Beethoven: Piano & Winds

Album review

While string instruments gave rise to a new repertoire of chamber music at the end of the 18th century with new forms emerging such as the quartet and its derivatives, quintets, septet or octet, the same could not be said for wind instruments since their construction was constantly changing, preventing a cohesive sound when it came to playing together. These counter-productive technical constraints caused a delay in terms of new works.
The wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon) gradually came to the fore in the early 19th century, sparking a new craze before enjoying its golden age in the 20th century. The young Beethoven soon became interested in wind instruments, using them in a completely new way throughout his orchestral works. His Quintet for Piano and Winds Op. 16 from 1796 is reminiscent of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet composed twelve years earlier. He later composed an arrangement for piano and strings, but the original sounds just as good, especially thanks to Beethoven’s new way of writing for wind instruments.
The two other works on this album are arrangements, as evidenced by the Piano Concerto from 1784, where the lost accompaniment is reconstructed for wind quintet. Being fond of mechanical music, people in the 18th century invented clocks allowing music to be played automatically by complex systems. Like his elders, the young Beethoven composed specific pieces presented here as arrangements for the Ma’alot Quintet accompanied by pianist Markus Becker for the other works in this original programme. © François Hudry/Qobuz