One of the more unusual things about Olmos Ensemble’s release has nothing to do with its musical content but rather its sequencing. While the dominant work of the three presented, an elaborate chamber ensemble rendition of Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote, comes last, the fifty-five-minute album begins with Ruth Schonthal’s Theme & Variations and Rudolf Tillmetz’s Nocturne, the first scored for solo flute and the second flute, horn, and piano. On an ensemble album, one might have expected a work featuring a single instrument to appear in between the other two, not at the start.

But let’s be clear: that choice doesn’t in any way lessen the strong impression left by the three works and the performances by the Texas-based ensemble. No matter the number of instruments involved, the pieces are brought vibrantly to life by ensemble members Eric Gratz (violin), Mark Teplitsky (flute), Ilya Shterenberg (clarinet), Jeff Garza (horn), and Julian Schwarz (cello), with pianist Elizabeth Dorman and violist Colin Brookes making guest contributions. Olmos Ensemble’s members hold positions with a variety of companies, Teplitsky with the Naples Philharmonic, Gratz the American Chamber Music Society in Chicago, Shterenberg the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Schwarz the Frisson Ensemble, and Garza the Oregon Symphony. For their part, Brookes is a founding member of Ulysses Quartet, while Dorman’s a faculty member of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Released in conjunction with the opening of the ensemble’s thirty-second season, Made in Germanyis a template-setter for a project series that will see the group issuing albums by country (future chapters will feature material from the Czech Republic, the United States, Italy, and Austria) and presenting works in mixed chamber arrangements. Consistent with Olmos Ensemble’s philosophy, the release includes lesser-known material and a work by a female composer. Among the album’s selling points is the fact it features the first professional recording of Nocturne and the first recording of László Varga’s sextet arrangement of Don Quixote.

The German-born Jewish composer Schonthal (1924-2006) avoided Nazi persecution by first moving to Mexico and later America for studies at Yale with Paul Hindemith. Composed when she was in her late seventies, Theme & Variations for solo flute (2004) resourcefully exploits her gift for melodic expression in a beguiling work that sees a brief sing-song theme followed by six variations, their contrasts so pronounced its’s easy to discern where one leaves off and another begins (pauses between the parts also helps), some parts gentle and introspective, others rapid-fire and effervescent (one even distinctly Stravinsky-esque). Teplitsky’s a terrific guide for this travelogue, his playing never less than gripping and assured as he advances through the work’s mercurial changes in mood, rhythm, and dynamics. A flutist as well as composer, Tillmetz (1847-1915) is represented by the Nocturne for Flute, Horn and Piano (1898), a salon-styled trio of expressive and romantic character delivered with great feeling by Teplitsky, Garza, and Dorman. The material blossoms gracefully under their care, their serenading rendering distinguished by smoothness of interplay.

Composed in 1897 and, like Nocturne, published a year later, Strauss’s (1864-1949) Don Quixote sounds reborn in this Varga arrangement for cello, clarinet, horn, violin, viola, and piano, in no small part due to the exuberance with which the six deliver its eleven parts. Based on Cervantes’ novel, the well-known story recounts the escapades of the chivalrous knight-errant and his trusted squire Sancho Panza. A key part of the pleasure the work affords is in monitoring the to-and-fro between Quixote and Panza as respectively personified by cello and viola. As the overture-like “Introduction” makes abundantly clear, this is exciting music made even more so by the enthusiasm with which it’s performed. All six of the players excel at navigating the shifts in style and mood. Florid romantic outpourings appear alongside declamatory pronouncements, after which “Don Quixote, der Ritter von der traurigen Gestalt” brings the string duo to the forefront, and eight variations follow until the work culminates in a finale. After a boisterous and blustery opening variation, the adventure continues with an expansive third oscillating between serene and animated dialogues, Strauss even seemingly poking fun at the characters during a wry passage or two. Schwarz tears into the fifth’s solo spotlight like a man possessed before elevating the “Finale” with an emotional expression verging on ecstatic. Often the sound the six generate is so robust, it suggests the playing of a much larger ensemble. Years from now, it will be fascinating to return to Made in Germany and listen to it in the context of the volumes that came after it. With performances expected to extend from works played by one musician to others for groupings of up to nine, the collected volumes should make for a remarkable and, for Olmos Ensemble, landmark statement.