Siesta Ensemble & Ovidio Gimenez Bassoon Delights

Ferdinand Ries must have made a strong impression as a pianist. Beethoven, a gifted pianist in his own right, even entrusted the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 3 to Ries. The two had known each other since their days together in Bonn, when Riess parents took the half-orphan Ludwig into their family. Ries was Beethovens right-hand man in Vienna, and what he learned from his great model, who was fourteen years his senior, is impressively demonstrated by the Franz Ensemble on its debut album: brilliant virtuosity meets Classical form, and tradition appears in new guise for a very special anticipation of the 250th anniversary of Beethovens birth!

This is the Galliard Ensemble's 5th recording for Deux- Elles. To celebrate their 30th anniversary, they are joined by pianist Sam Haywood in an epic programme bookended by two pillars of the repertoire, Mozart's Quintet for Piano and Winds and Poulenc's Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano. Featured prominently in the middle is the marvellously expansive and much less recorded Sextet for Piano and Winds by Ludwig Thuille, a close colleague of Richard Strauss. This album is a melting pot of colours, textures and timbres, beautifully captured and balanced by sound engineer Matthew Wadsworth.

There is always poetry as well as virtuosity coursing through Enrico Gatti’s violin playing, and nowhere more so than when he turns to Italian early Baroque music, as here in Mille consigli with his Ensemble Aurora: the album title reflecting the multiplicity of emotional ideas and colours possible in violin music from this time (Gatti’s earlier recordings of similar music have recently been re-released by Glossa as L’arte del violino in Italia).

Graupner is best known as a composer of cantatas but this CD highlights his compositions in other genres. Ensemble il capriccio plays on replicas of historical instruments and here presents four bassoon concertos, a double concerto for bassoon and chalumeau, as well as Graupner’s only violin concerto in what are mostly world premeiere recordings.

Lots of other groups than the ones Bach would have known have decided they wanted a piece of him, from Stokowski's Philadelphia Orchestra to recorder consorts, brass groups, and even teams of electronic musicians. All these settings involve a degree of compromise. A string quartet, for example, brings a grammar of articulation to Bach that may give him a disagreeable accent. This project, originating in Russia, offers something of a middle ground for listeners who may enjoy the sound of Bach played by a contemporary ensemble: it has been carefully done so as to keep the structures of the Goldberg Variations front and center, with no more variety of texture than they would receive on a piano. Arranger Andrei Eshpai, whose career as a composer dates back into the Soviet era, chooses the combination of two oboes, an English horn, and a bassoon for his wind quartet – all double reeds.

This collection of chamber works by French female composers helps to consolidate our understanding of how important these musicians were to French culture during the period 1860-1960. Some of these names will be more familiar to the public than others, Germaine Tailleferre being perhaps the best known, mostly for her membership of Les Six. Others ought to be far more renowned than they are now.