For forty years Georg Hendrik Witte influenced the course of music history in the city of Essen. Important events occurred during this productive era, and the overpowering premiere of Gustav Mahler’s fateful Sixth Symphony was a special milestone.

Witte’s undisputed accomplishments as a conductor and orchestra manager have completely obscured his compositional oeuvre. The Mozart Piano Quartet has teamed up with friends on this recording of the composer’s Piano Quartet and Horn Quintet, two chamber works from his early Leipzig period revealing to us a highly talented, evidently outstandingly educated artist determined to follow his own path in musical life.

For the Horn Quintet the strings of the Mozart Piano Quartet were able to win the very best chamber partner to be found: Radovan Vlatkovic. Vlatkovic lends the frequently difficult pedal tones a movingly mellow quality repeatedly giving rise to shaping initiatives. Cornelia Gartemann is a perfect match for the ensemble, which offers an entirely new listening experience, especially when heard in the form of the three-dimensional production on this Super Audio CD.

The Mozart Piano Quartet’s last recording was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice: Camille Saint-Saens Piano Quartets MDG9431519 (SACD)