Clarinetist Pierre Génisson’s new album features many elective affinities. Pierre Génisson and the Quartet 212, made up of musicians from the Met Opera, gather around the quintets of Mozart and Weber, related by Wolfi and Constance’s wedding. Those two radiant scores, where the warm and voluptuous timbre of the clarinet melts in the brightness of the strings, frame their passionate dialogue in a sophisticated blend that the album’s title, How I met Mozart, updates mischievously.

In the time of Madame de Pompadour, the hurdy-gurdy, like the musette, enjoyed a great success. It was considered to be on a level with other instruments and, as can be seen in various paintings, was highly regarded by the ladies of the aristocracy.

Korean born British violinist Joo Yeon Sir is a name to watch. The Strad magazine reviewing a Wigmore Hall concert commented ‘Exuberant…feline and seductive, rattling off the fiendish cadenza with bravura and oodles of personality’.

Of all the great composers, Schubert left by far the largest number of uncompleted works: symphonies, piano and chamber music, songs, choral music and operas. Six of the latter are represented on this disc—the early 'Adrast' written around the age of twenty and 'Fierebras' written in 1823, five years before the sudden end of his short life. Schubert made many attempts to achieve success on the Viennese operatic stage but was singularly unlucky in doing so. Consequently none of his operatic music ever entered the repertoire and today it remains the most unknown aspect of his work.

Now practically unknown, Jean Daniel Braun (fl. 1728–40) was in his own day a well-known composer, flautist and bassoonist who lived in Paris during the cultural heyday of the 18th century.

Saleem Ashkar made his New York Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 22 and has since worked with many of the World’s leading orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic, La Scala Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, London Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, NDR Hamburg, DSO RSB and Konzerthaus orchestras in Berlin, Maggio Musicale Firenze, Santa Cecilia Rome, Mariinsky Orchestra St. Petersburg, and Danish Radio Orchestra among others.