December 20th, 2019 
Jacob Litoff 
We just started getting notices about the grants that we applied for for supporting our concerts for 2020… We haven’t heard from all of them yet… and usually the rejections get sent out first, so hopefully by not having heard yet that means we’ll get most of them. The first town to tell us we got our grant was Watertown MA.. We still hope to do some septets again for some of our
concerts , but in Watertown one of the pieces we hope to play there is the Mendlessohn Octet.. yes . for four violins, 2 violas and 2 cellos. it is a wonderful piece that Mendlessohn composed when he was only 16 . years old in 1825.
Another nice piece for that combination that we may include in that program are Ludwig Spohr’s double quartet opus 65 for the same instrumentation in the Mendlessohn octet. Spohr compsed this in 1823, at the age of 39, 2 years before Mendlessohn composed his octet, but Spohr didn’t publish his double quartet until 1825 at the same time as Mendlessohn published his octet. That was an exciting year for octets.
There is a . wonderful Octet by George Enesco opus 7 written when he was 19 years old in 1900. Now George Enesco’s music is quite a contrast to the Mendelssohn and Spohr for it was composed 75 years later than the Mendlessohn octet and Enesco was from Romania, quite a different place than Germany as one can tell from the music. Enesco’s octet opus 7 is also quite a remarkable piece.
Niels Wilhelm Gade also composed a nice octet opus 17 in 1849 shortly after Mendlessohn’s death. Even though Gade was Danish and not German and he was twice the age that Mendlessohn had been when he wrote his octet, this octet Gade composed at the age of 32 does have many similarities to the Mendlessohn octet . It is also quite charming. It was out of print for many years. but in the last few decades it is among several great pieces brought back to life.
Now a few months ago in September 2019, and in 2018 we performed the wonderful septet by . Adolphe Blanc both years in several concerts. In 2018 we also performed it with the Beethoven Septet opus 20, and in 2019 we played the Blanc septet with the one by Franz Berwald. Those pieces were for the great combination of violin/viola/cello/bass/clarinet/frenchhorn/bassoon. We hope to perform some more septets this year too for that same combination possibly including one by Conradin Kreutzer (1780-1849) opus 62, a septet in F by Carl Amand Mangold(1813-1889), and if we can find the music possibly quitea charming one by Erzherzog Rudolph von Osterreich in E minor written in 1830 at the age of 42 one year before he died. He lived quite a royal life in Austria but managed to compose some wonderful pieces including this septet.
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/…/octet-op-20-in-eb-…/967158…
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/…/octet…/967158&aff_id=625405
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/…/double-string-qu…/21460730…
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/…/septet-sheet-mus…/20320709…
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/…/septet-in-f-shee…/19498336…
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/…/septet-op-20-shee…/2727356… — in Millis, Massachusetts.
We will be playing two septets, one by Beethoven , his septet in E flat major opus 20(1800), and the Septet. in E major opus 40(1860) by Adolphe Blanc. The concert is free and open to the public. We greatly thank the Northborough LCC for helping support this concert.
