane...

                                        IT'SssSonicMan :o!!!

snyprrr

That was a very exciting story, thank you.

However, the true grit realism of being a professional musician... that's a scary thought! I once thought I was a contenda. :'(

Once again, thanks!

But how can we continue talking about an artist with only one cd??


robnewman

#12
Hi there Snypyrr,

E.A. Forster is a fascinating person, for sure. He appears to have been associated with both Mozart and Beethoven. In Vienna (so I read recently) is a version of Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues arranged for String Quartet which he made in the 1790's. And there are a series of piano concertos which are rated very highly in Germany. Besides this, there are existing several cadenzas for 'Mozart' piano concertos which have recently been studied in detail. He is known to have published a series of 3 piano concertos in 1781 in Vienna. This man interests me for many reasons. He was well known at the time. Beethoven held him in very high regard.


SonicMan46

Quote from: snyprrr on July 02, 2009, 07:48:03 PM
That was a very exciting story, thank you.

But how can we continue talking about an artist with only one cd??


Snyprrr - thanks & glad you enjoyed!  :)

But you are right, nearly impossible to maintain a thread if only a limited number of recordings are available for comment!  :-\  I've started a bunch of threads (all in the 'composer thread' of Sara, i.e. Lethe) that have gone for a page or less (Mel Bonis comes to mind but there are others) because of the paucity of recordings, despite often voluminous historic outputs.  Dave

snyprrr

Yes Dave!

also... it's interesting about the 3 Piano Ctos. of 1781. That's a full 13 years before his first SQs, Op.7 (1794). The years 1781-82 seem to be very interesting. Everyone was "hangin out" then, huh? M & H, and Pleyel, Boccherini, Vanhal, Kraus, Albrechtsberger... they were like the "Rat Pack," haha, no?

Well, I almost don't want to end this post. I can feel the ship goin down! Ah, Forster, we hardly knew ya! Say hi to Eybler on your way down!

Now, without actually trying to encourage robnewman, his thoughts about the "music industry" at the time seem to be borne out by what I've been reading lately. Greed was always greed, and cut throat was always cut throat. Maybe there's a good reason Krommer, Forster, and Albrechtsberger's SQs lie in darkness (they suck?), but somehow I doubt it. I guess, "There can be only One," as they liked to say in Highlander. Anyhow, I'm already feeling uneasy about this paragraph being quoted. Resist!!!

Au revoir Aloys!

Sean

I only know the German Kaspar Forster of 1616-73 and his Viri Israelite

robnewman

#16
Quote from: snyprrr on July 03, 2009, 10:03:41 AM
Yes Dave!

also... it's interesting about the 3 Piano Ctos. of 1781. That's a full 13 years before his first SQs, Op.7 (1794). The years 1781-82 seem to be very interesting. Everyone was "hangin out" then, huh? M & H, and Pleyel, Boccherini, Vanhal, Kraus, Albrechtsberger... they were like the "Rat Pack," haha, no?

Well, I almost don't want to end this post. I can feel the ship goin down! Ah, Forster, we hardly knew ya! Say hi to Eybler on your way down!

Now, without actually trying to encourage robnewman, his thoughts about the "music industry" at the time seem to be borne out by what I've been reading lately. Greed was always greed, and cut throat was always cut throat. Maybe there's a good reason Krommer, Forster, and Albrechtsberger's SQs lie in darkness (they suck?), but somehow I doubt it. I guess, "There can be only One," as they liked to say in Highlander. Anyhow, I'm already feeling uneasy about this paragraph being quoted. Resist!!!

Au revoir Aloys!

Gee !! we wouldn't want to encourage anyone to think for themselves would we Snyprrr ?? Not even robnewman !! LOL  

P.S. The S.Q.'s of Emanuel Aloys Forster are extraordinary and if you actually bother to examine the subject they were a direct influence on those of Ludwig van Beethoven. But you shouldn't be encouraged to believe this, of course. LOL !!! Let's just suppress the Rat Pack as usual.

Why, here is that 'heretical' source, 'Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians' on E.A. Forster -

(b Niederstaina, Saxony, 26 Jan 1748; d Vienna, 12 Nov 1823). Austrian composer and teacher. Between 1766 and 1768 he served as a bandsman in the Prussian army. In 1768 he settled in Mittelwalde (now Mezibor), northern Bohemia, where he composed his first work, a set of variations in G minor, in 1769. He dedicated many of his simple divertimentos and keyboard concertos that were written between 1772 and 1774 to one Constanzia Genedl. Förster may have visited Vienna as early as 1776, and settled there permanently as a freelance artist during the 1780s. He became acquainted with Haydn, Mozart, and subsequently Beethoven, who recommended him highly as a composition teacher and whose op.18 may well have been influenced by Förster's quartets.

