This recording is a modern portrait of the music that Swedish clavier-players might have carried to the organ in the latter half of the 1700s. Since hardly any Swedish music of the time was written exclusively for the organ, we must rely on historical sources for a sense of the possibilities. The selection offered here is largely a work of reconstruction, and except for the short movement by Roman, none of this repertoire has been recorded before, at least in this form for organ. Jonas Lundblad is an organist and musicologist. He studied church music in Malmö, Lübeck and Piteå, specializing in organ interpretation. A prolific freelance career performing both as an organ soloist and with choirs and orchestras has taken him to countries across Europe. When choosing repertoire, he looks mainly to the Romantic era and to new music, and enjoys delving into the sources to discover unknown or forgotten works. While a student for Hans-Ola Ericsson, he performed the complete works of Olivier Messiaen. Since then, the music and mental landscape of Messiaen have remained one his central influences.

Members of the Mosaiques together with Patrick Cohen reawakened us to the delight of yet another evolving genre in which Haydn, once again, had ‘to become original’, in their piano trio recordings on Harmonia Mundi (11/91, 9/93, 9/95 and 5/96); now the Vienna Piano Trio, following hard on the heels of their own excellent Dvorak and Beethoven Trios (9/97), fill in some of the gaps, in close, sometimes breathy, but always thrillingly true new recordings of four of the Haydn trios.

The Gipsy Trio may have been written in and for London, but this ensemble’s short, snappy bowing, stomping piano accents and, above all, uniquely instinctive fluctuations of tempo and pulse in the finale, locate the work unmistakably in the grape-treading, Romany heart of the Burgenland. The steps of the dance shape and pervade the ETrio, too, in the jauntily sprung rhythms of the opening Allegretto, and the splendidly boisterous and cross-accented Allemande of its finale.

Among countless other delights in these bold and addictive performances is the sensitivity to the power of silence, and the short, hushed half-tones within the long-breathed lines of the Andante of the A major Trio. And, not least, the perceptive understanding and judgement of the shifting qualities of an Allegro which so well supports the structure of the outer movements of the D major, as well as enabling many a clearly articulated yet fanciful variation in the Gipsy Trio.

-- Hilary Finch, Gramophone [12/1997]

Let me say it right off the bat: I absolutely loved this CD, and I’m betting that you will, too. I have been enthralled with Hindemith’s Kammermusik ever since I acquired the complete set of works collected under that title in Riccardo Chailly’s 1992 two-disc Decca release. Seven works in all make up the series. Six are essentially chamber concertos, each featuring a different solo instrument: piano in the op. 36/1, cello in the op. 36/2, violin in the op. 36/3, viola in the op. 36/4, viola d’amore in the op. 46/1, and organ in the op. 46/2. The seventh, op. 24/1, is for 12 solo instruments. That leaves the op. 24/2 for five wind instruments heard here, to which Hindemith gave the title Kleine Kammermusik. Technically speaking, it falls outside the set of seven the composer designated Kammermusik, but in style it shares much in common with its siblings. Written in 1922, it is a delightful thing, peppy, perky, and playful, with just enough of those Hindemithian sour notes thrown in to give the piece a lemony zest. The Six Bagatelles by György Ligeti (b. 1923) is a fairly early piece written between 1951 and 1953, while the composer was still living in Hungary. The work is based on six movements from Ligeti’s Musica ricercata, and is clearly indebted to neo-Classical models, particularly Bartók and Stravinsky. Do not expect anything like the later spatial and spectral tone-cluster music that made Ligeti famous in the West.

I am of two minds when it comes to Carl Nielsen (1865–1931). Hearing his name so often in hyphenation with Sibelius (like Debussy and Ravel), I could not imagine how or why anyone would pair these two composers who sounded to me so utterly different in style and musical speech. Moreover, I was (and still am) a Sibelian to the core, and I was mystified that Nielsen, who seemed quite the inferior of the two, could be held up as an equal. Well, that was a long time ago, and before I really applied myself to learning Nielsen’s music. I still believe that Sibelius was the greater of the two composers, but they are so different from one another that comparisons are not very instructive. I have long since come to appreciate Nielsen for the individual and special voice that was his.

His Wind Quintet, op. 43, from 1922, is testament to that unique voice. At nearly 25 minutes, it is a substantive and masterful work. The concluding Theme and Variations movement, especially, is not only a brilliant display of wind-writing technique, but really beautiful and moving music.

What can I say about the Quintett Wien? These five musicians are more than masters of their craft; they come together as a perfectly blended ensemble that breathes as a single living organism. Truly magnificent. Nimbus captures them in an acoustic that is open and radiant, but not reverberant. I know that I will be playing this CD many times over.

Jerry Dubins, FANFARE