Duo Sutre Kim Kreutzer & Bochsa 6 Nocturnes Concertants

Kim Vincent Fowley (July 21, 1939 – January 15, 2015) was an American record producer, singer and musician. He is best known for his role behind a string of novelty and cult pop rock singles in the 1960s, and for managing the Runaways in the 1970s.In addition, he is credited with being the inspiration behind promoter John Brower's call to John Lennon that resulted in the last-minute appearance of the Plastic Ono Band at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival on September 13, 1969, where Fowley was the emcee. At this event, Fowley also created the iconic experience of having the audience light matches and lighters to welcome a nervous John Lennon to the stage.

Rodolphe Kreutzer’s final three violin concertos are among his greatest achievements as a composer. While handling a Beethovenian orchestra with a craftsman’s sure touch, it is the purity and depth of tone, energetic fire and complete technical mastery required of the soloist that set these works among the most perfect examples of the French violin concerto. Axel Strauss, Professor of Violin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and heard on concert stages worldwide, has been acclaimed ‘an excellent violinist who plays these with wit and verve’ (Limelight). Naxos plans to record all of Kreutzer’s violin concertos.

Rodolphe Kreutzer, a virtuoso violinist and composer, was a central figure of the French violin school. The work that brought him his most enduring fame as a composer was his forty classical Études ou Caprices for violin solo. These etudes first published in 1796, quickly established themselves in violin repertoire laying the foundations for violin technique which is why they are regarded as indispensable by virtuosos and teachers alike. The collection not only includes practice pieces that require good technical ability but also character pieces which are expressive and fun to play.

Despite the vast quantity of his compositions and the popularity he enjoyed during his lifetime, none of the 19 violin concertos of Rodolphe Kreutzer are heard with any great frequency on the modern concert stage. In fact, Kreutzer's name is largely forgotten save for his pedagogical writings and etudes. The liner notes of the CPO album put forth the notion Kreutzer's concertos have not fared as well as those of Brahms, Beethoven, and the like because Kreutzer was not primarily a symphonic composer. Upon hearing the three concertos recorded here (15, 18, and 19), listeners may find some truth to this theory. Compared to the fiery virtuosity and engaging melodies of the solo part, the orchestral tuttis are rather banal.

These must be among the earliest of oboe quintets, either on or off record. They are also among the least familiar; but of course not at all necessarily among the least rewarding on that account. Most rewarding is the Crussel; and it is good to see such a long-neglected composer now at last coming into his own. A divertimento as such is far from unusual for wind; but this one, in a single continuous movement (with varied sections) certainly is. The sections add up to a normal balance of (roughly) quick-slow-quick, the slow particularly effective in its evocation of Mozart's favourite G minor laments by deserted sopranos (there is a difference, though: probably none of Mozart's sopranos ever played the oboe so well as this). Throughout Crusell, himself a wind-player, treates the oboe as leader, and throughout he writes the most elegant and varied of music.

A first listen to the music of Gloria Coates is a breath of fresh air. Here is a genuinely contemporary sound, one that emerges naturally from our time and culture. Here are sounds to express our sense of time, space, movement and activity. There is no sense of is referentiallism. What a relief! There is no rehashing of someone else's style , whether from 10 or 500 years ago. There is no wilful difficulty to this music or the collaging of disparate influences.