Förster's main achievements are his piano sonatas and his chamber music. His early keyboard works show his attempts to assimilate the pre-Classical style and Empfindsamkeit of (especially) C.P.E. Bach; he revealed himself as a mature composer with an individual style in the op.5 flute sonatas, the op.7 quartets and the op.12 piano sonatas. Many of his later piano sonatas are highly imaginative and original compositions, though the piano writing is sometimes awkward. The quartets and quintets are similarly often powerful and dramatic, and a few of the later unpublished quartets and sonatas are quite experimental harbingers of Romanticism. Mozart's works of the late 1780s, especially those in the minor mode, such as the C minor Fantasy k475 and Sonata k457 (which Förster arranged for string quintet), the G minor Quintet k516, and the G minor Symphony k550, and Haydn's opp.76–7 quartets were Förster's main points of departure. He was also a pioneer in composing large chamber ensembles for piano, strings and wind; the piano quartets feature the opposition of the keyboard to the string trio and quite elaborate viola writing. Förster was an important link between the mature styles of Mozart and Haydn and the early works of Beethoven, and his experiments with form and tonality helped to undermine the equilibrium of the High Classic period.

Förster's music enjoyed at best a succès d'estime. He had to publish much of his music at his own expense, and his only musical works published after 1804 were illustrations (mostly preludes and fugues) to later editions of his Anleitung zum General-Bass (Leipzig, 1805), and contributions to such collective publications as In questa tomba oscura (Vienna, 1808) and the Diabelli Variations of 1823. Only a few of his works are available in modern editions.



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lol  ;D ;D





snyprrr

Cheers. You know I was just pulling your leg! ;D

That was a really nice "Groves." I show one last, unnumbered opus of 18 SQs in 1805. I just know that a record exec. is reading this and nodding his head... yea, right! C'mon, guys.

If anyone has any personal stories....

robnewman

#18
Quote from: snyprrr on July 05, 2009, 11:30:53 AM
Cheers. You know I was just pulling your leg! ;D

That was a really nice "Groves." I show one last, unnumbered opus of 18 SQs in 1805. I just know that a record exec. is reading this and nodding his head... yea, right! C'mon, guys.

If anyone has any personal stories....

Hi there Synyprr,

That's fine.

I notice that at the British Library in London are a number of chamber works by E. A. Forster including -

1. Quintuor pour deux violons, deux altes [sic] et violoncelle /composé par E.A. Förster'. Oeuv: [ms26]..

  Vienne : chez Iean Traeg, [1803].

(* Traeg was an important copyist in Vienna during the late 18th and early 19th century who usually sold hand-written copies of music)

2. Dizi, François-Joseph, 1780-1840.: ''Three Airs composed originally for the pianoforte by W.A. Mozart, arranged with additional variations for the harp. Dedicated to the Countess of Lonsdale, by F.Dizi.' - London : Printed by Goulding D'Almaine Potter & C°, (1817).

(In fact, this publication is wrongly attributed to Mozart but is really a set of variations made on Giuseppe Sarti's opera, 'I finti eredi', by E.A. Forster).

3. In Germany in 1960 was publication of 2 string quartets and 3 quintets by Emanuel Aloys Forster (ed. Karl Weigl) together with the only thematic catalogue of music by E.A. Forster made so far. (Published in Graz : Akad. Druck- u. Verl., 1960).

OTHER INFORMATION

In the 'Documentary Biography' of O.E. Deutsch there is reference to E.A. Forster petitioning the Emperor in Vienna to have Mozart's position after Mozart's death. The text survives. It says -

Your Majesty,

The undersigned begs to be graciously admitted into the Hofkammerkapelle in the place of the late musician and composer Wolfgang Mozard.

His most humble petition is supported by the recommendations contained in the attached testimonial and if the petitioner must on the one had admit that in keyboard playing and composition he is not quite so perfect as the late Mozard was, on the other hand the certainty that no-one could be found to equal Mozard in this speciality, may be allowed to speak for him.

He wishes to undergo a demonstration of his keyboard playing and also to submit several examples of his skill in composition.

Emmanuel Aloys Forster
.

//

(It seems this Forster petition was submitted at the same time the widow Constanze Mozart requested a pension from the Emperor. Forster's application was denied on December 30, 1791).

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