To L. Koželuh, rival and successor of Mozart,, one essentially owes the abandoning of the harpsichord in favour of the pianoforte, to Dusík/Dussek the advent of the modern piano. The second was erred only by being right too soon and writing avant-garde music before the pre-eminence of Liszt. It remains to grant them the place that they deserve, for his instrument - 32 Piano Sonatas - and in the sphere of forgotten piano duets.

PRD/DSD 250 213

PRD 250 062

Praga DaCamera

PRD 350 017

(prev. PRD 250'062)

A rare coupling of two masterpieces by an adolescent of 14-15. The first was responsible for his eternal fame, along with the incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream; the other, which remained overlooked, was published posthumously and now sounds like a chamber concerto, a preliminary exercise for the illustration of the Shakespearean world.

PRD/DSD 250 221

PRD 250 138

PRD 250 095

Tribute paid to Hummel, a child prodigy guided by Mozart, skilled on both violin and keyboard. He had a great professional career as a violinist-Kapellmeister then, after 1814, as an internationally renowned composer and pianist. He tackled all the genres except for the symphony, imposing himself as the heir to Haydn’s Viennese classicism. He prepared the way for the early Romantics: Chopin, Mendelssohn—one of his students--, Schumann…. Eight years younger than Beethoven, he became his friend, avoiding the confrontation with the oeuvre of a genius whom he had detected as of their first encounter (1793).

CZECH NONET

Romana ZIEGLEROVÁ, violin./Violine/violon Vladimír KROUPA, viola/Bratsche/alto, Simona HEČOVÁ, cello/Violoncello/violoncelle, Radovan HEČ, double-bass/ Kontrabaß/contrebasse, Jiří SKUHRA, flute/Flöte/flûte, Aleš HUSTOLES, clarinet / Klarinette/clarinelte, Vladislav BOROVKA (+ Op.102), oboe/Oboe/hautbois, Pavel LANGPAUL, bassoon/Fagott/bassoon (+ Concerto), Vladimíra KLÁNSKÁ, horn/Horn/cor

PRD/DSD 250 243

PRD 250 109

PRD 250 176

In his time Anton Reicha was regarded as important composer and influential theorist. Beethoven friend and Haydn’s protégé, only his chamber works (notably those featuring wind instruments) is available today on modern publications. Three examples with the Octet (Vienna, 1807), near a pre-romantic chamber symphony, the Variations for bassoon (¨Paris, 1818) and the ‘Grand Quintetto’ for Horn (Paris, 1828), both with accompagnement de cordes, basic string quartet of course, but brained as a concerto for high level wind soloists and string orchestra. Today, three funny virtuoso chamber works for great pleasure about sound and inventing, paired for the first time to taste mainly the modern wind instruments, emphasized by Berlioz, a Reicha pupil at the same time.

PRD/DSD 250 244