»Holz - Klang - Farben«

Breathtaking

Franz Vinzent Krommer received organ and piano lessons when he was still a young child. As a young adult, he then embarked on a career as a musician and composer known and respected throughout Europe, although he limited himself completely to the creation of instrumental music – chamber music, concertos and symphonies. His Quartet for Bassoon, Two Violins and Cello in B flat major, op. 46 no. 1, is fairly unusual in its instrumental configuration. Krommer's piece plays with the typical sounds of the bassoon and yet focuses time and again on its special features, its fierce energy and exaggerated accents.

Many of his contemporaries regarded Charles Koechlin as the »Magician of Music«; his most famous admirers, for example, included Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Darius Milhaud. Koechlin gained his completely flattering reputation primarily as a result of his inexhaustible inventiveness, especially when it came to the creation of new types of sound. His Suite en Quatuor for Flute, Violin and Piano also displays the particular feature of his music. Yet for a long time, Koechlin struggled with chamber music and only tackled it in greater depth at a relatively late stage. Previously, he had mainly achieved success in other genres, such as his tone poems for orchestra. Perhaps the most striking feature of the Suite – as is typical of many other works by Koechlin – lies in its unpredictable combinations of individual instruments creating new tone colours, and his ability to exploit these new, distinctive elements to the full.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his Clarinet Quintet A major, KV 581 – completed in autumn 1789 – for the Viennese clarinettist Anton Stadler. The clarinet particularly appealed to Mozart because its timbre was so similar to the human voice. The fact that at this time the clarinet was still somewhat of a novelty was also partly responsible for Mozart's enthusiasm. In a surviving letter from the composer to his father, for example, we read: »Ah, if only we in Salzburg had clarinets too! – You cannot believe the magnificent effect of a symphony with flutes, oboes and clarinets.« What is particularly striking in this work is the sophisticated blend of cheerfulness and sorrow created by the interplay of the clarinet with strings and supported even more by the constant change between minor and major. The entire work also spans an arc between the concertante feel of the wind instrument and its integration into the configuration of a typical string quartet.

Franz Krommer (1759–1831)
Quartet for Bassoon, Two Violas and Cello in B flat, op. 46 no. 1
Allegro – Andante – Menuetto. Moderato – Rondo

Franz Kanefzky (*1964)
Drei Episoden für Englischhorn und Harfe op 4/2.
Adagio – Vivace scherzando – Andante affettuoso

Charles Koechlin (1867–1950)
Suite en Quatuor for Flute, Violin, Viola and Piano
Moderato quasi andante – Andante quasi adagio – Finale: Allegro con moto. Bien décidé

– Interval –

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Clarinet Quintet in A major, KV 581
Allegro – Larghetto – Menuetto. Trio I. Trio II – Allegretto con variazioni