This intelligently planned recital includes some remarkable surprises. Who knew that there was such a wide range of music for this unusual combination of forces?...

This intelligently planned recital includes some remarkable surprises. Who knew that there was such a wide range of music for this unusual combination of forces? Best known, to the extent any of this music is, must be Charles Loeffler's lovely Two Rhapsodies ("The Pool" and "The Bagpipe"). A surprisingly substantial piece lasting more than 20 minutes, the music presents the composer's lush, quasi-impressionist idiom at its most appealing. August Klughardt's Schilflieder, inspired by poems of Lenau (of Strauss' Don Juan fame), is a really lovely suite in five shortish movements. Dedicated to Liszt and composed in 1872, the music depicts a typically Romantic story of yearning for lost love in a ripely evocative melodic style that's sure to win Klughardt new friends.

Felix White (1884-1945) was an English composer of no great repute, but his Nymph's Complaint is charming even if the tunes may not be top-drawer. Marco Yano's Modinha provides a tiny interlude before the concluding major work, the Hindemith trio. This inventive piece in two highly varied movements represents the best of his early style: edgy, acerbic, but also melodic and at times ingratiating, and always full of invention. If you like, say, the Concert Music pieces, then you'll enjoy this equally well.

Listeners familiar with Alex Klein's previous recordings for Cedille already know that the performances will uphold the highest standards of technical and interpretive quality. On the oboe his tone is as winsome as ever, though the Heckelphone sounds a touch wheezy under pressure, an attribute more of the instrument itself than of Klein's playing of it. Let's face it: it quacks. Violist Richard Young and Ricardo Castro also contribute splendidly, and there are fireworks aplenty in the wild second movement of the Hindemith. The sonics are extremely vivid and present, but a touch close for my taste--Young's breathing at times becomes obtrusive, and a little extra distance would have mellowed Klein's heckelphone just that much more. Still, these minor points hardly detract from the appeal of this inventive recital.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com