Gassmann: Oboe Quartets & Quintets

From today's perspective, Florian Leopold Gaßmann (1729-1774) falls into one of those time gaps that, like black holes in the universe of art, threaten to swallow up everything that cannot be easily assigned to an era in retrospect. And this despite the fact that the German from Bohemia was anything but a minor master of music notation during his lifetime and for several decades thereafter, both in Italy, where he began his actual career, and in Austria, where shortly before his untimely death he was appointed imperial court conductor: his operas were in such demand on both sides of the Alps that Gaßmann really did not have to worry about making a living, and his instrumental music was also distributed widely, mostly in the form of copies. This production cleverly combines the two main areas of his activity, for the two quintets for oboe and strings recorded here are arrangements of some particularly popular arias from the successful opera Amor und Psyche, while other light music undoubtedly belonged to the "occasional works" that the "court and chamber composer" of Joseph II. These are all extremely beautiful-sounding, imaginative and varied creations, which are coming to life under the umbrella of the now legendary master oboist Lájos Lencsés and, thanks to their colorfulness, will no longer have to fear a black hole.