Search - Antonin Reicha, Carl Stamitz Ensemble :: Reicha: Octet & Quintet in B Flat

If you want to play games with your music-loving friends, put on this recording of the Octet and tell them it's a newly discovered work by Beethoven. Eventually they may catch on, but maybe not. Although Reicha's development is a bit more discursive than Beethoven's, the quality of this piece is amazingly high. The Quintet is on a smaller scale and a little more lightweight, but it's still a fine piece. For lovers of music in the late-classical style, this disc is a real find, and the Ensemble Carl Stamitz performs with a proper sense of its worth. A real sleeper. --Leslie Gerber