van Bree, String Quartet No. 1 in a minor, String Quartet No. 2 in E-flat major

Way back in the depths of time (that is, when I was in graduate school), I heard a very interesting piece on the radio.  (It’s funny how clear some memories are: I remember exactly where I was at the time, standing at the bus stop near my apartment).  The piece was the Allegro for Four String Quartets by the Dutch romantic violinist and composer, Johannes Bernardus van Bree (1801-1857).  A nice sonata-form movement, with a catchy tune as the second theme, and I thought it would be great fun to play it someday.  But getting fifteen other willing participants, and a large enough location, seemed daunting.

I was at a chamber music weekend last spring, and finally got a chance to play the van Bree.  It was a lot of fun, and went over reasonably well: people remarked that it was much more like a piece of chamber music than the Brandenburgs that are often played in such situations.  People asked me about the composer, and I had to admit I knew very little about him.

Research after I got home showed that van Bree published three string quartets, and that the third was available from Edition Silvertrust.  I ordered it, both out of curiosity and as a present for one of the violinists I played quartets with, a visiting scientist from the Netherlands.  The third string quartet by van Bree showed both the positive and negative qualities I’d perceived in the Allegro for Four String Quartets: a real gift for melody, but a lack of imagination in form: everything was extremely regular and rather predictable.  Still, a fun piece to play.

van Bree’s second string quartet was only available as a scan of the original edition on IMSLP, and, as I’ve remarked before, music printed before the second half of the nineteenth century can be pretty hard to read.  I’d been playing around with Sibelius music layout software, and decided that it would be a fun project to make my own edition of this piece.  And it was fun, working without a score, putting in the parts one at a time, seeing how they overlapped and interacted, and hearing the work come to life through my speakers.  (Sibelius version 7 has impressively good playback capabilities, although with some annoying bugs: staccato notes in the strings are significantly louder than legato).

But, overall, my impression of van Bree’s second string quartet is that it’s even more mediocre than his third.  I wrote a blog post about it, The Value of Mediocrity.  But hidden in the formal dullness (really, do you *always* have to have entries in the order cello-viola-second violin-first violin?) are again some truly charming melodies.

I continued this project one step further.  The only place I was able to track down a copy of the van Bree first string quartet was the Nederlands Muziek Instituut (the Dutch National Music Library), which very kindly sent me a photocopy of the parts.  And I started the process of making my own edition.

The van Bree third string quartet has been recorded, although the recording is out of print.  The second, as far as I can tell, has had only one recent live performance by the Gaudeamus Quartet, which I discovered on the website of a Dutch radio station.  But I’m convinced that the first quartet hasn’t been played this century, or maybe even in the last.  You’d pretty much have to do what I did, make your own edition, because as published, the parts are filled with errors.  Not just inconsistencies of dynamics and bowing, but just plain wrong notes: for example, there’s an entire passage in the first violin part that seems to be off by a half step.

After all that work, my conclusion is that the first quartet is weaker than the second.  It has the disadvantage, for me, of being in the “quatuor brillant” style, which is basically a concerto for the first violin with the other three instruments accompanying.  And it’s again formally very dull.  But the jaunty tune that starts the last movement has become a real favorite of mine.  I’m probably the only person in the world who goes around singing a theme from van Bree’s first string quartet!

Wednesday evening I finally got a chance to play these two quartets from my own edition, taking advantage of my Dutch violinist friend’s return, and two other willing participants.  It was fun, although I’m sure I enjoyed it more than the others did.

I don’t know what it is, but I like playing music by obscure composers.  Part of it is that I love playing pieces I’ve never played before, and particularly, pieces I’ve never heard before.  But also, as I wrote in The Value of Mediocrity, I think it’s good to play mediocre music from time to time, so that one can appreciate great music all the more.  And even in mediocre music there are moments of brilliance, moments that make you happy to have experienced them.

But for some reason, it's really hard to find amateur chamber musicians who are willing to try pieces by obscure composers.  So if you're reading this because a Google search for van Bree (or Kalliwoda, or Herzogenberg, or Dohnanyi, or Arriaga, or Richter, or Hoffstetter, etc.) has sent you here, and you want to try playing some of these pieces, send me email, and we'll see what we can arrange!

I’m not sure what to do next with the van Bree string quartets.  I’m planning on cleaning up my editions and uploading them to IMSLP.  But after all this work, I’d really like to have a recording of these quartets, and as I’ve said, none are available.  I am tempted to commission a professional or semi-pro string quartet to make a recording for me, but I don’t know how to proceed with that.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!