Bloch: Chamber Works

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Explore the complete catalog of Chamber compositions by Bloch. This curated list includes composition years, historical Wikipedia context, and interactive audio to add specific tracks directly to your listening queue.

Title Year Actions
3 Nocturnes for Piano Trio

Among the fairly large repertoire for the standard piano trio (violin, cello, and piano) are the following works: Ordering is by surname of composer.

4 Episodes, for chamber orchestra

This is a list of compositions by composer Ernest Bloch.

Abodah: a Yom Kippur melody, for violin and piano
Baal Shem: 3 Pictures of Hassidic life, for violin and piano
Exotic Night, for violin and piano

Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer. Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the conservatoire, Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity and incorporating elements of modernism, baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (1928), in which repetition takes the place of development. Renowned for his abilities in orchestration, Ravel made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' piano music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known. A slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies or church music. Many of his works exist in two versions: first, a piano score and later an orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as Gaspard de la nuit (1908), is exceptionally difficult to play, and his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé (1912) require skilful balance in performance. Ravel was among the first composers to recognise the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public. From the 1920s, despite limited technique as a pianist or conductor, he took part in recordings of several of his works; others were made under his supervision.

In the Mountains, for string quartet

This is a list of compositions by composer Ernest Bloch.

Meditation Hébraïque, for cello and piano

This is a list of compositions by composer Ernest Bloch.

Melody, for violin and piano

The viola ( vee-OH-lə, () Italian: [ˈvjɔːla, viˈɔːla]) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. The viola is slightly larger than the violin and has a lower sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the violin family, between the violin (which is tuned a perfect fifth higher) and the cello (which is tuned an octave lower). The strings from low to high are typically tuned to C3, G3, D4, and A4. In the past, the viola varied in size and style, as did its names. The word viola originates from the Italian language. The Italians often used the term viola da braccio, meaning, literally, 'of the arm'. "Brazzo" was another Italian word for the viola, which the Germans adopted as Bratsche. The French had their own names: cinquiesme was a small viola, haute contre was a large viola, and taile was a tenor. Today, the French use the term alto, a reference to its range. The viola was popular in the heyday of five-part harmony, up until the eighteenth century, taking three lines of the harmony and occasionally playing the melody line. Music notation for the viola differs from most other instruments in that it primarily uses the alto clef. When viola music has substantial sections in a higher register, it switches to the treble clef to make it easier to read. The viola often plays the "inner voices" in string quartets and symphonic writing, and it is more likely than the first violin to play accompaniment parts. The viola occasionally plays a major, soloistic role in orchestral or chamber music. Examples include the symphonic poem Don Quixote, by Richard Strauss, the 13th Quartet by Dmitri Shostakovich, and a symphony with a main viola line: Harold en Italie, by Hector Berlioz. In the earlier part of the 20th century, more composers began to write for the viola, encouraged by the emergence of specialized soloists such as Lionel Tertis and William Primrose. English composers Arthur Bliss, Edwin York Bowen, Benjamin Dale, Frank Bridge, Benjamin Britten, Rebecca Clarke and Ralph Vaughan Williams all wrote substantial chamber and concert works. Many of these pieces were commissioned by, or written for, Tertis. William Walton, Bohuslav Martinů, Tōru Takemitsu, Tibor Serly, Alfred Schnittke, and Béla Bartók have written well-known viola concertos. The concerti by Bartók, Paul Hindemith, Carl Stamitz, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Walton are considered major works of the viola repertoire. Hindemith, who was a violist, wrote a substantial amount of music for viola, including the concerto Der Schwanendreher.

Night, for string quartet

This is a list of compositions by composer Ernest Bloch.

Paysages, for string quartet

This is a list of compositions by composer Ernest Bloch.

Piano Quintet no. 1

Ernest Bloch's Piano Quintet No. 1 is a quintet for piano, 2 violins, viola, and cello. It is regarded as one of Bloch's greatest achievements. Composed in Cleveland in 1923, the work was markedly innovative for its time and has been described as "suffused with tension", and as embodying a "grim, angry, yet ultimately redemptive vision".

Prelude, for string quartet

This is a list of compositions by composer Ernest Bloch.

Quintet for Piano and Strings no. 1

In classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly (since 1842) a string quartet (i.e., two violins, viola, and cello). The term also refers to the group of musicians that plays a piano quintet. The genre flourished during the nineteenth century. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, most piano quintets were scored for piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. Following the success of Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet in E♭ major, Op. 44 in 1842, which paired the piano with a string quartet, composers increasingly adopted Schumann's instrumentation, and it was this form of the piano quintet that dominated during the second half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. Among the best known and most frequently performed piano quintets, aside from Schumann's, are Schubert's Trout quintet and the piano quintets of Johannes Brahms, César Franck, Antonín Dvořák and Dmitri Shostakovich.

Quintet for Piano and Strings no. 2

In classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly (since 1842) a string quartet (i.e., two violins, viola, and cello). The term also refers to the group of musicians that plays a piano quintet. The genre flourished during the nineteenth century. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, most piano quintets were scored for piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. Following the success of Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet in E♭ major, Op. 44 in 1842, which paired the piano with a string quartet, composers increasingly adopted Schumann's instrumentation, and it was this form of the piano quintet that dominated during the second half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. Among the best known and most frequently performed piano quintets, aside from Schumann's, are Schubert's Trout quintet and the piano quintets of Johannes Brahms, César Franck, Antonín Dvořák and Dmitri Shostakovich.

