Great Trios

Ferlendis composed four oboe concertos which, up until now, existed only in nineteenth-century copies of the scores, with only one being recorded. This is the first time these have been recorded on CD. Although the concertos contain some clear elements of Mozartian coinage, their melodic wealth of ideas and natural elegance point to the composer’s Italian temperament. Six trios, here in the instrumentation for oboe, flute, and bassoon, round off the recording.

Beethoven was the last great composer to write string trios, and his are the finest works of their type. Mozart hardly touched this particular combination, and Haydn wrote quite few very early works which are now completely unknown. In any case, Haydn used two violins and a cello, whereas with Beethoven the standard combination became violin, viola, and cello. These are all early works, expert examples of all that Beethoven learned from Haydn and Mozart in preparation for the writing of his first great string quartets. But far from being mere composition exercises, these are highly rewarding works on their own, and these outstanding performances make the best possible case for their claim to be ranked among Beethoven's chamber music masterpieces.

The source for the songs on this release is a manuscript in the library of Christ Church College, Oxford. Its title page bears the following: “Musica del Signor Angelo Micheli/ Uno de Musici della Capella / de Reyna di Swecia / Uppsaliae Martii 21 / 1653 / a 2 et 3 voce.” The mystery of how a collection of Italian secular songs of the mid 16th century was compiled in Sweden and ended up in England is, fortunately, relatively easy to solve. In 1651, Queen Christiana requested that the bass Alessandro Cecconi put together a company of Italian musicians to reside at the Swedish court.

This recording of Schubert's beloved "Trout" Quintet may not be not the greatest recording of the work ever made. How could it be? Chamber ensembles have been recording the "Trout" since the invention of recording and there are perhaps more great recordings of the piece in the catalogue than of any other chamber work. But the qualities that make for a great recording of the "Trout" are abundantly present in this recording, too, and anyone who loves the work will have to hear it.

Louis (Ludwig) Spohr (1784-1859) is known mainly as inventor of conductor's baton and as author of violin concertos (at his time, he was second violinist after Paganini). Some of his 15 violin concertos became basic material for studying violinists. But he had also written a lot of music in all genres (9 symphonies, about 30 string quartets, clarinet concertos, operas, etc.). His music had influence on such great composers as Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms. During his lifetime, he was considered as great composer of the Beethoven range. Unfortunately, in XX century the most of his music was put in oblivion, and only now we can observe slow revival of Spohr.

This double CD set of Schumann’s Complete Works for Piano Trio is a welcome addition to the chamber music catalogue. The trio prove to be fine ensemble giving both stirring and satisfying performances. There is a something very natural about the musicianship on show here.

Trio 1790's releases for the German specialist label cpo, in which they trace the development of the trio in the second half of the 18th century, have harvested a great deal of praise in the critical press, and this issue containing six (not five) sonatas by Bach's second son Carl Philipp Emanuel is exemplary in that both the performance and the engineering are of the highest standard. The program contains excerpts from three collections published in London and Leipzig in 1776 and 1777, at a time therefore when the harpsichord was gradually being replaced by the fortepiano, so that Harald Hoeren is probably right to choose the latter despite the fact that Bach himself left it up to the performers which of the two instruments they preferred to use.