COMPOSERS: Háttenbrenner,Schubert
LABELS: CPO
WORKS: Adagio & Rondo concertante in F, D487; 3 minuets; String Trio in B flat, D471; Octet in F, D72
PERFORMER: Consortium Classicum/Dieter Klöcker
CATALOGUE NO: 999 801-2 ADD Reissue (1977)
This imaginative programme from Dieter Klöcker and the Consortium Classicum offers fascinating insights on Schubert’s formative domestic circumstances. But it also sheds light on his influences and – with the inclusion of a rarely heard quintet by Anselm Hüttenbrenner – his cultural milieu. There is plenty of sparkle in Werner Genuit’s fingers in the Adagio and Rondo concertante. His rendering of the piano part plays brilliantly against sensitive accompaniment from the strings, bringing out the score’s carefree radiance and overt Biedermeier charm to great effect.
The recordings could do with more depth – despite buoyant rhythms the winds in the Three Minuets and the unfinished F major Octet seemed a little pinched at times. The playing, though, is stylish and listeners will enjoy the festive brio of the minuets, the Mozartian grace of the B flat String Trio and the youthful optimism of the Octet.
Like Schubert, Hüttenbrenner studied composition with Salieri, and he developed a lasting friendship with his fellow student. The interest here, though, is not how much his music sounds like Schubert’s, but how different it is. From the Quintet’s brooding opening Andante to the muscular finale, Klöcker’s string players make eloquent and winning advocates for Hüttenbrenner’s unashamedly Romantic expression. Nicholas Rast