Krommer: Partitas & Marches for Wind Emsemble

Bastiaan Blomhert makes his debut on Chandos with neglected works by Krommer.

This disc features works for wind ensemble which are rarely recorded. There is only one other recording of the complete Partitas, Op. 45 in the catalogue. This is the only available version of the complete six marches, Op. 31.

The works of Krommer have suffered relative neglect and these newly edited version by Bastiaan Blomhert aim to change that situation.

Bastiaan Blomhert conducts the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Wind Ensemble, making its debut on Chandos as an ensemble and adding to the many discs available on Chandos by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble

Bastiaan Blomhert studied conducting at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. He is currently active as a conductor, arranger and editor of music for wind ensemble and has toured Germany, Spain, Holland , the Czech Republic and Japan.

Krommer was one of the most successful and influential of the many Czech composers active in Vienna at the turn of the eighteenth century. The extent of his reputation is indicated by the rapid spread of his published compositions in reprints and arrangements, by German, French, Italian, Danish and even American publishers, and by his honorary membership of musical institutions in Vienna, Innsbruck, Paris, Milan, Venice and Ljubljana. His three-hundred-odd works include at least nine symphonies, a score of concertos for various instruments, over seventy string quartets and a similar number of pieces for other chamber music combinations. He also left an impressive body of Harmoniemusik – music for wind band. The bulk of these are Partiten for pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoons, often with (as in this recording) ad libitum parts for a contrabassoon to strengthen the bass-line, and for a trumpet to impart a dash of martial colour to the music.

The title, ‘Partita’, is misleading. A partita is a suite of dance movements (as in Bach’s), or a set of variations; Krommer’s Partiten (or Harmonien, as he and his publishers also called them) are symphonies for wind instruments, in four movements, only one of them (the third or the second) in dance-form: a Minuet. Krommer’s Op. 45 comprises three Partiten. They were published in Vienna early in 1803 and re-issued in 1826 in Paris.

Krommer’s music for wind ensemble also includes fifteen ten-part Marches, the first six of which (recorded here) were published in Vienna as Op. 31, also in 1803. They are all in two repeated sections of either eight or twelve bars, martial dotted rhythms predominate, and of course the solitary trumpet is treated with special affection.

Krommer: Partitas & Marches for Wind Emsemble

Bastiaan Blomhert

Academy of St Martin in the Fields Wind Ensemble

St Pauls Church, Knightsbridge, London

Nicholas Anderson

Ralph Couzens

Woodwind

FRANZ KROMMER

March, Op. 3 No. 1

Partita in B flat major, Op. 45 No. 1

March, Op. 31 No. 6

March, Op. 31 No. 5

Partita in E flat major, Op. 45 No. 2

March, Op. 31 No. 3

March, Op. 31 No. 4

Partita in B flat major, Op. 45 No. 3

March, Op. 31 No. 2