July 2012

The Original 2nd Movement to Bruckner's String Quintet was pronounced "too hard to play" by the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic.

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) is widely known for his symphonies but few know that he wrote chamber music. Brucker was originally trained as a organist and as a composer of church music. The quality of his playing was such that he was eventually able to obtain the prestigious position of cathedral organist of Linz. Although already in his mid thirties, he undertook a study of conducting and was exposed to the music of Richard Wagner. At the same time, he was allowed to regularly travel to Vienna where he continued his composition studies with famous teacher of counterpoint, Simon Sechter. These two events were of signal importance in Bruckner's life. Up until this point, he had been devotee of Bach, and to some extent the classical composers such as Mozart and Haydn. Chamber music was something which really interested Brukn er and those works he did write were the result of others asking for them

The first work he composed was a string quartet which dates from 1862 while he was finishing his studies with Sechter. It is thought that Sechter assigned Bruckner the task of writing a string quartet. It is a Mendelssohnian and to a lesser extent a Schubertian work and does not sound anything like the symphonies for which he has become well-known. This is not true of the String Quintet which in fact sounds rather like a miniature version of his middle and later symphonies.  The idea of writing a string quintet was not Bruckner's but was suggested to him by Josef Hellmesberger, the then concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic and the leader of a famous quartet bearing his name. Bruckner, who was flattered by the idea, completed the work in 1879. During the rehearsal of the work for performance, Hellmesberger declared that the second movement, a Scherzo, as unplayable. He asked Bruckner to composer a substitute for it. Bruckner complied and the result was a movement titled Intermezzo and written in Ländler style which was easier to play. Eventually, however, by the early 20th century, other quartets did not find the original scherzo too hard to play and the work was republished in its original version. For a time the Intermezzo completely disappeared. However, its excellence was eventually recognized and this led to its being published after Bruckner’s death. In Vienna and elsewhere, it was often performed in string quintet concerts as an encore, especially when the Bruckner Quintet was on the program.  The Quintet in its original form and the Intermezzo are both available from Edition Silvertrust and soundbites of each movement can be heard on our website here.