Andreas Hallen (1846-1925) was born in the Swedish city of Gothenburg. His first music lessons were there, where he studied organ. Thanks to financial support from wealthy relatives, he was able to attend the Leipzig Conservatory, where he studied piano with Ignaz Moscheles and Louis Plady and composition with Carl Reinecke. After which he traveled to Munich and took further composition lessons from Joseph Rheinberger, after which he moved to Dresden and took even more composition lessons with Julius Rietz. Subsequent to his studies, he enjoyed a successful career as a conductor and composer, eventually becoming a professor at the Royal Swedish Conservatory. He composed in most genres but for the most part concentrated on opera and works for voice. His only two chamber music works--this piano quartet and a piano trio--were composed while he was studying with Rheinberger and Rietz.
His Piano Quartet is in three movements dates from 1869 and was dedicated to one Karl Frederik Silverstolpe, a Swedish high court justice and also a musician. who. The work begins with an Andante Maestoso introduction characterized by repeated chords in the strings against an ascending piano part. The main section is full of charm, quite romantic, lyrical, but not overly passionate. It has a Schumannesque quality to it. The middle movement, Lento, begins in somber fashion before the piano plays a somewhat sad folk song over the soft tremolos in the strings. The entrance of the strings afterwards further adds an aura of melancholy. The light-hearted and fleet-footed finale, Allegro vivace, again shows the hand of Schumann and his Leipzig teachers rather than Rheinberger.
This is an enjoyable work which can be recommended to both professionals and to amateurs as it presents no particularly technical challenges. We have reprinted the original edition but have added numbers and corrected a few errors.
