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Joseph Kreutzer’s discography
is slowly increasing in girth. Born
illegitimate in Aachen in 1790 he wrote
a fair amount of chamber music, mainly
for solo guitar and for flute and combinations
thereof. He was certainly a guitar (and
probably violin) teacher but also aspired
to bigger forms, writing at least one
symphony, now lost. He apparently also
displayed curmudgeonly qualities in
his dealings with others and led opposition
to Mendelssohn in Düsseldorf in
the mid-1830s.
His Op. 9 Trios for
violin, flute and guitar turn out to
be well-crafted and fluent examples
of haus or plein air music.
The guitar trio was a favoured one at
the time – it was mobile and portable
and often used in outdoors summer concerts.
The trios were published in 1823 and
are overwhelmingly classical in orientation,
mixing sonata and serenade form; all
are written in three movements. As Johann
Daitzsch’s notes so rightly state, imitation
and repetition, unisons and soloistic
passages are the order of the day in
these homely and unpretentious pieces
– ones however that do make demands
of the performers. The guitar often
accompanies in thirds. There are a number
of truly felicitous moments in the four
trios – the flute and violin unison
in the Adagio of the first trio for
example over rippling guitar accompaniment;
the lighthearted finale of the same
work with its alternate fast runs. Or
the grazioso guitar and answering phrases
of the second, a more fluid and lyric
work than the first trio. Its Andante
is a series of variations on the French
song Ah vous dirai je Maman and
is accomplished. The Third trio has
fresh fluency and lyricism – Kreutzer
was no mean tunesmith – and he balances
the instruments in the Adagio of the
Fourth with an insider’s ear for dynamics
and the carrying power of each instrument.
Things are well scaled – notably by
the Gragnani Trio, named after another
famed writer for the guitar trio medium.
The recording is sympathetic and the
playing never tries too hard – which
means the music, enjoyable and slight,
emerges in proper perspective and with
naturalness.
Jonathan Woolf
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Gragnani Trio: Thomas Richter (flute), Anna Tarnawska
(violin) and Karin Scholz (guitar) 
