Crowded Chamber Music

[Scarpia]

Thought I was going to get a deal on that Penderecki Sextet from an Amazon Marketplace seller but someone snapped it up, presumably someone on this thread.   

[karlhenning]

To be sure: even as a "neo-Romantic," Penderecki is no Lowell Liebermann ; )

[DavidW]

Just gave this a listen yesterday. I thought it a fine piece, the second movement especially (first a bit dull), but couldn't tell what if anything about it was "neo-romantic." Oh well.

I thought so too.  I rather describe that work (and most of those from that period) as neo-tonal since there is no romanticism attached, and it is pretty challenging music IMO.

[Opus106]

I thought so too.  I rather describe that work (and most of those from that period) as neo-tonal since there is no romanticism attached, and it is pretty challenging music IMO.

Dave is in for Spring '11! Welcome back.

[DavidW]

Dave is in for Spring '11! Welcome back.

Thanks!

[Jo498]

There are quite a few fun pieces of mixed wind/string (piano) chamber music.
Interestingly there seem to have been two periods when they were very popular while almost vanishing in between:
ca. 1800-30 following Beethoven's septet with works by Spohr, Hummel, Ries, Berwald etc.
and
from the rise of "neoclassicism" around 1920 until the mid-20th century (not sure about the last 60 years).

Some of my favorites have been named: Spohr's septet, octet, nonet, Enescu's dixtuor, of course Schubert's octet.

Two more are Janacek's early "Mladi" (Youth) and Dohnanyi's Sextet (clarinet, horn, violin, viola, cello, piano).

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I suppose even more recently there is still so much being written for large chamber ensembles......one such work I recently came to discover is Abandoned Time composed from 2004-2006 by Dai Fujikura. The use of electric guitar with an acousitc ensemble of 7 players always seems to me to be full of instances where things typical of the electric guitar are kind of mimicked by the rest of the ensemble.

[Monsieur Croche]

If that stipulation of chamber music being ''one player, one part -- no doubling'' is the criterion, then the candidate for 'most crowded' would be Messiaen's massive De canyons aux etoiles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Des_canyons_aux_%C3%A9toiles...#Instrumentation

[Dax]

Given that Ligeti's Atmospheres is also "one player, one part", the criterion may need a bit of streamlining!

[Brian]

For me the line between "chamber music" and "chamber orchestra" is somewhere around 10-13. Except in the baroque, when all bets are off.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I simply think of many pieces written for groups of between 10 and 20 or more as 'ensemble compositions' with the extremely large 'one per part' pieces mentioned above as more like 'orchestral works'

[Brian]

I decided to bump this thread because I've been listening to a lot of Czech Nonet recordings lately and the Czech composers of the 1940s-60s seem to have been frequently inspired by, or commissioned by, the Czech Nonet to write music for string quartet + woodwind quintet. Examples include Jan Novak's lighter Balletti, Alois Haba's tougher nonets (some in 12-tone or even 7-tone systems), and works by Jindrich Feld and Jiri Pauer.

Also not mentioned earlier in the thread are nonets (not all in that same instrumentation) by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Charles Stanford, Hubert Parry, Nino Rota, Robert Casadesus, Louise Farrenc (except the OP), and Albert Roussel's "Le marchand de sable qui passe" (The Sandman Passes), for flute, clarinet, horn, harp, 2 violins, viola, cello, and bass.

[Karl Henning]

At the risk of being reprimanded for self-promotion:

[Mandryka]

I'll mention one I've grown to like a lot - the Schulhoff string sextet.  There's a recording by Hyperion Ensemble with the sextet and an arrangement of Strauss's Metamorphosen for string septet. Gorgeous recording.

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/78/000151787.pdf

[foxandpeng]

At the risk of being reprimanded for self-promotion:

Never a bad thing, Karl!