To forge chamber music from orchestral scores and make music of the highest order with like-minded colleagues — this was the ambition of eight section leaders of the Dresden Staatskapelle when they founded the Dresden Octet to give a chamber concert during the orchestra’s tour of Hong Kong in 2015. The idea of creating such an ensemble had been on the cards for some time — hardly surprising given that the Staatskapelle is bound to chamber music by a long and significant tradition embodied by the Tonkunstler-Verein zu Dresden (Composers’ Society of Dresden), which was founded in 1854 and has been run independently to this day. “For us, music-making in the octet is an ideal form of chamber music,” acknowledges the ensemble’s double-bassist and founding member Andreas Wylezol. For this release the ensemble has chosen Franz Schubert’s Octet in F major D 803.
