Search - Johann Georg Heinrich Backofen, Johannes Moesus, SWR Rundfunkorchester Kaiserslautern :: Backofen: Clarinet Concertos

WOW...

C. Schmidt | Milwaukee, WI | 10/04/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Rarely do I review albums, but after listening to this wonderful music by a composer almost no one has ever heard of, I feel I must speak. The playing is absolutely top drawer. Anyone with an affinity for Mozart, Haydn, or their contemporaries needs to consider adding this fantastic disc to their collection. I applaud the CPO label, as well as Naxos, for bringing to the fore music that perhaps no one would have heard otherwise. I will surely be back often to hear my backofen... Cheers!"

Backofen: A Lesser, But Not Duller, Light

Joseph Barbarie | new haven, CT | 04/04/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Western music reached its zenith in the years between Mozart's birth and Beethoven's death (1756 - 1827). In that all-too-brief high noon, the sky was not dominated solely by what we moderns consider to be bright lights (i.e., Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, all of whom were active in those years).



In fact, the sky of that era was full of stars, some of greater, and some lesser, brillance. This makes sense -- in order for there to have been geniuses of the order of magnitude of the above-mentioned four, there had to been an entire array of subordinate, but no less tasteful, and well-trained, artists.



Fortunately, we have musico-archaeologists like Dieter Klocker to assist us in recreating a true, fully-realized portrait of those times. Georg Bachofen is one such "lesser" fruit of that late 18-century harvest. Klocker, who when he is not recording these minor gems, apparently spends his time traveling and hunting through reams of old papers for manuscripts and performance parts. He has mined true gold in this discovery.



Backofen's orchestral writing is slightly less weighty than, but at least comparable to, Weber's or Spohr's, in their concerted clarinet pieces. The tunes, particularly in the finales, are sprightly, syncopated things (with designations like "alla spagnola", or "polacca"). Backofen himself was a clarinettist, so the solo part tends toward virtuosity rather than profoundity or lyricism (as in, say, Weber). This is an understandable trait, given that he was likely to trying to "show off his chops", as it were.



In all, this is highly recommended."