Hudba pro dechov okteto – CD

This recording by the PhilHarmonia Octet brings together three contrasting works for wind octet: Ludwig van Beethovens E-flat major Octet, Op. 103, Gideon Kleins Divertimento for Wind Octet, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts C minor Serenade for Winds, Night Music, K 388/384a. The ensembles players are outstanding soloists, winners of international competitions and members of leading orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, WDR Cologne and the Czech Philharmonic. The repertoire likewise explores the meeting point of international and Czech music. Mozarts Serenade is one of the early works to signal a shift from playful, carefree music towards serious and dramatic tones, making Night Music far more profound than its form might suggest. Beethovens technically demanding E-flat major Octet, originally titled Partita, was written when he was 22 and was likely intended as dinner music for the court of his employer, Maximilian Franz. Its individual parts have a distinctly virtuosic, concertante character. Gideon Klein wrote his Divertimento at the age of 20, less than six years before his death in the Frstengrube concentration camp. One of his most mature works reveals the influence of Janek and Schoenberg, as well as neoclassicism and Moravian folk song. Three entirely different faces of the wind octet, almost two centuries of music and one outstanding ensemble, presented by the Philharmonia Octet from Mozart to Klein in 60 minutes.