Various - Josef Schelb: Chamber Music, Volume Two

The Karlsruhe-based Josef Schelb (1894�1977) is one of the better-kept secrets of twentieth-century German music. His output was substantial: he lost most of his early music in a bombing raid in 1942, but � as if to make up for lost time � wrote some 150 more works after that. In the four chamber works recorded here Schelb�s contrapuntal mastery is given a bucolic twist under the influence of French Impressionism, the two traditions combining to invest these pieces with a freewheeling energy and downright sense of fun.