As one of the most respected Czech composers of his time, Jan Anton Kozeluch (1738-1814) composed around 45 masses and Italian operas, among other things, but was overshadowed by his cousin Leopold Antonín Kozeluch (1747-1818), with whom he is still often confused today. Kozeluch also wrote two bassoon concertos. The Bassoon Concerto in C major was one of the most frequently performed masterpieces for bassoon in the 18th century, and with it the Italian bassoonist Sergio Azzolini is now opening the Kozeluch album with the Camerata Rousseau under the direction of Leonardo Muzii.

The recent Kozeluch revival, featuring recordings of his solo, chamber and orchestral music, has demonstrated his status as one of the most important figures in the whole of Viennese Classicism. This double album dedicated to Kozeluch’s works for fortepiano four-hands provides further confirmation of his compositional mastery, on a level bearing comparison with his contemporaries.

The three piano trios by Leopold Kozeluch recorded here are from 1786 and 1787 and were initially published independently by their composer. Already a few months later, however, reprints appeared in Paris, London, Offenbach, Mannheim, and Speyer – which shows just how well known and popular his music was at the time. Even before, in 1781, Kozeluch enjoyed such a fine reputation that the Archbishop of Salzburg offered him the post of court organist, succeeding Mozart. The piano trios on this recording for the most part display a mirthful and relaxed character, with spirited joy of performance along with virtuosic design sometimes holding sway in the piano part.

Matthias Bamert’s Contemporaries of Mozart project is one of Chandos’ longest-running and most successful recording series. Mozart’s unquestionable genius has tended to eclipse the work of many otherwise excellent composers who were writing at the same time as he. Often successful in their day, many of these composers fell into neglect over subsequent decades and were in some cases almost forgotten. Matthias Bamert has shown just how rich this area of the repertoire is, and each of his CDs received superb critical acclaim.

Die Werke von Koželuh, Schiedemayr und Fiala wurden auf einer von Robert Vanryne gebauten, auf Instrumenten aus Sammlungen in Berlin, Wien und London basierenden Rekonstruktion einer Klappentrompete eingespielt. Für die Werke von Verdi und Kreutzer wurde eine Trompete mit drei Wiener Ventilen und verschiedenen Bögen, mit denen das Instrument von As nach Bedarf tiefer gestimmt werden kann, verwendet. Das Instrument stammt von einem unbekannten Instrumentenbauer (möglicherweise aus Prag oder Kraslice um 1850).

Leopold Kozeluch enjoyed such an outstanding reputation already in 1781 that he received an offer from the Archbishop of Salzburg to succeed Mozart as court organist. Kozeluch's piano trios must have been very popular since more than sixty of them appeared in print from 1781 to 1810. The three trios presented here were published in 1798/99 and had been preceded by forty other such works by him. The special feature of these three piano trios lies in his use of melodies from Scottish folk songs in their middle and last movements. Toward the end of the eighteenth century the Edinburgh publisher George Thomson had the idea to have Viennese classical composers set Scottish, Irish, and Welsh folk songs to music with an accompaniment for piano, violin, and violoncello and contacted Haydn, Kozeluch, Pleyel, and (later) Beethoven in the hope of winning them for this project.

Jiři Ignác Linek opens the final volume with his Sinfonia Pastoralis. Born in Bakov near Prague he succeeded his father as choirmaster in his hometown. Though he followed the trajectory of most Bohemians of studies in Prague he doesn’t seem to have travelled much and certainly didn’t take appointments in estates beyond Bohemia. Probably intended for Christmas his symphony is enjoyable and well characterised, and short. The drone effects in the Adagio hint at the kind of folkloric tints that his more cosmopolitan Bohemian and Moravian contemporaries don’t pursue in their own symphonies and they’re all the more effective for it.

Leopold Anton Kozeluch, often inaccurately and unjustly portrayed as a scheming opponent of Mozart and Haydn, was actually an extraordinarily popular and successful composer during his own lifetime. Already in 1781 Kozeluch had such an outstanding reputation that the Salzburg archbishop offered him the court organist's post left vacant by Mozart. The Bohemian composer's some 250 works include symphonies, piano music, operas, cantatas, string quartets, and a number of oratorios. Moses in Egypt, an oratorio based on the Book of Exodus from the Old Testament, was premiered in the old Burgtheater in 1787.

Leopold Anton Kozeluch (1747-1818) gehört zu jener Generation von Böhmen, die in Wien im 18. Jahrhundert ihr Glück zu machen suchten. Schon 1781 hatte Kozeluch einen dermaßen guten Ruf, dass er vom Salzburger Erzbischof das Angebot erhielt, als Nachfolger von Mozart das Amt des Hoforganisten zu übernehmen. Seine Klaviertrios müssen sehr beliebt gewesen sein, denn von 1781 bis 1810 waren über 60 davon erschienen.

To Leopold Koželuh, rival and successor of Mozart, one essentially owes the abandoning of the harpsichord in favour of the pianoforte, and to Dussek / Dusík the advent of the modern piano. The second was erred only by being right too soon and writing avant-garde music before the pre-eminence of Liszt. It remains to grant them the place that they deserve for this instrument (34 piano Sonatas for Dussek), and in the sphere of forgotten piano duets.

This collection of ten Classical symphonies concertantes was recorded (quadraphonically!) in 1977 and issued as a five-record set by EMI Electrola. Now it has been licensed by CPO and reissued economically on just three CDs.