There’s something about the sound of a cornett I find very soothing. It’s even mellower than the flugelhorn. And when played by William Dongois, it can sound as smooth as melted caramel. And, in this case, that’s all to the good. This release features a selection of works by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer. Schmelzer (c.1623-1680) was […]
Baroque music
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Hof-Capelle Carlsruhe’s Schmittbauer hommage an unusual mix
The Hof-Capelle Carlsruhe’s first collection of Karlsruhe court music featured works by Johann Molter, with some filler by his contemporaries. This volume brings one of those composers — Joseph Aloys Schmittbauer — to the fore. Schmittbauer was a well-respected composer and organist. One of his distinctions was copying Benjamin Franklin’s glass harmonica and then improving […]
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Margaretha Consort Delivers Authentic 17th C. German Christmas
Marit Broekroelofs and the Margretha Consort present a fascinating program of seasonal music. There are plenty of early Baroque Christmas albums to choose from, in just about every flavor. What makes this recording stand out is the consistency of the artistic vision. Broekroelofs has taken the seasonal repertoire of the early Protestant church and presents […]
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Das neugeborne Kindelein – Baroque Cantatas for the Season
This release presents Christmas cantatas from three German Baroque masters: Dieterich Buxtehude, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Johann Sebastian Bach. All three wrote cantatas for each Sunday of the Liturgical calendar. Buxtehude was of the generation before Telemann and Bach and was a model to the younger composers. His cantata Das neugeborne Kindelein opens the program. It’s […]
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Telemann Christmas Oratorios – stellar performances from the Kölner Akademie
For Telemann, 1730-31 was the “year of oratorios.” Given the rich musical resources of Hamburg, he wrote a series of oratorios for the liturgical year. Michael Alexander Willens and the Kölner Akademie perform three of these recently rediscovered works, all centered around Christmas. The Baroque oratorio was closely related to opera, and Telemann wrote accordingly. The […]
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Exceptional performances of Graupner cantatas
This release features three cantatas and two overtures by Christoph Graupner. Graupner was a contemporary of Bach, Handel, and Telemann, and their near-equal in talent. He spent most of his career at the court of Hesse-Darmstadt, composing over 1,400 works. The three cantatas on this release are early works, written between 1714 and 1725. Graupner […]
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Baroque Wind Quartets – Come for the Telemann, stay for the Molter
This release brings together music by two Kapellmeisters of Johann Wilhelm of Saxe-Eisenach. Georg Philip Telemann held the post first in 1709 and was succeeded by Johann Melchior Molter. The works presented on this release provide an interesting contrast in style between the two. The release features three of Telemann’s 1752 “Paris” quartets. These are […]
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F for Fake – Copyleft in 18th Century Music
I suspect the ubiquity of the term “fake news” inspired this compilation. But it does raise an interesting point. How much does authorship influence our assessment of a work? The Trio Glie Speziali present a variety of Baroque compositions that were attributed to others — some famous, and some not. Misattribution could be accidental. The […]
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More from the Stone Age of Early Music Performance
Back on June 26, 2017 I presented a Historic Radio Special on The Early Music Show, consisting of ‘early’ recordings of early music, beginning with the barely audible spectacle of a Handel oratorio captured on wax cylinders in 1888 to a formative solo disc of countertenor Alfred Deller singing a Thomas Morley tune, made around […]