Antonio Rosetti began his career as a double bassist at the Oettingen-Wallerstein court but then slowly but surely rose to the post of chapel master of this court ensemble and to the status of a widely renowned orchestral conductor. His seven extant bassoon concertos, four of which Eckart Hübner recorded some years ago for cpo (cpo 999 936-2 / 7172829), show that even as a composer he continued to be especially fond of bass instruments, and the three new productions on this CD now mean that a complete recording is available.

Once again the concertos are stamped by wonderful melodic invention and exhibit part writing of the highest virtuosity in the solo part as well as a refined instrumentation. Hübner once again plays »with a wonderfully well-rounded, very noble tone and lyrical cantabile reflection« (Financial Times). Rosetti’s concertos are presented together with Mozart’s earliest concerto for a wind instrument. The then eighteen-year-old composer immediately succeeded in producing a work doing complete justice to the character of the solo instrument and was already at the height of his compositional powers.

- CPO [Translated from German]