Strings 2011

Danish composer Niels Wilhelm Gade is the sole composer on this album by the Århus Chamber Orchestra (Århus Kammerorkester), conducted by Ove Vedsten Larsen. Just two pieces are featured on the album: the Novellette No. 1 in F, Op. 53, and the Novellette No. 2 in E, Op. 58, yet each is a charming work, made of four movements, unto itself. Novellette No. 1 commences with lush strings performing richly textured music. While all of the instruments are unarguably strong, the sweeping cellos truly stand out.

It is a familiar fact that Antonio Vivaldi was a prime mover in the creation of the solo concerto, but what is less well known is that he also was the leading exponent of the older concerto a quattro – music in four parts, with several players to a part, intended for what we nowadays would call a string orchestra with continuo. As Vivaldi expert Michael Talbot explains in his informative liner notes, these works are notable not only for their beauty, but also for their experimental character and for providing the most important examples of fugal writing in Vivaldi’s instrumental music. It is not known when Vivaldi started to write them, but most of the almost fifty concertos probably originate from the 1720s and 1730s. .

Victor Herbert, Irish by birth, moved to Germany when he was eight and came to America when both he and his wife landed gigs with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York. Operetta was plainly his strength, and his works in that medium remain his best known. But he soaked up enough of the German tradition (in 1883 he played in a tribute concert to Liszt, with Brahms of all people conducting) to want to write serious music, and he notched several major disasters in that field. That in turn has led to neglect of smaller works like the ones on this album, which contains several gems.

Known by and large for his seemingly inexhaustible supply of lighthearted operas, Gioachino Rossini did not restrict himself to that genre alone. As a boy of only 12 years, he was already accepting commissions to write small chamber works, including the present set of six string sonatas commissioned by the wealthy Agostino Triossi. Triossi was an accomplished amateur double bassist, a fact to which Rossini paid homage by scoring the six sonatas for a quartet made up of two violins, cello, and bass.

For several decades beginning in the 1950's I Musici was the leading ensemble specializing in Italian Baroque music, and their performances were standard-setting in their time. Their recordings still hold up exceptionally well even though approaches to early music, driven by the period instrument revolution, have changed somewhat since then.

For those new to Mendelssohn's music, this might look like a recording of some major works of the composer; be aware that they're virtually unknown music of Mendelssohn's early teens, first published in complete form only in 1999. For those already a fan of Mendelssohn, however, they're very intriguing works that show the developing talents of the young composer in a different light than do the set of twelve-string symphonies that are his most frequently performed works of the period.

Spirited performances by the Budapest Strings, with a major assist from the always estimable Lajos Lencsés, make a strong case for Salieri’s music. Lencsés teams with concertmaster Béla Bánfalvi and cellist Károly Botvay, the group’s artistic director, in the triple concerto and makes beautiful music with flutist János Bálint in the flute and oboe concerto. It all adds up to a most enjoyable disc.