'Laced with anticipations (or is it recollections?) of the early symphonies' Gramophone Magazine

Instrumentation

3.3(III=ca).3(III=bcl).3(III=cbsn) - 4331 - timp - perc(2): susp.cym/tgl/BD/tam-t - harp - strings

Availability

Score and parts for hire

Programme Notes

Many of Gustav Mahler’s early works have been lost. One exception is the unfinished Piano Quartet, marked 'Nicht zu schnell' (Not too fast), written around 1876. To some, the work may not immediately suggest Mahler, if only because he never again returned to the medium of instrumental chamber music. But the ominous atmosphere and the sweeping, almost symphonic gestures of the musical material are very much Mahlerian.

Colin Matthews was commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra to orchestrate the first movement of the Piano Quartet. Matthews says, ‘Mahler’s first primary subject at the conservatory was piano. That instrument predominates in the quartet and features a much more virtuoso style than that of the strings. In my orchestration, I had to thin out the overwrought texture of the original. I also put some of the melodic lines in different registers because the middle register was too prevalent in the piano quartet.’ Matthews also added tempo and dynamic indications, as these are scarce, and in some cases altogether missing, in Mahler’s manuscript. The resounding result is a full-blooded Mahlerian orchestral work with savagely seething climaxes.

Reviews

‘What emerges from Matthews’ orchestral tapestry is no abortive Brahmsian essay but the blueprint of a Mahlerian voice well on the way to its first distinctive utterance in Das Klagende Lied. The quartet texture is now laced with anticipations (or is it recollections?) of the early symphonies.’
Gramophone (Peter Quantrill), June 2018
 

"Nicht zu schnell" from Piano Quartet

Palacio de Carlos V (Granada, Spain)

Orquesta Joven de Andalucia/Victor Pablo Pérez

"Nicht zu schnell" from Piano Quartet

Palacio de Carlos V (Granada, Spain)

Orquesta Joven de Andalucia/Victor Pablo Pérez

"Nicht zu schnell" from Piano Quartet

Lighthouse (Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom)

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Mark Wigglesworth

"Nicht zu schnell" from Piano Quartet

Teatro alla Scala (Milan, Lombardy, Italy)

Filarmonica della Scala/Riccardo Chailly

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"Nicht zu schnell" from Piano Quartet

Teatro alla Scala (Milan, Lombardy, Italy)

Filarmonica della Scala/Riccardo Chailly

Find Out More