Onslow, George

Description

George Onslow – Grand Sextuor pour piano, flute, clarinette, basson, cor et contrebasse, op.77 bis

“Le Beethoven français”: thus the header on the home page of the French Onslow Society, based in Rheims.[1] The only other large-scale online source on this topic, “The George Onslow Website,” opens in a similar vein with “The French Beethoven.”[2] A naive reader, who may at best have encountered this name in passing, will raise his eyebrows: “Can a composer of this stature be overlooked? Not very likely!
The quote is probably a wild exaggeration from some ardent fans.” But continuing our search in this novel information medium – as anyone interested in Onslow is practically forced to do unless he has a command of French, the language in which the bulk of the literature on him has been published[3] – will soon stumble across a statement attributed to none other than Hector Berlioz. This central figure of nineteenth-century music claimed in 1829 that Onslow “has held the scepter of instrumental music in his hands ever since the death of Beethoven [1827].”[4] …

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