The series of Capriccio
boxes continues to do good work in encapsulating
an epoch, or in giving a broad-brush
stroke history. Most derive from radio
broadcasts; some have been released
on single CD issues over the past few
years. Here we have a "Contemporaries
of Mozart" three disc set which
doesn’t aim for completeness nor for
uniformity of style. There’s variety
here and as a result perhaps the focus
is blurred but not to any worryingly
great extent. Better not to follow any
didactic purpose with a set like this;
better to allow oneself to make encounters
and discoveries or to reacquaint oneself
with composers overlooked or taken for
granted.
We open with the impressively
Sturm und Drang Sinfonia of Kraus, complete
with judiciously pomposo fugato second
movement. It may be a work in total
of only nine minutes but it’s one that
lingers long in the mind. Johann Gottlieb
Naumann’s Keyboard Concerto is a sliver
of a piece at eleven or so minutes but
has at its heart a delightfully lyric
slow movement. The variable quality
of the recorded sound will always be
a consideration in a box of this kind,
produced in association with the various
contributing German radio stations and
so it proves with the Salieri Sinfonia,
which proves to be in rather more constricted
sound than its immediate disc companions.
The Sinfonia was derived from an opera
buffa first performed in Venice in 1778
– confident writing if rather generic.
Rösler was one of the myriad of
Bohemians to enrich the fertile soil
of Wallerstein, Paris and Ludwigslust
– to cite just three of his biggest
successes. The Horn Concerto is elegant
and exciting in equal measure and has
a fearless horn cadenza in the first
movement (it must have been written
for a virtuoso) that shows his idiomatic
command of both solo potential and the
colour to be derived from canny orchestration.
Dittersdorf’s Symphony ends the first
disc – tempestuous, military, with bracing
cross rhythms and a deal of vigour suitable
to its subject matter – namely nothing
less than the French Revolution. Though
he was a bit of a churner-outer (countless
symphonies, perhaps as many as 120,
and more than forty operas) this one
has a real sense of expectancy and resolution
and a driving powerful rhetoric.
Highlights on the second
disc include a charming Harp Concerto
by Albrechtsberger, Beethoven’s teacher
and more familiar perhaps for his sacred
music and the perky Allegro Rondeau
of Boccherini’s D major Quartet Op.15
No.1. If it’s rather odd to find a (small-scale,
two movement, eight minute) Quartet
amongst the concerti and Symphonies,
then it at least adds a degree of breadth
of form to the set. Felendis’s Oboe
Concerto pays homage to Mozart, not
surprisingly because the oboist-composer,
born in Bergamo in 1755, actually played
Mozart’s own Oboe Concerto. The
explicitly vocalised impress of the
slow movement is particularly noteworthy,
notwithstanding the general Mozartian
nature of the writing. The Bohemian
Vanhal was a well-known pan-European
traveller. His Symphony in G minor is
dramatic and finely balanced, with good
opportunities for the solo violin in
the Andante and for the trumpets in
the finale.
The acoustic balance
for Paisiello’s Keyboard Concerto on
the third disc is more immediate than
in the similar Naumann work. The sound
of the fortepiano Tanzini plays is not
immediately likeable, not to my ears,
anyway but the playing is fluent and
vigorous. It’s good to see the Revolutionary
survivor Gossec here. He’s been getting
his due from ASV at the moment so the
need for this recording of the Symphony
in B flat major is, in a sense, less
pressing than formerly. He should certainly
not be overlooked as a composer of his
times – moulding string lines with agility,
using orchestral pizzicati effectively
and imaginatively, and spinning a (mutes
on) gauzy tiny sliver of a largo at
the heart of his symphony. That’s what
I like about Gossec – there’s always
something going on. Johann Baptist Wendling’s
Flute Concerto (to be precise, for flauto
traverso) has some rich Mannheim sounding
rockets and is sprightly and welcomingly
abrupt with some excellent articulation
from soloist Martin Sandhoff in the
finale. Which brings us to Stamitz and
his ultra-grazioso Orchestra Quartet
– a most civilised and superior way
to end this mixed bag set. There are
biographical notes in German, French
and English.
Jonathan Woolf