The Absolute Sound
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<p>
Students of music’s Classical period are familiar with the name of Florian Leopold Gassmann, though few, it’s safe to say, have ever actually heard his music. It was the Bohemian-born, Italian-trained Gassmann (1729-74) who brought Salieri to Vienna, founded the Tonkünstler Society (the Austrian capital’s oldest concert-giving organization), and rose to become Court Kapellmeister in 1772. His time at the top of Viennese musical life was cut short by a fatal fall from a carriage. He made his name as an opera composer in Italy, and from 1764 his works held the stage in Vienna alongside those of Gluck, Sacchini, Piccinni, and a certain W.A. Mozart, whose <em>Bastien und Bastienne </em>brought its 12-year-old composer modest applause in 1768, a year after Gassmann’s most successful opera, <em>L’amore artigiano</em>, was premiered at the Burgtheater.</p>
<p>
With this disc the delights of Gassmann’s music are recovered for a new audience. The overtures to ten of his comic operas are here, all shortish, three- movement (fast-slow-fast) curtain raisers in the style of the Italian <em>sinfonia</em>. The readings—from the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra, playing modern instruments and directed by Sylvia Alimena—are lively and polished. The recording offers satisfactory detail in a spacious ambience, much as one might have heard midway back in a large 18th-century hall.*</p>
[Source: http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/gassman-overtures/]
Students of music’s Classical period are familiar with the name of Florian Leopold Gassmann, though few, it’s safe to say, have ever actually heard his music. It was the Bohemian-born, Italian-trained Gassmann (1729-74) who brought Salieri to Vienna, founded the Tonkünstler Society (the Austrian capital’s oldest concert-giving organization), and rose to become Court Kapellmeister in 1772. His time at the top of Viennese musical life was cut short by a fatal fall from a carriage. He made his name as an opera composer in Italy, and from 1764 his works held the stage in Vienna alongside those of Gluck, Sacchini, Piccinni, and a certain W.A. Mozart, whose <em>Bastien und Bastienne </em>brought its 12-year-old composer modest applause in 1768, a year after Gassmann’s most successful opera, <em>L’amore artigiano</em>, was premiered at the Burgtheater.</p>
<p>
With this disc the delights of Gassmann’s music are recovered for a new audience. The overtures to ten of his comic operas are here, all shortish, three- movement (fast-slow-fast) curtain raisers in the style of the Italian <em>sinfonia</em>. The readings—from the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra, playing modern instruments and directed by Sylvia Alimena—are lively and polished. The recording offers satisfactory detail in a spacious ambience, much as one might have heard midway back in a large 18th-century hall.*</p>
[Source: http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/gassman-overtures/]