Mozart was without doubt the greatest composer of music for wind instruments, either as soloists or as members of an ensemble, but he had an able disciple in the young Beethoven: young because most of his various chamber works scored either entirely or partially for wind instruments were written before he reached the age of 30 (and Beethoven's art had developed far less by that time than Mozart's had when he was the same age), in 1800.
The earliest of the three pieces recorded here is probably the Trio for piano, flute and bassoon, a pleasant, if rather garrulous work. Beethoven composed it in Bonn, about 1786, for Count von Westerholt-Gysenberg, who played the bassoon. His son and daughter, who played the flute and the piano were very accomplished amateurs to judge from the virtuoso nature of the writing. Next, in terms of vintage, is the Duo for flute and bassoon, the first of a set of three ascribed to Beethoven's years in Bonn and thought to date from about 1792. The three pieces were intended for clarinet and bassoon, but in the first of them the clarinet part is written in C and suits the compass of the flute very nicely, so Susan Milan, the star of this recording, quite legitimately appropriates it. The most musically substantial, and probably the latest in date, is the Serenade for flute, violin and viola, published in 1802, but probably written some years earlier: an underrated work that displays Beethoven's prodigious skill in exploiting the individuality of three instruments of relatively high compass.
It seems churlish even to mention that, in the second Trio of the Serenade's Minuet, the pace is slightly quickened, despite the absence of any direction in the score. The recording is of exemplary quality, and the playing conveys such a strong feeling of musical understanding and spontaneity.'