Robert Kahn - Piano Quartet No. 2, Op. 30 (1899)

Robert Kahn (21 July 1865 – 29 May 1951) was a German composer, pianist, and music teacher.

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Piano Quartet No. 2, Op. 30 (1899)

1. Allegro energico (0:00)
2. Larghetto - Vivace - Tempo I (8:02)
3. Allegretto grazioso (14:39)
4. Vivace, ma non troppo - Poco più mosso - Tempo I - Più mosso - Tempo I (18:25)

Hohenstaufen Ensemble

Kahn composed a vast quantity of chamber music, writing in an intimate, lyrical style that is reminiscent of Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, and Brahms. He was also an admirer of Reger. But aside from the Serenade Aus der Jugendzeit ("From Youth") and the Konzertstück, Op. 74 for piano and orchestra in E flat minor, he mostly avoided the large scale orchestral forms and emotional extravagance of late Romanticism. There are a number of ambitious works for chorus and orchestra, such as the Geothe setting Mahomets Gesang, Op. 24 (1896), the Sturmlied, Op. 53 for chorus, orchestra and organ (1910), and the Festgesang, Op. 64 for the same forces.

Of the chamber music there are three violin sonatas, two cello sonatas, four piano trios, two string quartets, three piano quartets and two piano quintets. Particularly notable are the Violin Sonata in E, Op. 50 (1907), the Piano Quartets, Op. 30 (1899) and Op. 41 (1904), and the String Quartet in A minor, Op. 60 (1914). The unconventionally scored Quintet in C minor of 1911 (for piano, violin, cello, clarinet and horn, the same combination used by Vaughan Williams in 1897), has been recorded. Lieder was also very important to Kahn: he composed around 180 solo songs and 13 duets.

Kahn was often commissioned to create works for some of the finest musicians of the early decades of the 20th century up to the young Adolf Busch with whom Kahn gave the first performance of his Suite, Op. 69 for violin and piano in 1920. His first Violin Sonata in G minor (1886) was dedicated to Joseph Joachim who asked to perform it when Kahn was still a young student in Berlin. Clara Schumann mentioned this sonata in her diary. The second Violin Sonata, in A minor, Op. 26 (1897) was dedicated to Joachim, while the String Quartet No. 1 in A major, Op. 8 (1889) was dedicated to and first performed by the Joachim Quartet. The second string quartet was premièred by the Klingler Quartet, successor of the Joachim. His Clarinet Trio, Op. 45 was dedicated to and performed by the famous clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld who also inspired Brahms's late chamber compositions. Hans von Bülow conducted the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the world première of Kahn's orchestral serenade in 1890.

His renewed compositional activity after leaving Germany in 1938 resulted in a large collection of piano music, including more than 1,100 pieces. These took the form of a musical diary, the Tagebuch in Tönen, begun in 1935, with Kahn writing several short piano works per week until his death in 1951. Apart from an extracted set of 29, these only exist in manuscript at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. The pianist Maksim Štšura has recorded a selection, as has Danny Driver.