Clarinet, Horn

For Mozart, wind instruments had their own voices, full of warmth and tenderness, as much as singers did, and his concertos are animated with an operatic sense of drama. His own experience as a violinist allowed him to write five concertos for the instrument that are full of sparky virtuosity, here conveyed with sovereign authority by Henryk Szeryng. This collection (originally released as part of the legendary Philips Classics Mozart Edition) is full of truly authoritative performances featuring internationally acclaimed artists.

French pianist Geoffroy Couteau moves with sovereign ease from one mood to another in these works, bringing out their vividly contrasting colours and emotions in perfect unison with his attentive partners. The clarinet sonatas mark the end of Brahms’s output of chamber music and perhaps its peak; their gentleness and tenderness combine gracefully with the twilight glow that emanates from these pieces, showing a disarming simplicity close to Mozart. The Horn Trio, on the other hand, expresses the ardour and energy of a composer in his early thirties and at the height of his artistic powers.

Deutsche Grammophon is releasing 16 new e-albums comprising Claudio Abbado’s Complete Recordings on the Yellow Label – the legacy of a legend. Together these digital releases include over 250 hours of first-rate recordings and feature an A-Z of composers. Volume 9 in the series presents a comprehensive set of Abbado’s Mozart interpretations.

The Fibonacci Sequence is a versatile chamber ensemble based in the United Kingdom, and since 1994 it has been the artist in residence at Kingston University. The group consists of musicians of international stature who are well-versed in the chamber repertoire, and the personnel shifts according to the needs of a given work. In the case of Franz Schubert's Octet in F major, D. 803, the instrumentation of clarinet, bassoon, horn, and string quintet (which includes a double bass) is not a conventional grouping, yet Fibonacci is flexible enough to fill the parts with performers who sound attuned to each other, as if they had played together for years.

The Beethoven wind music is, happily, already well represented in the catalogues. None of the pieces listed above has needed the help of the composer's bi-centenary to achieve a recording; and only, I believe, the doubtfully attractive Trio for piano, flute and bassoon is not otherwise at present available. Indeed the catalogues go better than this, producing in addition to the above list the Duos for clarinet and bassoon, the Trio for two oboes and cor anglais (both of these a happier sound than you might think), the Trio for piano, clarinet and cello, the Octet Rondino, and some flute oddities perhaps most likely to appeal to connoisseurs of that instrument.