Albrechtsberger

By ''Early Viennese School'' is meant the group of composers contemporary, in the capital city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with Haydn and Mozart. Not all of it is particularly early; indeed Albrechtsberger, Vanhal and Salieri lived well into the nineteenth century. And it is arguable whether the Viennese of this period really represent a 'school' in the sense that the Mannheimers, or even the North Germans, clearly do; Vienna was a great musical clearing-house, wide open to influences (French and especially Italian opera were much performed there all through this period), and it is perhaps better to regard Viennese composition of the time as representing a wide spectrum of dialect within the late eighteenth-century lingua franca.

His most loyal fans are trombone teachers and students, but Christian Lindberg deserves a much wider following, not only for his extraordinary technical gifts, but also for his refined and deeply felt interpretations of music from many periods. Classical Concertos is an excursion into charming eighteenth century works by Michael Haydn, Georg Christoph Wagenseil, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, and Leopold Mozart second-tier composers, admittedly, but competent craftsmen who turned out admirable works for their day.

SEON (Studio Erichson) is a period music label by the legendary producer Wolf Erichson. Erichson founded the label in 1969 as one of the first labels dedicated only to authentic music. The recordings were made with the best available recording techniques of the time and still deliver a high quality product in line with today's standards. This special boxset offers all SEON CD reissues from the late 90s on 85 CDs in a limited edition boxset.

Joseph Eybler was a Viennese composer of the late 18th and 19th centuries. He was a pupil of Johan Georg Albrechtsberger (as were Hummel and Beethoven), and was a respected friend of Mozart and Haydn. He is believed to have had a close involvement with the composing and posthumous completion of Mozart's "Requiem". His Christmas Oratorio "The Shepherds at the Crib in Bethlehem" was his his first major choral work at the age of 29. Its musical style is a synergistic blend of "late baroque" elements (no doubt imbibed from his traditionalist mentor Albrechtsberger) together with the then modern style developed by Haydn and Mozart. Listeners can be grateful to the conductor of this performance, Wolfgang Helbich (Director of Music at Saint Peter's Cathedral in Bremen), whose resaerches have rescued this entrancing work from undesereved obscurity.

This 6CD set contains 100 tracks of popular organ music from the catalogues of EMI Classics and Virgin Classics performed by some of the world’s finest organists on a wide variety of instruments from all over the UK and Continental Europe.

Between any composer's Op. 5 and his Op. 104 there is likely to be, and indeed should be, a considerable distance in style; in Hummel's case, the two examples on this record link the world of classicism in which he grew up and the new Romantic currents that were to carry him in novel directions. Well, fairly novel directions. The Viola Sonata breathes the whole world of Mozart and Haydn, both of whom taught him, as well as that of his other teachers, Salieri and Albrechtsberger. In the Adagio there is an ease of melody and a skill in handling the material that makes up for the enjoyable but slightly predictable opening movement and balances with the easy-going finale.