I really enjoy chamber music composed for wind instruments. On this recording there are five instruments: Oboe, clarinet, flute, bassoon and horn.
When Anton Rejcha was 10, he ran away from his Prague home, and would live in turn in Bonn, Hamburg and Vienna, before finally settling in Paris.
He presented his first symphony at the tender age of 17. Rejcha became a friend of Beethoven’s, who played the viola in the same orchestra, he made the acquaintance with Haydn, and his teachers included Salieri.
Rejcha was a musical experimenter, he liked to write in the style of Gypsy music and he experimented with counterpoint.
His music comes across as bright, airy and gracious. The Belfiato Quintet selected three – the most beautiful and most engrossing – of Rejcha’s 24 wind quintets, which they have recorded at the acoustically exceptionable Rudolfinum hall in Prague.
Just listen to all the joy:
