Holzbauer: Concerti for Transverse Flute & String Orchestra

Kaiser, Karl, La Stagione Frankfurt

CPO 777 358-2

This new cpo disc features music by a Viennese composer of the Sturm und Drang who earned fame and fortune in Mannheim. Ignaz Holzbauer was his name, and his extraordinarily expressive musical language, so very close to that of Mozart, has been known to members of the cpo listening audience ever since our release of his opera Günther von Schwarzburg. As court music director in Mannheim, which was home to the ensemble regarded as the best orchestra of the mid-eighteenth century, Holzbauer held one of the most prestigious posts of his time. He composed a great deal of chamber music for flute as well as flute concertos in which the solo instrument was to be accompanied exclusively by a four-part string orchestra. In his concertos Holzbauer fit melody and theme for the requirements of the flute (»like a finely tailored garment,« as Mozart put it), while also incorporating characteristic orchestral effects of the Mannheim school and beating rhythms à la Vivaldi. The beautiful tone, cantabile leading of the melody, and lively virtuosity of Ignaz Holzbauer’s flute concertos, here in enthralling interpretations by Karl Kaiser and La Stagione Frankfurt, continue to fascinate us today.

CD x 1

CPO

1/30/18

761203735822