Louis Massonneau was
brought up and educated at the court
at Kassel, where his French father was
chef cuisinier. Given a good
musical education, he went on to develop
a successful career as violinist, player
of the viola d’amore, conductor and
composer. He worked in the court chapel
of Landgrave Frederick II, in Göttingen,
Frankfurt am Main, Altona and the prince’s
chapel in Dessau. From 1802, until his
retirement in 1837, he worked in various
musical capacities at the Mecklenburg-Schwerin
court in Ludwigslust. As a composer
he wrote church music including a Missa
Brevis and a Requiem, symphonies, some
string quartets, duos for violin and
piano and songs. Before 1800 he published
a number of works, including the music
recorded here, which was probably published
in 1798; most of his compositions after
that date are preserved in manuscript
in the Schwerin Landesbibliothek (though
some have undoubtedly been lost).
On the evidence of
these oboe quartets he was a thoroughly
competent composer, well-schooled in
German classicism. His quartets are
consistently well-made, subtle and full
of attractive themes. They belong in
the company of works such as the Quartet
(op.7) by Vanhal, the quartets by Stamitz,
Hofmeister, Krommer and Danzi (and are
by no means outclassed by such comparisons).
Though little-known they would well-deserve
a place in concert programmes alongside
better-known oboe quartets such as that
by Mozart or modern quartets by composers
such as Britten, Lennox Berkeley and
Gordon Jacobs
The First Quartet’s
opening movement is interesting for
its willingness to put the oboe in a
subordinate position at times, and for
its attractive use of syncopation. In
the Adagio the oboe holds centre stage
and is allowed to revel in some poetic
minor-key passages. The third movement
is a set of variations and Massonneau’s
expertise as a violinist seems to inform
some of his writing for strings in this
movement. The Second Quartet echoes
some material previously used in the
First Quartet, and the second subject
of the first movement ‘sings’ beautifully.
This fine, complex movement is succeeded
by a lamenting slow movement and a lively,
dancing finale. This is perhaps the
most striking of the three Quartets.
The Third Quartet’s andante con variazioni
is delightful, by turns lyrical
and mildly humorous – one senses Haydn
looking over Massonneau’s shoulder,
as it were.
All three Quartets
have essentially the same sequence of
three movements – quick, slow, quick
and, as the excellent booklet notes
by Anje Kathrin Bronner point out, they
are unified by their related tonalities,
"F, B flat and C being tonic, subdominant
and dominant respectively". As
mentioned above, some materials are
shared between Quartets. This results,
it must be stressed, in a sense of unity
and progression, rather than mere sameness.
It would be wrong to
claim any startling originality for
these Quartets, but they are eminently
worth hearing. Their instrumental interplay,
their formal subtlety and their moments
of lyrical beauty mark them out as deserving
the attention of anyone who loves the
classical tradition of German chamber
music.
Ensemble Più
– who have previously recorded the Oboe
Quartet by Gordon Jacobs – play the
music with evident love and understanding.
The Second and Third Quartets are here
recorded for the first time; the First
Quartet was recorded some seven or eight
years ago by Paul Goodwin and Terzetto
on Harmonia Mundi (as part of a programme
of oboe quartets by Mozart, Stamitz
and Krommer). This CD by Ensemble Più
comes as a Hybrid SACD recording, which
I have heard only on a conventional
player, where the sound is close, but
clear and smooth, nicely capturing the
blend of oboe and string tones. It is,
however, disappointing that the CD contains
only just over 40 minutes of music.
Might it not have been possible to supplement
these three Quartets by a Quartet by
one of his contemporaries?
Glyn Pursglove
Ensemble Più: Andreas Gosling (oboe), Eva
Gosling (violin), Martin Börner (violin),
Markus Beul (cello) 
AUDITE
92.562 SACD [40:40] 
for
details
