Flute Music by Sons of Bach

Richard Leslie Stoltzman (born July 12, 1942) is an American clarinetist. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he spent his early years in San Francisco, California, and Cincinnati, Ohio, graduating from Woodward High School in 1960. Today, Stoltzman is part of the faculty list at the New England Conservatory and Boston University. Stoltzman is perhaps the best-known clarinetist who primarily plays classical music. He has played with over 100 orchestras, as well as with many chamber groups and in many solo recitals. Stoltzman has received numerous awards and has produced an extensive discography. His virtuosity and musicianship have made him a highly sought-after concert artist. In addition to classical repertoire, Stoltzman also plays jazz. Some of his recordings, such as his album New York Counterpoint, feature both jazz and modern music. In 1983, Stoltzman commissioned composer/arranger Clare Fischer to write a symphonic work using Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn themes. The result was The Duke, Swee'pea and Me, an eleven-minute orchestral work which Stoltzman performed worldwide.

It is a well-known pleasure for music lovers to discover hidden treasures; and it frequently happens that forgotten gems are found even within the output of well-known composers. But when the composer himself (or, intriguingly, herself..?) is in turn virtually unknown, then the adventure becomes even more attractive.

Under the reign of Frederick the Great, Berlin developed into one of the most important centres of the European music scene. He brought the most important composers and musicians to his court and his court orchestra had to play both representative operas and concerts as well as in the king's private sphere.Although the king himself played the flute and strongly protected his instrument, the oboe was also of great importance and the orchestra featured four outstanding oboists.Frederick, however, was stuck in a conservative, traditional style and the once "young, wild" Kapellmusiker became increasingly weary of this musical monoculture. Thus a new music scene gradually developed in Berlin in the bourgeois milieu with house concerts and weekly academies.The "queen of the baroque oboe", as Xenia Loffler was respectfully called by BR Klassik Radio, presents on her new album a fine selection of oboe sonatas from the Berlin repertoire with works by the two Bach sons Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann, as well as Christoph Schaffrath, Johann Gottlieb Janitsch and Carl Ludwig Matthes.