String Quartet no. 1

The Danish Quartet is a name which has been carried by four Danish quartets:

String Quartet no. 2

The String Quartet No. 2 by Ernest Bloch was composed between 1940 and 1945. The quartet averages 34 minutes to perform. Bloch wrote it following a close study of Beethoven's sketches for the Eroica symphony. After its premiere, Ernest Newman called the String Quartet No. 2 "the finest work of our time in this genre, one that is worthy to stand beside the last quartets of Beethoven". The composer himself called it "dry, not easy to listen to … and I doubt it will be liked". Today it is typically regarded as the finest of Bloch's five quartets. Only in the second quartet did Bloch find a synthesis between formal sonata form structure and his "fundamentally improvisational and rhapsodic" thought, avoiding the weaknesses of cyclic procedures often evident in other works.

String Quartet no. 3

The Danish Quartet is a name which has been carried by four Danish quartets:

String Quartet no. 4

This is a list of compositions by composer Ernest Bloch.

String Quartet no. 5

This is a list of compositions by composer Ernest Bloch.

Suite for Solo Viola

The viola ( vee-OH-lə, () Italian: [ˈvjɔːla, viˈɔːla]) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. The viola is slightly larger than the violin and has a lower sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the violin family, between the violin (which is tuned a perfect fifth higher) and the cello (which is tuned an octave lower). The strings from low to high are typically tuned to C3, G3, D4, and A4. In the past, the viola varied in size and style, as did its names. The word viola originates from the Italian language. The Italians often used the term viola da braccio, meaning, literally, 'of the arm'. "Brazzo" was another Italian word for the viola, which the Germans adopted as Bratsche. The French had their own names: cinquiesme was a small viola, haute contre was a large viola, and taile was a tenor. Today, the French use the term alto, a reference to its range. The viola was popular in the heyday of five-part harmony, up until the eighteenth century, taking three lines of the harmony and occasionally playing the melody line. Music notation for the viola differs from most other instruments in that it primarily uses the alto clef. When viola music has substantial sections in a higher register, it switches to the treble clef to make it easier to read. The viola often plays the "inner voices" in string quartets and symphonic writing, and it is more likely than the first violin to play accompaniment parts. The viola occasionally plays a major, soloistic role in orchestral or chamber music. Examples include the symphonic poem Don Quixote, by Richard Strauss, the 13th Quartet by Dmitri Shostakovich, and a symphony with a main viola line: Harold en Italie, by Hector Berlioz. In the earlier part of the 20th century, more composers began to write for the viola, encouraged by the emergence of specialized soloists such as Lionel Tertis and William Primrose. English composers Arthur Bliss, Edwin York Bowen, Benjamin Dale, Frank Bridge, Benjamin Britten, Rebecca Clarke and Ralph Vaughan Williams all wrote substantial chamber and concert works. Many of these pieces were commissioned by, or written for, Tertis. William Walton, Bohuslav Martinů, Tōru Takemitsu, Tibor Serly, Alfred Schnittke, and Béla Bartók have written well-known viola concertos. The concerti by Bartók, Paul Hindemith, Carl Stamitz, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Walton are considered major works of the viola repertoire. Hindemith, who was a violist, wrote a substantial amount of music for viola, including the concerto Der Schwanendreher.

Suite for Viola and Piano

Suite Hébraïque is a 3-movement work composed in 1951 for viola and piano by Ernest Bloch, which he subsequently arranged for viola and small orchestra. The piece draws upon Jewish music, and it simulates the blow of a shofar. Suite Hébraïque is similar in style to another of Bloch's compositions, Baal Shem for violin and orchestra (1939).

Suite hébraïque, for viola and piano

Suite Hébraïque is a 3-movement work composed in 1951 for viola and piano by Ernest Bloch, which he subsequently arranged for viola and small orchestra. The piece draws upon Jewish music, and it simulates the blow of a shofar. Suite Hébraïque is similar in style to another of Bloch's compositions, Baal Shem for violin and orchestra (1939).

Suite modale, for flute and strings

Elaine Shaffer (October 22, 1925 – February 19, 1973) was an American flutist and principal of the Houston Symphony Orchestra between 1948 and 1953.

Suite no. 1 for Solo Cello

This is a list of notable solo cello pieces. It includes arrangements and transcriptions.

Suite no. 1 for Solo Violin

This is a non exhaustive compilation of pieces for solo violin. See also the entries on violin and the List of compositions for violin and orchestra and list of compositions for violin and piano. Ordering is by surname of composer.

Suite no. 2 for Solo Cello

This is a list of notable solo cello pieces. It includes arrangements and transcriptions.

Suite no. 2 for Solo Violin

This is a non exhaustive compilation of pieces for solo violin. See also the entries on violin and the List of compositions for violin and orchestra and list of compositions for violin and piano. Ordering is by surname of composer.

Suite no. 3 for Solo Cello

This is a list of notable solo cello pieces. It includes arrangements and transcriptions.

Violin Sonata no. 1

Ernest Bloch's Violin Sonata No. 1 is a sonata for violin and piano. It is regarded as one of the masterpieces of the violin repertoire. Composed in Cleveland in 1920, the work makes considerable demands of both technique and endurance from the violinist. Bloch himself described the sonata as a "tormented work", and Roger Sessions described it as having a characteristic "mood of pessimism, irony and nostalgia".

Violin Sonata no. 2, "Poème mystique"

This is a list of compositions by composer Ernest Bloch.