Georges Onslow: Piano Trio No. 8 in C minor, Op. 26

Georges onslow

(1784-1853/ 69세)

 

영국출신 프랑스 작곡가. 부는 영국, 모는 프랑스 출신. 당대에는 천부적인 재능을 가진 음악가로 인정받았지만 오늘에 와서는 거의 잊혀진 음악가이다.현악4중주 36곡, 현악5중주 34곡, 피아노 트리오 10곡, 교향곡 4곡외 많은 곡을 썼다.[List of compositions by George onslow]

 

Piano Trio No. 8 in C minor, Op. 26

I. Allegro espressivo 0:00

II. Adagio 8:26

III. Minuetto: Presto 14:46

IV. Finale: Allegro agitato 20:00

Trio Bamberg

 

André George(s) Louis Onslow (1784 - 1853) was a French composer of English descent. His wealth, position and personal tastes allowed him to pursue a path unfamiliar to most of his French contemporaries, more similar to that of his contemporary German romantic composers; his music also had a strong following in Germany and in England. His principal output was chamber music but he also wrote four symphonies and four operas. Esteemed by many of the critics of his time, his reputation declined swiftly after his death and has only been revived in recent years. George Onslow was born in Clermont-Ferrand, the son of an English father, Edward Onslow, and a French mother, Marie Rosalie de Bourdeilles de Brantôme; his paternal grandfather was George Onslow, 1st Earl of Onslow.[1] In Onslow's own brief autobiography (written in the third person) he comments that in his childhood, "music studies formed but a secondary part of his education" but names Jan Ladislav Dussek and Johann Baptist Cramer amongst his piano teachers. It has been suggested that he received this tuition in London under the aegis of his grandfather the Earl. However, other research indicates he may not have studied with Dussek until 1797–1798 in Hamburg, where his family was living in exile after his father had become involved in counter-revolutionary activities in France. This research also indicates there is no evidence to support the suggestions sometimes made that Onslow at any time visited Vienna, or that he met, or studied, there with Ludwig van Beethoven. Onslow was always wealthy and did not need critical or financial support. The critic François-Joseph Fétis noted that, despite his absence of training, Onslow "had all the leisure necessary to overcome these obstacles". Onslow learnt to play the cello, and to play the chamber music of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven with other local amateurs. However, aware of the need to develop his technical musical skills, in 1808 he began to study composition with Anton Reicha in Paris. At this time he also married a French heiress, Charlotte Françoise Delphine de Fontanges, by whom he was to have three children. Throughout the 1820s, Onslow's reputation continued to grow both in France and abroad as a series of trios, quartets and quintets were published. Onslow's publishers in Paris were Ignaz and Camille Pleyel. In 1818 his works began to be published in Germany by Breitkopf und Härtel and in Austria by C. F. Peters; the same year saw the first writings about his works by German music critics. Other German publishers, including Hoffmeister, Steiner and Simrock, followed in later years. In the 1830s, Onslow's quartets were in the repertoire of the Müller Quartet, which played them at the Meiningen court of Duke Bernhard II, and of the Prague-based quartet of Friedrich Pixis the younger. In 1831 Onslow was elected the second Honorary Fellow of the Philharmonic Society of London (Felix Mendelssohn had been the first). He wrote for the Society his Second Symphony, Op. 42, and continued to maintain close relations with leading London musicians including John Ella and George Frederick Anderson. In 1834, Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt played Onslow's Grand Sonata for four hands Op. 22 at their debut joint performance in Paris. From 1835 to 1838 Onslow was the President of the Athenée musical in Paris, an association founded in 1829 "to propagate the study and the spirit of music", with the intention of bringing together both amateurs and professionals. During his last years he wrote a number of pieces for large chamber ensemble with piano, including quintets, a sextet (Op. 77b) and a septet (Op. 79); he also wrote a nonet (op. 77a) for strings and woodwind. Onslow died unexpectedly (although after a period of declining health) in Clermont-Ferrand in 1853, after taking a morning walk.