Missing Loeffler Octet is Heard Again 127 Years After Its Last Performance

Charles Martin Loeffler's Octet was heard at the Phoenix Chamber Music Festival last March 8-127 years since the work's composition and last performance.

The piece was rediscovered by clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson. At the outbreak of the pandemic, he took to writing program notes for concerts that had not yet cancelled, and was doing research on Loeffler's Two Rhapsodies when he found mention of an Octet for two clarinets, harp, string quartet and contrabass. Johnson discovered that the work had not been performed since 1897, so he took it upon himself to track it down, finally finding a manuscript and a set of parts at the Library of Congress.

Although little-known today, Loeffler was one of the biggest names in American classical music at the turn of the 19^th century. He was German by birth, but adored French music and art so much that he claimed to have come from Alsace, and changed his surname from Löffler to the more French-sounding Loeffler. Emigrating to the US in 1881, he became assistant concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra the following year, and held the position until 1903. Although Loffler held a prominent place in American classical music, his fastidiousness as a composer meant he published little.

This is what Johnson had to deal with, when he found the manuscript of Loeffler's Octet brimming with notes and corrections. Slowly working through its 75 pages, Johnson eventually came up with his own edition, which premiered last March-127 years after Loeffler's Octet was first performed by the Kneisel Quartet and members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Boston's Association Hall, 1897. This was followed by a second performance one month later at the home of Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Johnson, with fellow clarinetist David Shifrin, harpist Bridget Kibbey, violinists Stella Chen and Siwoo Kim, violist Matthre Lipman, cellist Samuel DeCaprio, and double bassist Sam Suggs, recorded the work, which was recently released on CD. Entitled Forgotten Sounds, the album takes its name from another Loeffler work also included on the lineup, and also features Johnson's octet arrangement of Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn.