Markus Becker - Beethoven - Piano & Winds (2020) [Official Digital Download]

One can easily find a great number of outstanding chamber music works for string instruments; on the other hand, chamber music repertoire for woodwinds on a similar high level of composition is relatively sparse. By the 1800s, string instruments and the piano had achieved a high standard in terms of playing technique and construction; wind instruments, however, lagged somewhat behind.

Woodwinds still sounded uneven across their registers and suffered from technical constraints, including limitations in terms of musical keys: all of this must have exerted a counterproductive influence on a generation of Romantic composers who wanted to expand music’s horizons in terms of dynamics and harmony.

The Ma’alot Wind Quintet has teamed up on this album with pianist Markus Becker in works by Ludwig van Beethoven for piano and woodwinds, supplemented by several of Beethoven’s charming works for flute-playing clock, arranged by clarinetist Ulf-Guido Schäfer for woodwind quintet.

The main raison-d’être for this choice of program lies in the fact that Beethoven himself composed an excellent large-scale original work for four woodwinds (oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon) and piano – a work which, in terms of musical proportions and compositional ingenuity, rose far above the standard of what was otherwise being written for winds at the time when it was premiered (1796).

TRACKLIST

1. Markus Becker - Piano Concerto in E-Flat Major, WoO 4: I. Allegro moderato (Arr. for Piano and Wind Quintet)
2. Markus Becker - Piano Concerto in E-Flat Major, WoO 4: II. Larghetto (Arr. for Piano and Wind Quintet)
3. Markus Becker - Piano Concerto in E-Flat Major, WoO 4: III. Rondo. Allegro ma non troppo (Arr. for Piano and Wind Quintet)
4. Ma'alot Quintet - Four Pieces for a Mechanical Flute Playing Clock, WoO 33: No. 1. Allegro con più molto (Arr. for Wind Quintet)
5. Ma'alot Quintet - Four Pieces for a Mechanical Flute Playing Clock, WoO 33: No. 2. Adagio assai (Arr. for Wind Quintet)
6. Ma'alot Quintet - Four Pieces for a Mechanical Flute Playing Clock, WoO 33: No. 3. Scherzo. Allegro (Arr. for Wind Quintet)
7. Ma'alot Quintet - Four Pieces for a Mechanical Flute Playing Clock, WoO 33: No. 4. Allegro ( Arr. for Wind Quintet)
8. Markus Becker - Quintet for Piano, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon in E-Flat Major, Op. 16: I. Grave - Allegro, ma non troppo
9. Markus Becker - Quintet for Piano, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon in E-Flat Major, Op. 16: II. Andante cantabile
10. Markus Becker - Quintet for Piano, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon in E-Flat Major, Op. 16: III. Rondo. Allegro, ma non troppo



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