Louis Victor Saar (1868-1937) was born in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. From 1886 to 1889, he studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Munich, where his principal teacher was Josef Rheinberger. Subsequently, he moved to Vienna, where he continued his composition studies with Johannes Brahms. His works earned him the prestigious Mendelssohn Prize in Berlin of 1891, and the following year he won the Tonkünstlerpreis in Vienna. In 1894, he moved to New York and was hired as an accompanist at the Metropolitan Opera Company. In 1896, Dvorák, then Director of the National Conservatory (then the leading music school), engaged him to teach harmony and counterpoint. Thereafter, he was continually in demand as a teacher and held positions at the New York College of Music and the College of Music of Cincinnati. The Chicago Musical College and the St. Louis Institute of Music. He composed in all genres except opera and did not ignore chamber music, composing sonatas for violin and cello, a piano trio, and a piano quartet.
His Piano Quartet in e minor, Op.39, was completed and premiered in 1901 while he was teaching at the New York College of Music. It is in four movements, and the writing is squarely in the late German Romantic style, hardly surprising considering his teachers were two of the leading composers of that movement. It opens with a spacious Brahmsian Allegro non troppo un poco sostenuto that is dark and melancholy but also with a sense of yearning. The lovely second movement, Adagio, has the quality of a song without words, with the strings presenting a lyrical, long-lined melody. Third is a tumultuous Allegro molto vivace, quasi presto, full of vigor and energy. The triumphant finale, Allegro con brio, again recalls Brahms. Finely crafted and well executed with beautiful themes, it provides a satisfying conclusion to this first-rate work.
This is a very fine work which almost certainly would have entered the repertoire had Saar remained in Germany and pursued a career there. Like first-rate works by many composers from this era who were living in America, it was unjustly ignored. It deserves a concert performance and can be warmly recommended to amateurs as it presents nothing out of the ordinary as to technical problems.