Clarinet, Horn

With parents as professional opera singers, it is not surprising that Antonio Cartellieri (1772-1807) learned music at an early age. By his Latvian born mother’s account, she would sing to him for hours when he was young. With his talent nurtured at his mother’s knee, he took his first musical position at 18, becoming the court composer for Count Oborsky of Poland in 1791. The 2nd volume of his clarinet quartets contains two of those chamber works, as well as a 10 instrument divertimento that may be the most satisfying composition on the recording. Listed as No.3, the B Flat Quartet opens with a triple metered ‘Allegro’ that has none of the typical dancing lilt usually linked with that time signature.

The case for performing Mozart's horn music authentically on its original natural (valveless) horn is a bit tougher than for music in other genres; it's hard to imagine that Mozart or his audiences wouldn't have preferred the smooth scale of the modern horn to the reedy, clarinet-like tone that emerges on chromatic notes even on a fine recording like this one. Yet the four concertos, two of them incomplete or incompletely transmitted, and the Horn Quintet in E flat major, K. 407, have been recorded often enough on natural horns.

A 50 CD Original Jackets Collection celebrating the greatest Classical and early romantic recordings from Decca’s pioneering early music label L’Oiseau-Lyre. The box features orchestral, vocal, chamber and solo piano music from Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music, Malcolm Binns, Andras Schiff, the Music Party, the Esterhazy Quartet among others.

Peter Serkin, whose recorded output is dwarfed by his father's in sheer size but by no means in artistic distinction, is spotlighted in a new release playing Mozart: his complete RCA recordings of the composer. When his set of Piano Concertos Nos. 14-19 was released in 1973, High Fidelity's reviewer wrote: "I have heard no other pianist who seems to follow every pulse of this Mozartean vitality quite as beautifully as Peter Serkin, and the combined efforts of Serkin fils with Alexander Schneider and the English Chamber Orchestra on this RCA set form very simply one of the most important contributions to the Mozart discography." The new box also contains Serkin's distinguished mid-1970s recordings of the Clarinet Quintet and Piano-Wind Quintet K 452 with members of his distinguished ensemble TASHI.

In the liner notes to this disc, Swedish clarinetist Martin Fröst is described as a "daring performer" who has "stretched the limits of musical expression", likely owing to his frequent collaborations with several contemporary composers including Anders Hillborg and Krzysztof Penderecki. "Daring" does not leap to mind when describing Mozart, and happily Fröst himself does not flaunt his presumed reputation when tackling these popular works.

Czerny’s name, even during his own lifetime, became known to the public more as a pedagogue than as a composer worthy of serious consideration. Little has changed up to the present day as his reputation is associated with dreadful memories of piano lessons even though his value and considerable legacy to piano teaching cannot be overestimated.