Friedrich Kuhlau (1786 - 1832)
Flute Quintets Op. 51, Nos. 1-3

Friedrich Kuhlau was known to his contemporaries as the Beethoven of the flute and although his many sonatas, variations, duets, trios, quartets and quintets making use of the flute cannot all be said to be of the same importance and merit to stand comparison with Beethoven's chamber music, it is nevertheless true to say that hardly any other composer has written so much good music for the flute as Kuhlau. He was, moreover, a great admirer of Beethoven and the two became friends when they met in Vienna.

Kuhlau himself wrote in 1813 suggesting that he only played the flute a little but claiming intimate knowledge of the instrument. In 1829 he painted a darker picture, writing that he could not even put his fingers correctly in the simplest position on the instrument. Nevertheless he w rote no less than sixty works for the flute, one of the most popular instruments of the time, while allowing his frien