Casimir Brown

The short-lived Casimir Cartellieri was definitely a composer of note and this is amply demonstrated in this comprising three clarinet quartets. Dieter Klocker is a comfortable exponent of the many beautiful melodies that are found embedded in the music, very Mozartian in nature and which dances along at a pretty pace!

Little is known about Cartellieri's life. He was born in Gdansk to an Italian father and German mother who were traveling vocalists, and spent his formative years in Berlin and Vienna. As a pupil of Salieri and Albrechtsberger in Vienna, he quickly launched his career and in 1796 obtained a post as court music director to Prince Lobkowitz, an avid patron of music and the theater and a great promoter of Beethoven. Incidentally, it was on the occasion of the performance of Cartellieri's oratorio Gioas that Beethoven first appeared as a pianist and composer in Vienna. Cartellieri's music bears the audible mark of Beethoven's influence but very much displays early romantic influences of it's own. We have the conductor of the present recording, to thank for the rediscovery of his symphonies.

When Beethoven introduced himself to the Viennese public, playing his own First Piano Concerto in 1795, the other works in the concert were the first half of this oratorio and a symphony by the same composer, who in the following year was appointed Director of Music at the court of Prince Lobkowitz. Antonio Cartellieri, although his father was an Italian, was born in Danzig in 1772, which makes him a fairly close contemporary of Beethoven's. Abandoned at 13 by his parents after their divorce he must have had sufficient talent to attract aristocratic patronage, which enabled him to study in Vienna with Salieri and Albrechtsberger. He died, however, at 35, and until now not even scholars researching Beethoven's early career seem to have taken any interest in him.

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