I have just discovered the existence of this thread, which I see has been going for several months now! I am not on this site as much as I used to be. I hope that this thread survives as long as the jazz one has - certainly the discourse here is in general more informed and polite....rvpiano is to be commended for starting it!
Perhaps because I am a professional horn player, what I noticed as I just read through this entire thread is the lack of wind music mentioned in relation to strings and piano. Maybe Frogman will chime in and help me out here! Here are some recommendations for those of you who may be interested in some music for winds:
I'll start with Mozart, one of the greatest composers for winds. Of course the horn concerti - one cannot do better here than the classic performances by Dennis Brain, though of course there are several other good recordings. The clarinet concerto is also considered one of the greatest concertos ever written for any instrument. The Gran Partita became more widely known after the movie Amadeus came out, and there is plenty of fantastic music for winds in Mozarts output. There are many good recordings out there - back in the day the London Wind Soloists put out a good set, as did the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and there are other good sets as well. I have always said if I could form any chamber ensemble I wanted, it would be a wind octet. So much fantastic music for this ensemble, much of it by Mozart, including arrangements of most of his operas.
Of course, one cannot mention wind music without including Richard Strauss. His horn concerti are amazing - try Hermann Baumann in this repertoire. Also included on the LP was the Weber Concertino -Weber was another great writer of wind music, especially for the clarinet. But Strauss also wrote much great wind music patterned after Mozart, big serenades. The Happy Workshop is a good one. The old Netherlands Wind Ensemble was a great group that recording much of the chamber music I have mentioned.
As far as music for brass goes, there is plenty. The old Philip Jones Brass Ensemble recorded a very great deal. And for schubert, I'll mention some Hindemith - his Concert Music for Strings Brass and Percussion is excellent, as well has his Symphony for Band - the greatest work every composed for that ensemble. I also cannot resist mentioning his Sonata for Four Horns, one of the greatest horn quartets ever composed. But of course everyone's favorite piece of horn chamber music would be the Brahms Trio.
I'll start there, hopefully this will spark some more discussion here!
