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(Click underlined movements to hear MP3 format sound clips.) and the AMBACHE CHAMBER ENSEMBLE Oboe Quartet in F, K370 (1781) Allegro - Adagio - Rondeau, allegro Quintet in C, K617 (1791) Adagio - Rondeau, allegretto Adagio, K580a (1788?) Adagio Sonata in F, K376/K374d (1781) Allegro - Andante - Rondeau, allegretto grazioso Quintet for winds and piano in E flat, K452 (1784) Largo; Allegro moderato - Larghetto - Allegretto Total CD Time: 74:38 The CD booklet contains a 2,000-word essay by Diana Ambache on the music in the CD in English, Italian and German. The photos include more from the K452 recording session and two entries from Mozart's Catalogue written in his own hand. Human feeling is always at the centre of Mozart's music, and the collection of oboe works here illustrates this with colour and variety. As ever, Mozart excpresses everything from exuberant joy to deep melancholy, with a profound understanding of the expression of emotion. His paradoxes intrigue us; his humour entertains us; he seduces us with his beauty -and the oboe is an excellent vehicle for all this. The five works on the CD include three originally written for the oboe and two fine adaptations. The year 1781 was an eventful one for Mozart. As well as having the première of 'Idomineo' on his 25th birthday, he also wrote the Oboe Quartet and Sonata featured here, as well as the Concerto for Two Pianos, K365. In May he had the now famous row with his patron Archbishop Collerado, which resulted in his move to Vienna and a new life as a freelance musician. © 2003 Diana Ambache Jeremy Polmear, the founder of Oboe Classics, is a freelance musician who has performed as a guest player with a number of London's chamber and ballet orchestras including the City of London Sinfonia, the London Mozart Players, Lontano, English National Ballet and The Ambache. He was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and after a Science degree at Cambridge University he spent some time with IBM before turning to music as a career. With the pianist Diana Ambache he formed the Polmear Ambache Duo in 1977 for a British Council tour of India. They have since performed in thirty three countries on five continents, including programmes of Words and Music in the Gulf with Billie Whitelaw, in Australia with Susannah York and around the UK with Jenny Agutter. London appearances have included recitals at the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room. They also run sessions for businesses and business school MBA courses, using the Arts as a management training tool. Jeremy has made several BBC broadcasts of chamber music. His previous recording for Oboe Classics, music by Robert and Clara Schumann, has been designated the Benchmark Recording for this repertoire by the BBC Music Magazine. He has also made two recordings on the Meridian label of 19th century virtuoso oboe music, and one for Unicorn-Kanchana of mid-20th century English music. He also plays the alto saxophone, and is the designer of four web sites.
"The enterprising Oboe Classics label continues its confident progress through the repertoire with a unique recording of all Mozart's chamber music featuring the oboe - and some that doesn't, but transfers very naturally, as in the case of the F major violin sonata. 'Almost as if he had a wind instrument in mind', says Jeremy Polmear, whose beguiling performance with Diana Ambache is entirely persuasive. A must for oboe-philes; a rare treat for Mozartians." Anthony Holden, Observer "Jeremy Polmear is a fine oboist with a lovely tone and an agile technique, and the members of the Ambache Chamber Ensemble are in all ways his equal in elegance and enthusiasm. And the sound is as discrete and refined as the playing and the music." James Leonard, All Music Guide, USA "This CD is a joyous example of first class music making by a team of musicians whose delight in the music is matched by their involvement in their instruments... there are a couple of delightful surprises, notably the ensemble's beautiful performance of the Adagio and Jeremy Polmear's exceptionally enjoyable performance on the oboe of the F major Violin Sonata, which certainly seems equally ideal on the wind instrument." Denby Richards, Musical Opinion "The Oboe Quartet presents Jeremy Polmear's admirable musicianship and agile technique in excellent balance. The first movement communicates his obvious pleasure in performing this marvellous music... K580a is likely to have been intended for clarinet and three basset horns. This music, however, seems so ideally suited to this medium and to the persuasively mellifluous tones of Jeremy Polmear's cor anglais. By the final repeat of the main cantabile melody he seems to have found even more sensitivity..." Clive Fairbairn, Double Reed News, UK
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