This wonderful recording, made in 1982, has truly earned a place in Claves' treasure chest. It was one of the principal reasons for the revival of interest in the music of Franz Krommer, a contemporary of Mozart and Beethoven who quite undeservedly fell into neglect. Two of Switzerland's most eminent soloists, flutist Peter-Lukas Graf and oboist Heinz Holliger, bring this vivacious music to life not only through their instrumental virtuosity, but also as conductors; each in turn directed the English Chamber Orchestra.

As many readers know, although Bach composed a number of violin concertos (and for other melody instruments), mostly during his years in Coethen (approximately 1717-1723), with respect to violin concertos, only the three represented here remain in their original form (Violin Concerto in A minor, BMV 1041; Violin Concerto in E major, BMV 1042; and the Double Violin Concerto in D Minor, BMV 1043). (The concerto for flute, violin and harpsichord in A minor, BMV 1044, not included here, also remains in its original form).

Parmi l'oeuvre de Saint-Saëns, les concertos pour piano sont d'une importance indéniable. D'abord parce que leur composition accompagne Saint- Saëns entre 1848 et 1896, ensuite parce qu'ils sont symboliques d'un style fait de légèreté, d'intelligence et de finesse. Populaires, ces concertos le deviennent rapidement grâce à la clarté de leurs thèmes musicaux et à leur grande richesse harmonique. Le compositeur français n'oublie pas de truffer ses partitions de quelques notes d'humour que François-René Duchâble sait nous rappeler mieux que quiconque.

Patrick Gallois belongs to the generation of French musicians leading highly successful international careers as both soloist and conductor. From the age of 17 he studied the flute with Jean-Pierre Rampal at the Paris Conservatoire and at the age of 21 was appointed principal flute in the Orchestre national de France under Lorin Maazel, playing with many famous conductors, including Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Pierre Boulez, Karl Böhm, Eugen Jochum and Sergiu Celibidache. He held this post until 1984, when he decided to focus on his solo career, which has subsequently taken him throughout the world.

Few musical partnerships have elicited such divergent critical opinions as Maurizio Pollini and Claudio Abbado in Brahms’s two piano concertos. Reviewing the First Concerto in April 1999, Richard Osborne found ‘a lack of quickness and intelligence in the inner-part playing’ while missing ‘any real sense of interaction between soloist and orchestra’. A year earlier Bryce Morrison, in his review of the Second Concerto, had found it ‘impossible to think of them apart, their unity [here] is so indissoluble’. BM also praised what he heard as ‘a granitic reading stripped of all surplus gesture, preening mannerism or overt display, intent only on the unveiling of a musical or moral truth’.

The case for performing Mozart's horn music authentically on its original natural (valveless) horn is a bit tougher than for music in other genres; it's hard to imagine that Mozart or his audiences wouldn't have preferred the smooth scale of the modern horn to the reedy, clarinet-like tone that emerges on chromatic notes even on a fine recording like this one. Yet the four concertos, two of them incomplete or incompletely transmitted, and the Horn Quintet in E flat major, K. 407, have been recorded often enough on natural horns.

The Dvorák Cello Concerto has become one of the most iconic concertos in the instrument's repertoire, having been recorded (often more than once) by the vast majority of cellists who typically perform concertos. With so many recordings out there, it's difficult for new recordings and new cellists to distinguish themselves. Cellist Gautier Capuçon, in this album for Virgin Classics, throws his hat into the ring along with Paavo Järvi and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. There is no denying Capuçon's impressive technical abilities; his intonation is impeccable, he maneuvers around the fingerboard with impressive ease, and his tone is rich but transparent.

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier was perhaps the very first free-lance composer in history. Being born in Thionville in Lorraine as the son of a confectioner, he went to Perpignan in 1713 and established himself there as a collector for the Royal Tobacco Excise Office, a position he held the next ten years. He must have received some musical training, though, since in 1721 a drinking song by a 'M. Boismortier de Metz' was published. His musical activities increased and he went to Paris, where he received his first permission to publish music in 1724. He published duos for transverse flute and cantatas, which was the start of a career as France's most prolific composer in the 18th century, whose oeuvre consists of more than 100 opus numbers with instrumental music, and in addition to that cantatas, motets and some stage works. He also was active as a theorist, writing treatises on the transverse flute and the 'pardessus de viole'.

If you love Vivaldi's FOUR SEASONS, you will eat this up. The new tempos (which may be more like the original) take this piece from its previous iterations as a formal, Baroquesque piece to a wild, rowdy interpretation of nature's four seasons I mean, the actual four seasons. Spring has never sounded more like spring (the speeded up tempo reveals myriad birdsongs), etc.