Schumann held the chamber music of George Onslow in high esteem, believing that only Onslow and Mendelssohn approached Beethoven's mastery of the quartet form and it is indeed hard to believe that a composer whose chamber music also Mendelssohn and Berlioz ranked with that of Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn could fall into obscurity. Perhaps no composer, more than Onslow, illustrates the fickleness of fame.
Onslow was born and lived his entire life in France, the son of an English father and French mother. His 36 string quartets and 34 string quintets were, during his own lifetime and up to the end of the 19th century, held in the highest regard, particularly in Germany, Austria and England where he was regularly placed in the front rank of composers. At a time when the string quartet was dominant, and challenging notions of stringed instruments as being merely lyrical in character, his quintets are striking for their contrasts of warm expressiveness and great dramatic intensity. His work was admired by both Beethoven and Schubert, the latter modeling his own 2 cello quintet (D.956) on those of Onslow and not, as is so often claimed, on those of Boccherini. Publishers such as Breitkopf & Härtel and Kistner were among many which competed to bring out his works. Such was Onslow’s reputation that he was elected to succeed Cherubini as Director of the prestigious Académie des Beaux-Arts, based on the excellence of his chamber music and this, in an “Opera Mad France”, which had little regard for chamber music. However, after the First World War, his music, along with that of so many other fine composers, fell into oblivion and up until 1984, the bicentennial of his birth, he remained virtually unknown. Since then, his music, to the delight of players and listeners alike, is slowly being rediscovered, played and recorded. Onslow’s writing was unique in that he was successfully able to merge the drama of the opera into the chamber music idiom perfected by the Vienna masters. (21735)