The dates are deceptive: the Viennese composer Ferdinand Rebay (1880-1953) remained largely unaffected by the turbulent musical currents swirling around him in the Austrian capital during the early 20th century. Instead, he composed highly appealing music, Romantic in harmony and Classical in form, with a particular focus on the guitar. Brilliant Classics have brought his name back to light in recent years with modern recordings of the duets for clarinet and guitar (94171), the quartets for guitar, flute and strings (9250) and the sonatas for flute and guitar (9291).

In a similar vein, the Italian Esteso Trio now presents three variation sets scored for clarinet, flute and guitar. The first of them is based on an Austrian folksong and conceived as a series of homages to Rebay’s Viennese forebears: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Johann Strauss. The second takes a Tirolean folksong for inspiration and Rebay supplied his own theme for the third, again popular in character and ending with an ebullient Scherzo.


Esteso Trio:
- Marcello Fantoni (guitar)
- Carlo Enrico Sandrini (clarinet)
- Alessandra Alfonsi (flute)