****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Imagine classical music fans 300 years from now considering the music of our era. Probably the works and styles of John Adams, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass plus Terry Riley's In C are easily recognized and perhaps performed, but the names of, say, Lou Harrison, Julia Wolfe, Robert Paterson, Robert Carl, Richard Danielpour, and Missy Mazzoli only bring blank stares. Now, this is how in looking back to the age of Mozart in Vienna, we encounter his own contemporaries: Matthias Georg Monn, Joef Starzer, Georg Christoph Wagenseil, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger [Beethoven's teacher], Anton Zimmermann, and Johann Baptist Vanhal. Examples of their compositions are presented in this 2-CD album along with several works by the slightly more familiar Antonio Salieri and Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf. Camerata Bern, led by violinist Thomas Füri and featuring oboist Heinz Holliger and cellist Thomas Demenga, give the listener an education in these lesser lights; but whose works are nonetheless worthy and enjoyable. Some of the pieces were never published before, but they all show interesting development and experimentation. Nicely recorded in a Bern studio in 1982 and 1983, the album may give thought on the processes of art recognition in the marketplace of today.
