CDs

Johann Sebastian Bach
Sonatas for flute and continuo

In his first great monograph on the master of 1802, Johann Nikolaus Forkel writes that Bach created exceptional compositions for all instruments, in terms of both the musical forms and technical possibilities of this era.

One of these is surely the undisputed grand collection of harpsichord and organ works, but also the repertoire of chamber music for the other solo instruments, passed down over the generations. Much of this has probably been lost forever, but there are still some phenomenal components left, particularly in terms of their content. In the violin and cellist repertoire, solo sonatas, partitas and suites hold a key technical and musical position like no other music of the Baroque period. And it is probably a similar case for the flutists...
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Johann Sebastian Bach
Sonatas for two flutes and continuo

The demand for and purpose of chamber music at the time of Bach was in no way what we now expect in our bourgeois age. This music was not intended primarily for listeners and certainly not for public concerts. Baroque chamber music was intended almost exclusively as a way for the performer to further his musical education and training, and at the same time to give him pleasure. Its second purpose was to serve as an excercise and testing ground for composers...
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Mozart Opera 2

La Clemenza di Tito, Cosi fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro; In arrangement for flute and string trio by Johann Wendt (1745 - 1801)
Vienna in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was home to some of the finest woodwind players of the day - players from far and wide, who had heard of the Viennese reputation for music...
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The Early Sonatas

This set of six sonatas was written in 1764. From April of that year until August 1765 the eight-year-old Mozart was in London with his family. He appeared with great success at the court of George III; he improvised at the harpsichord for the Royal Society, and he met with J C Bach who would prove to be a life-long influence and friend. Like the sonatas written in Paris the previous year (KV.6-9) these pieces are designated for keyboard and violin with optional cello. However, it is entirely in keeping with the habits of the period to perform them on the flute...
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Hansgeorg Schmeiser plays music for solo flute

"Working chrono-unlogically backwards, he starts with Takemitsu's 'Air' (1996), a typically elegant fantasy. Schmeiser doesn't fill, but rather feels the evocative silences. He swells in and out of ghostly legato passages or punchy, recurrent motifs with complete conviction."
Kate Sherriff, BBC Music Magazine
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Mozart, Janácek, Pirchner

Mozart Serenade in c-minor, Janácek Mládí, Pirchner Streichquartett für Bläserquintett.

The pieces in this programme represent highly contrasting examples of what might be termed the Central European tradition of wind music...
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Hindemith, Ligeti, Nielsen

Hindemith wrote his ´Little Chamber Music for Five Wind Instruments´ in 1922. The Quintet is one of the composer´s early works, but his characteristic style can still be heard in the rhythmic, harmonic and contrapuntal structure of the piece. The five movements are full of humour, wit and irony. The Six Bagatelles were written between 1951 and 1953 and are based on six movements from Ligeti´s piano composition Musica Ricercata. Ligeti explores not only the tradition of Hungarian folk music but also the questions surrounding the compositional possibilities which arise from utilising a limited range of notes. Nielsen´s Wind Quintet was written in the same year as that of Hindemith´s Kleine Kammermusik. It was written for the Copenhagen Wind Quintet.
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Strauss in Vienna
Famous waltzes, marches and polkas by the Strauss family,
Schrammel, Zemlinsky & Prinz

Even during their lifetimes the members of the Strauss family saw their vast number of dances and marches being performed by a bewildering combination of instruments.

The rich melodic invention of their compositions has remained an attraction for arrangers in our own time, and among the most unusual and inventive are those for wind quintet, performed on this recording by the members of quintett.wien. The pieces on this collection combine more popular works with less familiar compositions from the heyday of Viennese light music.
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Haydn, Mozart, Danzi, Farkas,Takacs

"The performances reflect enjoyment in the whole exercise; the recording is bright and true. It is fun to listen to. This is also a record which could make cheerful background listening, which surely none of its composers would think wrong."
John Warrack, Gramophone
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Mozart Opera 1

This imaginative recording comprises arrangements of famous arias from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni and Die Entführung aus dem Serail which were all made by Johann Went within a year of the première of each opera. The ensemble for which they are written (flute, violin and 'cello) differs from the more usual wind groups (known as Harmonie) that were favoured for providing outdoor entertainment during late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Vienna.
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