Franz and Karl Doppler were virtuoso flutists of the middle nineteenth century, born in Lemberg in what is now Ukraine. They toured and worked in various parts of Europe, composing music (sometimes jointly) for their own use in recitals. All the music here, except for the final Concerto for two flutes and orchestra in D minor (first exhumed by Jean-Pierre Rampal), was originally accompanied by piano and has been arranged for orchestra at the behest of Patrick Gallois, one of the flutists featured here.

The music director of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, the city of his birth, Leopold Hofmann (1738-1793) was a prolific composer. The son of a highly educated civil servant and a student of Georg Wagensil, he wrote dozens of symphonies, much chamber music and about 60 concertos, including at least 13 for the flute. Insistent repeated notes in the upper strings set the stage for the flute entrance in the opening `Allegro moderato' in the G Major concerto. Over a walking bass line, the glittering flute dances in and out of the accompanying strings, sometimes soaring above them, at others engaging in delicate interplay.

Leopold Hofmann ( 1738-1793 )was a composer at the time of Mozart and Haydn, along with some 30 other composers who took musical development from the late Baroque into the Classical Period. Hofmann was born before Mozart, and died after Mozart died. These composer's creations were rarely played after their deaths, because of the absolute genius of Mozart and Haydn. Indeed, until Chandos and Naxos recently recorded many of these lessor known musician's works, most of the world was completely ignorant of their originality and beauty.