Albrechtsberger  - Concerto For Organ And Strings In B Flat Major
1 	I. Allegro Moderato 	6:56
2 	II. Adagio 	12:36
3 	III. Finale: Allegro 	7:40

Hoffmeister  - Concerto For Flute And Orchestra In D Major
4 	I. Allegro Brillante 	11:32
5 	II. Adagio 	6:21
6 	III. Rondo (Allegretto) 	4:46

Albrechtsberger - Partita For Harp And Orchestra In F Major
7 	I. Presto 	4:06
8 	II. Adagio Un Poco 	8:25
9 	III. Menuet 	2:58
10 	IV. Finale: Allegro 	3:53

Gábor Lehotka – organ
János Szebenyi – flute
Anna Lelkes - harp
Budapest Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra
Frigyes Sándor - conductor

Johann Georg Albrechtsberger gave lessons to Beethoven and succeeded Mozart, at the latter’s request, as assistant to the Kapellmeister of St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, with right of succession, a promotion realised two years after Mozart’s death, in 1793. He won contemporary distinction as an organist, composer and teacher, and displayed a particular mastery of counterpoint, reflected in his own 240 fugues and in the later work of his pupil Beethoven.

Albrechtsberger published an enormous quantity of fugues and preludes and fugues, many for either organ or harpsichord. He left some 278 keyboard works, which, in general, show his technical skill.

Equally prolific in chamber music for various groups of instruments, Albrechtsberger based many of his instrumental compositions on the church sonata of the Baroque period, with its contrapuntal content.

While Albrechtberger’s four symphonies may be forgotten, his concertos for jew’s harp have occasionally made their way into the modern trumpet repertoire. He also wrote concertos for trombone, for harp and for organ. ---naxos.com

Franz Anton Hoffmeister was a music publisher and a very prolific composer. A potential for confusion arises from the fact that in his time there was another publisher named Friedrich Hofmeister, and that this younger man for a time worked for Hoffmeister.

Hoffmeister studied law in Vienna. He did well enough at law school to pass his examinations and qualify to practice, however, he chose a career in music. He decided to self-publish his works. On January 24, 1784, he ran an advertisement in the Wiener Zeitung announcing a series of his own works, plus compositions by Haydn, Mozart, Vanhal, and several others. The firm was successful enough for several years, though there were times when Hoffmeister neglected it to do his own composing. This started a period of decline for the firm, and Hoffmeister sold off some of his catalog to the established firm of Artaria. There are examples of works that were still in production with Hoffmeister when sold to Artaria, where the identity of the music's engraver (and hence the visual appearance of the music) changes suddenly in mid-composition. Productivity of the firm continued to decline. With the year 1800 approaching and the business faltering, Hoffmeister started to plan a major concert tour. This put him in contact with Ambrosius Kühnel of Leipzig. The two ended up founding a new firm, the Bureau de Musique. Over the next four years the Hoffmeister firm gradually folded into its new main office in Leipzig as he withdrew from business to compose full time. Finally, Hoffmeister settled all the publishing rights on Kühnel for a lifetime annuity. While Hoffmeister had lacked direction as a business manager, his instincts in publishing and cultivating composers were outstanding. Albrechtsberger, Mozart, Clementi, Haydn, and Beethoven were all represented in his catalog. The firm he and Kühnel founded eventually became the C.F. Peters company, which remained one of the world leaders in music publishing two centuries later.

Hoffmeister continued to do some editorial work, including major series of issues of music by Bach, Haydn, and Mozart. Hoffmeister wrote over 70 symphonies, string quartets (including some that for a while were thought to have been written by Haydn), dozens of other chamber pieces, some attractive teaching pieces, and some operas, one of which was produced in at least six cities. His music is pleasant and distinguished by nicely flowing melodic lines, although it lacks originality. A revival of his music in the late twentieth century was particularly sparked by flute players who admire his 12 flute quintets (with violin, two violas, and cello) and other flute music. --- Joseph Stevenson, allmusic.com

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String Quartet in E flat major, Op. 7 No. 6
I. Allegro moderato
II. Larghetto
III. Menuet: Moderato
IV. Finale: Presto

Authentic Quartet (on period instruments):
Csilla Vályi, Zsolt Kallo, Balázs Bozzai, Gábor Rác

Johann Georg Albrechtsberger is primarily remembered today as a friend of Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and as Ludwig van Beethoven's teacher, as well as for composing a number of canons that periodically turn up as examples in theory classes. Beyond that, few know of Albrechtsberger's oeuvre, which includes over 600 works in most of the Classical forms, though precious few of these have ever been recorded. Fortunately, the Authentic Quartet has released this extraordinary album of three of Albrechtsberger's String Quartets, Op. 7/4-6, and connoisseurs of the genre may note with pleasure that he was a fine composer in his own right and fully deserving of the respect accorded him by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. The outer quartets, No. 4 in C major and No. 6 in E flat major, are quite vivacious and witty in their repartée, and the intervening No. 5 in G minor is only slightly less lively for its melancholy first movement. As its name suggests, the Authentic Quartet plays period instruments, and it sounds marvelous with its bright, vibrato-less tone and deliciously resinous bowing, sonorities that are now expected in any historically informed Classical performance. Hungaroton's resonant reproduction also contributes to the luster of the album, and the music sounds as burnished as any string quartet could make it. If this disc signals a renascence of Albrechtsberger's music, then there's good reason to be excited, especially if this excellent ensemble leads the way with future recordings like this one. --- Blair Sanderson, AllMusicReview

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1. Konzert in E major: Tempo moderato
2. Konzert in E major: Adagio
3. Konzert in E major: Finale - Tempo di menuetto
4. Konzert in F major: Allegro moderato		play
5. Konzert in F major: Andante
6. Konzert in F major: Menuetto - Moderato
7. Konzert in F major: Finale - Allegro molto

Fritz Mayr - Jew`s Harp
Dieter Kirsch - Mandora  (Lute)

Munich Chamber Orchestra
Hans Stadlmair - conductor.

Yes, yes, it's a bizarre choice of instruments. But despite what one reviewer said, these works are sweetly written and very pleasant. Albrechtsberger is obscure as a composer, but well remembered as an influential theorist. He also served as a music teacher to Beethoven when he grew frustrated with Haydn, who had not the time to correct his work. These works are in the galant or rococo style, somewhere between baroque and classical (but closer to classical). These works must be understood in the context of the galant period. At that time, folk instruments had become very fashionable, and some composers became interested in them, such as Leopold Mozart, who wrote for the alp horn, hurdy-gurdy, bagpipes, and so on. The mandora, a type of lute, has a good sound, and the jew's harp is surprisingly melodious considering the fact that the fundamental pitch does not vary. All in all, this is very pleasant music, and even the non-musical will be entertained by the sheer quirkiness of it. ---R. Folk

Albrechtsberger was initially inspired to compose these works by Austria's "music king," Joseph II who wrote enthusiastically about a Jew's Harp performance he heard in a monastery.

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