KROMMER, F.: Partitas - Opp. 57, 67, 69, 79 (La Gran Partita)

Album review

Franz Krommer (born in Moravia or Bohemia and also known as Frantisek Kramar) was a prolific Viennese composer who was younger than Haydn but older than Beethoven; his chamber works are well-crafted and elaborate, and when Beethoven came on the scene he regarded Krommer as a rival. He stopped worrying soon enough: there is nothing personal in Krommer's works, or even anything that reflects the revolutionary currents of the time. But his music was printed as far afield as America, and it still offers something for instrumentalists to dig into. This disc offers four octets that will test any wind ensemble with their unforgiving oboe and bassoon parts; they are all wind octets with ad lib doubling by a contrabass (or contrabassoon), despite the confusing designation in the booklet of the first one as a nonet. Though called partitas and billed in the booklet as outgrowths of the Feldparthie genre of the middle eighteenth century, they are not suite-like at all; they are all in the four standard movements of the high Classical era (they date from the 1790s), and they are substantial if not really weighty in their overall makeup. Krommer's dense wind writing is their most attractive feature; the texture seems to shift kaleidoscopically, and instruments emerge from the background as they spiral through long lines. La Gran Partita is a Swiss group that has championed the large body of wind music from the late eighteenth century, when many a noble establishment might house its own wind ensemble. The group performs this music with energy and a delightful edge, and the disc makes a strong addition to any Viennese Classical or wind-music collection -- or a pleasant hour of zippy wind music for any commuter or party-giver.

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