Classical Oboe / Lajos Lencses, Budapest Strings, Et Al

Regular price $5.99
Added to Cart! View cart or continue shopping.


CLASSICAL OBOE Lajos Lencsés (ob); Budapest Str; 1 Franz Liszt CO; 2 Auer Qrt; 3 Miwako Nagatomi (vn); 4 Vidor Nagy (va); 4 Dieter Brachmann (vc) 4 HÄNSSLER 99.277 (66:57)


MOZART Adagio and Allegro, K 594. 1 DITTERSDORF Symphony in F: Adagio non molto. 2 Andantino in G. 2 HAYDN Divertimentos: No. 1 in D; 3 No. 2 in A. 3 VANHAL Quartet in C, op. 7/6 4


It’s been nearly a half century since I had the privilege of witnessing Igor Stravinsky conduct Les noces with Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, and Roger Sessions playing the four pianos. It was a rare assemblage of celebrated composers as performers, but not an unprecedented one. Josef Haydn is known to have invited Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf (second violin), Johann Baptist Vanhal (cello), and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (on his favorite stringed instrument, the viola) to play string quartets with him. Foss and Sessions may have been the Dittersdorf and Vanhal of their time (and vice versa), but I doubt that either Barber or Copland—in their wildest dreams—would have equated themselves with Haydn and Mozart.


This historical footnote is the hook on which Lajos Lencsés, one of our most prolific and imaginative oboe virtuosos, has hung this compilation of mostly recycled odds and ends. Alert readers will notice the array of assisting artists on the disc. Only the Mozart was newly recorded, but the mixture of sources does not intrude. Little, if any, of the program is quite as advertised. The Adagio and Allegro is a transcription of a piece for mechanical organ. Haydn’s divertimentos, composed for his princely employer, were originally scored for baryton trio. The Dittersdorf pieces are slow movements from two of his Six Symphonies after Ovid’s Metamorphoses . I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that the Vanhal contribution was originally a string quartet. No matter. Appropriating music written for another instrument, quite acceptable in Classical Vienna, is hardly unheard of today, and it creates possibilities for programming that would not otherwise exist. Lencsés makes the most of those possibilities. Fanciers of the oboe with a hankering for something a little out of the ordinary (but not too much so) should enjoy this disc.


FANFARE: George Chien


Product Description:


  • Catalog Number: 98277


  • UPC: 4010276019398


  • Label: SWR Classic


  • Composer: Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Franz Joseph Haydn, Johann Baptist Vanhal, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart


  • Conductor: Lajos Lencsés


  • Orchestra/Ensemble: Auer String Quartet, Budapest Strings, Franz Liszt Academy Chamber Orchestra


  • Performer: Lajos Lencsés