Hearing the three dramatic chords that open the Zauberharfe overture played by this excellent Swiss orchestra (the oldest in Switzerland) I was immediately struck by the clarity of attack and rich instrumental color. As the performance progresses the Musikkollegium Winterthur exhibits an alluring full-bodied tone and characterful playing completely in the Schubertian style. The same goes for the pensive B minor Entr’acte, the lovely Entr’acte 3, and the charming No. 9 Ballet.

The music on this album, sunny in mood and mostly in major keys, does not sound fiery and sublime to the modern listener. But the intent of the historical-performance group La Ricordanza is to put the listener into the frame of mind in which the courtiers of Frederick the Great of Prussia would have heard this music in the middle of the 18th century. In this the group succeeds, even if "the sources of Quantz's inspiration" as a subtitle makes the disc sound as though it's of exclusively academic interest.

John Adam Reincken was a celebrity. When the genial Johann Sebastian Bach was a sixteen-year-old secondary school pupil, he made his way on foot from Lüneburg to Hamburg to experience in person this undisputed master of improvisational artistry. What the young man heard must have made a profound impression on him. In his toccatas Bach closely follows his great model and even quotes motivic material from Reincken's works.

One of the benefits wrought by the CD era was the recording of composers and repertoire that the big international labels would never even consider in the LP era. Many small Cd labels did very well with early music, composers of national or regional repertoire and minor composers of all eras some of whom were major composers in their day. This is the case with the three composers on this disc, all of whom had reputations throughout Europe.

Federico Mompou's piano works are celebrated for their delicacy and initimate expressions, so any worthwhile recording should account for these qualities by presenting the music with the best possible sound. The pristine, unprocessed digital reproduction that is the hallmark of MDG is an excellent medium for Mompou's Música Callada, a collection in four books of some of the most rarefied and subdued keyboard music by this composer. In this transparent audiophile presentation, Steffen Schleiermacher plays with admirable control and a steady calmness that almost creates a meditative effect.

Remastered from the original LP recording, this performance is now available on CD.
Leclair was one of the best violinists of his times. The story is told that he had to compete in a musical duel with Locatelli in Kassel - then a most highly popular form of musical entertainment. The chronicler describes his "devilish" playing, contrasting it with the "angelic" style of his Italian rival. His trio sonatas suggest familiarity with the Italian school but also draw on entirely independent French traditions and shine with ingenious inventions and harmonic refinements.

This disc will benefit from a strong curiosity factor, for the Goldberg who composed the music here is indeed the one for whom J.S. Bach is said to have composed his monumental Goldberg Variations for harpsichord, BWV 988. The story goes that the Russian ambassador to the Dresden court, one Count von Keyserlingk, had insomnia and wanted a long, gentle work that could be played by his house keyboardist, the then teenaged Goldberg, in the next room.

The short-lived Nicolai is better known for his operatic effort The Merry Wives of Windsor so it is good that MD&G are celebrating the less obvious. Of course neglect is sometimes justified. This turns out not to be the case here. Joyous Beethovenian bravura from same bloodgroup as the Beethoven's Choral Fantasy (much under-rated) and the Third and Fourth piano concertos. There is also restraint and tenderness aplenty amidst all the coruscating notes. The dashing piano part is pressed forward and breasted by MD&G regular Claudius Tanski - a most convincing performance. The work is restless with excitement and rich in detail.

Composed over wide time intervals, Hans Werner Henze's three Violin Concertos represent key stages of his development, and mark his early efforts in twelve-tone composition, his mature phase of experimental political theater, and his late, emotionally charged programmatic style. The Concerto No. 1 (1948) is similar in some respects to Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, particularly in Henze's blending of the row with tonal features; yet in its comparative leanness and transparency, this piece is less like Berg than the complex Concerto No. 3 (1997), which, in its intense evocation of Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus, shares much more of the passionate and disturbing colors and textures of Wozzeck or Lulu.

Nicola Porpora, a contemporary of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, and Haydn (and a very young Mozart) is best remembered today as a famous singing teacher and opera composer. During his long career (he lived to age 81) he suffered many employment-related difficulties and disappointments that caused him to move frequently. Naples (where he was born), Venice, Dresden, and Vienna (where he taught Haydn) all enjoyed Porpora's reputable presence, and he even spent a period in London at the behest of a group seeking to unseat Handel and his opera company from its preeminent position. In addition to his operas and vocal music, Porpora wrote instrumental works such as the six violin sonatas featured here, which are drawn from a set of 12. Although anyone familiar with Italian Baroque and early Classical-style solo violin music will discover nothing particularly original on this generally fine recording, if you enjoy that genre and period you'll find much here to indulge and satisfy your taste.

Heitor Villa-Lobos' two numbered cello concerti come from the opposite ends of his output; the first Grande Concerto dates from 1915 and the second from 1953. In between there is another concertante work, the Fantasia for cello and orchestra, which is contemporaneous with the Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 for soprano and eight cellos that remains Villa-Lobos' most popular work. In this MD&G issue, Heitor Villa-Lobos: Concertos for Violoncello and Orchestra, cellist Ulrich Schmid is heard with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie under conductor Dominique Roggen in the numbered concertos only, although there easily would have been enough room on the 42-minute-long disc to accommodate the Fantasia as well.

Adolf von Henselt’s music is not well known today outside piano circles. His Piano Trio Op. 24, dedicated to Franz Liszt, is one of the few chamber works he created, and it bears more signs of the performer’s career he left behind than of the influential pedagogue he became. If Henselt’s writing is a little over-the-top in places, the playing on this recording is even more so. The ensemble is occasionally on the heavy side, and MDG’s sound is so direct and open that the performers’ stresses are exaggerated even further. This is evident, for instance, in the closing bars of the first movement exposition and in much of the following development section.

This version of the Tchaikovsky measures up extremely well against its competition; moreover it is (like all chamber recordings from this source) very well balanced. Pianist Stefan Mendl is able to dominate yet become a full member of the partnership throughout. The second movement's variations open gently but soon develop the widest range of style, moving through Tchaikovsky's kaleidoscopic mood-changes like quicksilver and often with elegiac lyrical feeling.

Triadic Memories is one of Morton Feldman's most popular and frequently performed works for piano. Here, more than is usual in his music, Feldman uses the repetition of patterns and gestures. The repetitions are rarely exact – they are characterized by very subtle rhythmic variations – but almost every gesture, whether large or small, is repeated a few or many times. The repeated figures, while all being quiet and relatively simple and brief, vary in their length, structure, and texture. The unpredictability of the number of repetitions, the asymmetry of the repeated figures, the avoidance of a regular pulse, and the subtlety with which Feldman alters the repetitions keep the music continually intriguing for the attentive listener.

These little pieces for saxophone, largely unknown even to saxophonists since their composition in 1929, may be viewed in several ways. The composer, the mostly Leipzig-based Sigfrid Karg-Elert, termed them "in primary respects higher studies for the development of new paths in technique and expressive means" for the saxophone. But saxophonist Christian Peters argues for their wider expressive significance. He himself wrote the booklet notes, which include a good deal of interesting biographical information (he was born simply Sigfrid, or Siegfried, Karg, but was urged by teachers to append his mother's maiden name to his surname to deflect "Semitic suspicions").