Beethoven. Mozart quintets For Piano And Winds

Franz Danzi was not the creator of the wind quintet, which emerged out of various earlier forms of wind ensemble music and was crystallized by Beethoven Antoine Reicha. Danzi, an Italian-born associate of both Mozart and Beethoven, was inspired to take up the genre by the works of Reicha, which are a lot more Beethovenian in their harmonies and in their general level of seriousness. The nine wind quintets and three quintets for piano and winds recorded here are, in the main, genial and gentle works.

If I could pick a musical premiere out of the past that I could have attended, I would probably choose one of those evenings when Mozart and Haydn took the two viola parts in the first performances of Mozart's string quintets. It's something to wonder at, anyway. The string quintets are not only Mozart's greatest chamber music, they are among the most profoundly inspired pieces of music by anyone for any instruments. Three of them can be found on this budget priced set, superbly performed, along with the Horn Quintet, and the Quintet for Piano and Winds, which inspired Beethoven to compose a not quite as successful sequel. Greatness, folks, pure and simple.

If I could pick a musical premiere out of the past that I could have attended, I would probably choose one of those evenings when Mozart and Haydn took the two viola parts in the first performances of Mozart's string quintets. It's something to wonder at, anyway. The string quintets are not only Mozart's greatest chamber music, they are among the most profoundly inspired pieces of music by anyone for any instruments. Three of them can be found on this budget priced set, superbly performed, along with the Horn Quintet, and the Quintet for Piano and Winds, which inspired Beethoven to compose a not quite as successful sequel. Greatness, folks, pure and simple.

Walter Gieseking is joined by stellar wind players, including the great hornist Dennis Brain; and the Quintets have a gleaming, robust quality that make them irresistible. They were recorded in the mid- 1950s, a time when Gieseking sometimes operated on automatic pilot, but here he sounds involved and fluent; the keyboard part played with aristocratic grace and, where appropriate, sparkling high spirits. The filler is one of Herbert von Karajan's few successful Mozart recordings, aided immeasurably by the expert first-desk soloists of the Philharmonia.

Both of these quartets are transcriptions of quintets for winds and piano by their respective composers but the links that bind them go much deeper. In the year after Mozart’s death, Beethoven began the draft of a work for the unusual instrumental ensemble of four wind instruments and piano. He was inspired by the similar work by Mozart, which had largely emancipated winds from their role in Harmoniemusik, employing them instead in the sophisticated ambience of chamber music. In this performance, following Beethoven’s own practice, the cadenzas in his quartet are improvised. ‘After The Young Beethoven, this second recording project completes the quartets for strings and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven.

What made Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart perhaps the most complete "musical package" in history—a man who created more masterpieces of virtually every musical genre of his day than any other composer before or since? There is perhaps no better way to explore this question than by studying his chamber music. Nowhere is Mozart's maturity and mastery more apparent than in the chamber music he wrote during the last 10 years of his life.

This is an opportunity to study and enjoy a variety of chamber works drawn primarily from Mozart’s "golden years" in Vienna, 1781–1791. The centerpiece of the course is the set of six Haydn string quartets that Mozart dedicated to his friend, the great Joseph Haydn. Across the span of the course, you will explore works that represent the three types of chamber music that Mozart composed: Any chamber group consisting, in whole or in part, of a string quartet: two violins, a viola, and a cello. The "piano plus" combination: works for keyboard and some other instrument or instruments. Everything else: combinations that employ neither a string quartet nor a piano.

Les Vents Français have been described as “the wind-quintet equivalent of a supergroup”. The ensemble’s five members – Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, Francois Leleux, Gilbert Audin and Radovan Vlatković, all world-renowned soloists in their own right – are joined by pianist Eric Le Sage for a fascinating 3-CD programme of chamber music that spans three centuries and the French, Austro-German and Russian repertoires.