With it's first of two GENUIN albums, the Trio Boccherini proves that Beethoven's string trios are more than finger exercises by the composer along the way to writing quartets. Opus 9 is a rarely recorded and performed early work by the master, and yet they already reveal Beethoven in his entirety, as it were, in a tonally condensed form. The ensemble, alumnus of the European Chamber Music Academy, draws on members from three different continents to bring together diverse aspects of their musical education-at the highest level!

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

I have heard these two works (and also by the same performers the 7th and 8th Symphonies) many times both live in different halls with different orchestras as well as many recordings. However, I have to confess I was never satisfied by those performances either at the artistic level (both live and recorded) or at the aural level when recorded. Artistically they were never right, mostly because of extraneous changes to the original instrumentation and orchestration and when recorded, because of the invariably banal sound. Happily, I can say here and now that this SACD in either it's Pure Tube Stereo or Real Surround Sound version as created by Tacet, has finally moved me to think of it as my long-sought reference" CD both artistically and aurally." (John Nemaric)

So writes the 28 year-old Beethoven in 1798-1799 in a note to his trusted friend Baron Nikolaus Zmeskall, imploring him to ask their friend Karl Friedrich Amenda to send singer/guitarist acquaintance Gottfried Heinrich Mylich to visit him. Among his earliest friends in newly arrived Vienna, Beethoven had both personal and professional relationships with guitarists including Raimund von Wetzler, Austrian government official and musicologist Raphael Georg Kiesewetter, Countess Maria Wilhelmine von Thun. Besides these affable friendships, Beethoven also pursued love interests with women who had connections to the guitar, including Antonie Brentano, Therese Malfatti, Countess Maria Carolina Anna von Thun, and Regina Hitzelberger-Lang. Despite, or maybe because of Beethoven's acquaintance with casual guitarists, he did not compose for the guitar: perhaps his encroaching hearing loss did not enable him to value guitar performances, perhaps teh instrument was not sonorous enough for his interests, or perhaps he did not cultivate the direct personal associations with professional players necessary to master an unfamiliar medium. His four compositions for mandolin and harpsichord of 1796 are a natural resutl of his experience with string writing prompted by personal patronage. Alongside informal awareness of the guitar, professional virtuoso performers also moved within Beethoven's circle in immediate and indirect contact.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Beethoven: Orchestral Works

Classical Music

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 / Piano Quintet, Op. 16

Piano Music - Beethoven, L. Van / Mendessohn, Felix / Schuma

Beethoven: Violin Concertos - Romances