Where next after Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet? Try these duos and trios by Georg Friedrich Fuchs (1752-1821) in newly recorded period-instrument performances. Born in the German city of Mainz in 1752, Fuchs was a pupil of Haydn’s before becoming a wind-band leader and composer. Aged 32, however, he moved to Paris, and established his name there, teaching at the conservatoire and composing for many French publishers with an eye to the fast-developing market for attractive music for winds, especially the clarinet, accessible to amateurs. His experience as a working musician in the French National Guard prompted him to produce Harmoniemusik – wind-band music – for various combinations of such instruments, without string accompaniment, as the duos and trios found on this album. There is also a brief Pot Pourri on arias of Paisiello conceived for the unusual combination four clarinets, two horns and two bassoons. Between 1803 and 1805 he produced six trios for three clarinets, and Luigi Magistrelli has chosen to record three of them, along with Fuchs’s ingenious arrangements of six arias from Mozart’s Magic Flute, which weave melody and accompaniment between the two instruments, producing pieces satisfying to both play and listen to on their own terms. As a clarinetist and ensemble leader, Luigi Magistrelli has built up a considerable Brilliant Classics discography of lesser-known repertoire from the Classical and early Romantic eras. Most of his albums feature first recordings, and he is joined by Italian colleagues who have equally extensive experience in historically informed performances (using instruments of the time, often returning to the original manuscripts) of 18th- and 19th-century music.

Ignaz Pleyel (1757–1831) was one of the most multifaceted artists of all time, being active in various fields as a composer, performer, publisher and piano builder. Born in Lower Austria, he became the pupil of Joseph Haydn in Eisenstadt, who considered him to be a superb student. In 1791, due to the French Revolution, musical performances in churches and public concerts were abolished, so Pleyel travelled to London searching for a better place to work. Pleyel was a quite prolific composer, writing at least 42 symphonies, 70 string quartets and several operas. Recent scholarship has suggested that the theme for the St. Anthony Variations Op.56a by Johannes Brahms was probably composed not by Haydn but by Ignaz Pleyel. The beautiful and cheerful Quintet in C for piano and winds is in a pleasant, early-classical Viennese style, reminding us of the previous masterpieces for the same medium by Mozart and Beethoven. An arrangement for Wind Octet of this work is preserved at the Fürstlich Fürstenbergische Hofbibliothek Donaueschingen in Germany.

The manuscript of the Due Duetti for clarinet and viola has so far never been published. The Trio Op.20 No.1 for two clarinets and bassoon is an arrangement from one of Pleyel’s flute and string trios. The two short songs Behind yon Hills and The smiling Morn, from the Original Scottish Airs, are originally for soprano and piano, but the clarinet replaces the singer with a similarly expressive and beautiful result. The Variations in F on a Theme of Pleyel is a piece arranged for three clarinets by Antonín Myslík, taken from the Quartet in F by Franz Krommer (1759–1831). Mozart praised Pleyel’s compositions in a letter written to his father.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach is by far the most famous son of the great composer Johann Sebastian Bach. CPE Bach composed a great deal of music for the clarinet as either a solo or chamber music instrument.; This release is the first recording of these pieces, which were either composed for the clarinet, or rewritten to make the clarinet the leading melodic instrument.; One of the most famous Italian clarinetists of our day, Luigi Magistrelli is a master at finding previously unknown clarinet music and bringing it to the fore. He performs these works beautiful

Caspar Kummer is a composer of unjustly little renown. Held in high esteem by his contemporaries, relatively little information can be found on his life in the leading music dictionaries of today, a fact that stands in stark contrast to his compositional excellence as well as his virtuosity as a flautist. Though Kummer rose to the position of Kapellmeister in the castle chapel of an important German duke in his later years, his creative output failed to reach a similar level of renown after his death in 1870.

The music on this collection, constructed around his favourite instrument, goes some way towards doing the composer some justice. There are a number of noticeable highlights here. Von Dir! is a fascinating attempt -- on the performers' part -- at 'making an instrument speak': the original vocal part is interpreted by a lyrical and otherworldly clarinet, which is in constant dialogue with the complementary flute. The challenging Adagio and Variations, meanwhile, requires a mastery of the basset horn (an instrument that, interestingly, was rather out of fashion for much of Kummer's life), pushing the instrument to the upper edge of its range. The final Trio leaves us with a suggestion of the greater stylistic variety within Kummer's work, leaning towards the Romantic rather than the dominant Classical style of the rest of the collection.

This exploration of a relatively unknown composer is undertaken by an ensemble who are appearing here for the first time on Brilliant Classics: the Italian Classical Consort, led by multi-instrumentalist Luigi Magistrelli. Even more fittingly, they specialise in performances of the much-neglected Classical and Romantic repertoire, and they are known for their concerts and masterclasses the world over.

Other information:.
- A World premiere, recorded July 2012, Gallarate and Santo Stefano Ticino, Italy
- Caspar Kummer, in his time a virtuoso on several wind instruments (flute, clarinet, basset horn) left an oeuvre of surprisingly high quality and originality, in the romantic tradition of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Spohr: a discovery well worth exploring.
- Played with dedicated affection by the "discoverers" of these hidden gems: the Italian Classical Consort, led by virtuoso Luigi Magistrelli.
- Booklet contains extensive liner notes on the composer, his music and an artist biographies.