Germany's Consortium Classicum, under the leadership of clarinetist Dieter Klöcker, has specialized in obscure wind repertory of the 18th and 19th centuries. Primary among the attractions of their recordings has been the engineering from the audiophile MDG label, among the few to have really succeeded in capturing the warm yet spacious sound Beethoven's own audiences would have heard from chamber music under ideal conditions. This recording of Beethoven's wind music, originally released in 1994, doesn't quite reach the ...
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Germany's Consortium Classicum, under the leadership of clarinetist Dieter Klöcker, has specialized in obscure wind repertory of the 18th and 19th centuries. Primary among the attractions of their recordings has been the engineering from the audiophile MDG label, among the few to have really succeeded in capturing the warm yet spacious sound Beethoven's own audiences would have heard from chamber music under ideal conditions. This recording of Beethoven's wind music, originally released in 1994, doesn't quite reach the heights of some of Consortium Classicum's later releases, but it has a pleasantly rounded sound, achieved in a disused princely indoor riding track. Beethoven does not qualify as obscure, but these two light works, scorned by Beethoven himself (at least outwardly), are among his least often performed music. The sextet for the very old-fashioned instrumentation of two horns, two violins, viola, and cello, is especially rare. Despite its late Op. 81b designation, it was finished in Vienna...
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