Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754-1812) falls into that unfortunate group of composers most famous for a piece of music by someone else. He achieved immortality after publishing Mozart’s String Quartet in D, K499, in 1786; despite also printing a number of other works by the Salzburger, including the two piano quartets, it is the string quartet that became known for ever more by his name. Aside from such fame-by-association, it is indeed primarily as a publisher that he is nowadays best remembered: notwithstanding a substantial work list, The New Grove (2001) devotes only one paragraph of seven to his own music, concluding that ‘his style is generally lacking in originality and depth’.

Flautist Boris Bizjak and his partner, violinist Lana Trotovšek, would beg to differ. In a recent blog for the Gramophone website, Bizjak writes that this music ‘is well composed, flows so well and has such freshness and originality’. Certainly the Quartet that opens the disc revels in the chromatic shadings offered by its C minor tonality. All the works are in three movements, with an opening sonata-allegro followed by an aria- or serenade-like Andante or Adagio and a finale that might take the form of variations (the Quartet) or rondo (D major Trio), or evoke the thrill of the hunt (Duetto, B flat Trio). Booklet annotator Christopher Morley draws attention to the Mozartian sound world of the Trio in D and the largest work here, the Quintet, which doubles the viola rather than the violin. In Hausmusik such as this, the challenge falls firmly on the performers rather than the listeners, and Bizjak, Trotovšek and their accomplices in the Piatti Quartet meet the music’s technical demands admirably.

The cover art reproduces the famous painting of Frederick the Great giving a flute concert at Sanssouci. Vienna-based Hoffmeister, though, appears to have had no connection to Frederick or to Prussia; perhaps more appropriate might have been a likeness of Mozart’s eccentric patron Count Wallsegg, who is known to have commissioned, played and passed off as his own a number of Hoffmeister’s works for flute.