Beethoven: Music for Winds

All around the world, critics cheered the SCO Wind Soloists previous album of Mozart Divertimenti: superb in every way (Fanfare), a joy from start to finish (Europadisc), sparkles with joy and chuckles with good humour (BBC Radio 3 Record Review )inuing to explore the Harmoniemusik repertoire, the Wind Soloists new recording features youthful, entertaining and brilliant music by a young man who took Vienna by storm in the 1790s:Ludwig van Beethoven underrated Octet is a technically challenging concert piece in the Mozart tradition, but with the flair and unpredictability of the young Beethoven the Sextet, Beethoven exploits the differing characteristics of each instrument to great effect with the SCO’s legendary interplay on full displayher gem is the short but sweet Rondino, which is full of subtle details, exquisite melodies and exhilaratingly high-speed horn playing.
So too [arrived yesterday] did a recording of Beethoven from the wind soloists from the SCO. It’s tempting to head straight to the famous Beethoven Octet but that would mean skipping over the E flat sextet and you really mustn’t. Just listen to the character they bring to the middle movements, starting with Peter Whelan bassoons: Sextet in E flat Op. 71, 2nd mvt: Adagio & Sextet in E flat Op. 71, 3rd mvt: Menuetto the wit and character of all the individual players coming through but yet still at the service of the whole ensemble. Something close to a perfect balance of individuality and team spirit works just as well in Beethoven’s more celebrated Octet. Between them you have clarinettist Maximiliano Martin joining Peter Whelan for the clarinet & bassoon making it a considerably entertaining inter-mezzo than I ever suspected it was before. Recorded in a church acoustic and attractively resonant. You’ll find Beethoven’s Music for Winds on Linn Records new this week. –BBC Radio Three Record ReviewThere is something unquestionably operatic about Beethoven’s Sextet in E flat major for wind instruments. The themes sigh, dance, laugh and bicker like colourful characters on the stage. Some performances miss the point, others simply take it for granted, but this one by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Wind Soloists is a showstopper, where the very stuff of theatre its tensions and releases, its compelling narrative vitality and emotional nuances is played out in scintillating musical terms. Take the wit and bounce of the bassoons, the languid teasing of the clarinets, or the poignant knowingness of the horns. All have biting relevance in this delightful opener to a treasure trove of Music for Winds by Beethoven. The ensemble playing throughout is a magical mix of homogeneity and individuality. When the oboes enter for the Octet in E flat, the sound world both brightens and thickens: another delicious and virtuosic musical adventure. –The ScotsmanThere’s still a received notion that Beethoven just couldn’t do light music in which case how does one explain the enduring popularity of the Op. 20 Septet? Granted, none of the pieces recorded here is on the same level as that delightful, witty divertissement, but when played with the kind of spirited, intelligent musicianship the Scottish Chamber winds bring, the Sextet and Octet in particular spring to life. One wouldn’t normally expect late-18th-century aristocratic entertainment music to survive the test of time, but this really does speak across the ages. For a start, these pieces are so irresistibly tuneful, and then there’s the humour – less suave, sometimes edgier than Mozart’s, but at times winningly delicate. There are moments when you can sense Beethoven’s sly determination not to let his ideas pass as mere courtly muzak: the dying echo coda of the Rondino would be striking enough in one of the early symphonies or concertos. The horn writing is especially ear-catching: at times almost frenetically exuberant, it’s played superbly here by the two SCO horns, with hand-stopped notes (the horns are valveless, as Beethoven would have expected) adding a pleasingly earthy rasp to some of the crazier solo or duet passages. The lyrical extravagance of the solo horn writing in the Ninth Symphony makes a lot more sense when you know what horn players in his time could do. But all the solo playing there is impressive, as is the tight, beautifully balanced ensemble, and the recording does it justicehen Johnson PERFORMANCE ****/RECORDING **** –BBC Music Mag