In the Baroque era, European society turned it's gaze to foreign countries in the Orient, with Persia exerting a particular fascination that was not necessarily anthropological in nature. Foreign countries and figures made it possible, for example in Montesquieu's famous Lettres Persanes (1721), to express and disseminate the new Enlightenment ideas, such as criticism of absolutism, under the guise of the exotic. However, music was less philosophical or anthropological: Persian themes tended to provide a special "kick" in opera or instrumental music. Gambist Simone Eckert presents such works with Persian subjects with her Hamburger Ratsmusik on the new album Persian & Baroque and has teamed up with the Neoclassical Ensemble of Tehran for this. This formation, under the direction of musicologist Arash Mohafez, specializes in Persian music that has been passed down in ancient manuscripts, while traditional Persian musicians and ensembles usually play music that has been passed down orally and whose origins only go back to the 19th century. The Neoclassical Ensemble complements the baroque program with classical Persian pieces from surviving manuscripts from the 17th and 18th centuries. The special feature of the cooperation between these two formations is that both the European baroque repertoire and the Persian classical repertoire are shared by the ensembles.

Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750) left behind an enormous oeuvre of over 600 works for and with lute, which not only impresses with it's virtuosity but also with it's musical quality and characterises him both as a composer of the first rank and documents his exceptional status as a lutenist. Bernhard Hofstotter ignites a firework display of virtuoso baroque lute music.

Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729) was the most famous composer of the Ancien Regime. With the generous support of Louis XIV, she was able to work as a harpsichordist, organist, teacher and composer. Fifteen years ago, Daniela Dolci and Musica Fiorita presented chamber music by her that easily bears comparison with the works of her male colleagues of the time.

The fact that the virtuoso violin sonatas from 1681, in contrast to the Mystery Sonatas, still receive little attention in today's concert repertoire is astonishing given the unbridled musical inventiveness of this music. Gunar Letzbor and Ars Antiqua Austria emphasise this aspect in their first recording of this collection from 1994 with a varied continuo line-up.

This CD brings together some particularly attractive compositions written for Karlsruhe by the court conductors and musicians of the margraves of Baden. The pieces convey an impression of the rich and lively musical life in Karlsruhe from the early 18th to the early 19th century, which in no way needs to shy away from comparison with south-west German musical metropolises such as Mannheim or Stuttgart.

The new CD by the Capricornus Consort Basel is dedicated to Georg Philipp Telemann - exclusively works for strings in a wide variety of scorings, sometimes with and sometimes without basso continuo. Each of them documents across various creative periods Telemann's fascinating wealth of musical ideas, his adept sense of form and style, his creative approach to tradition and his constant interest in artistic innovation. Added to this is a large pinch of humour, which culminates in the eponymous 'Gulliver's Suite': Telemann sets the adventures of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver on his travels to music in absurd time signatures: The dwarves appear in 3/32nd time with tiny note values up to 128th, the giants can only perform the (otherwise fast) gigue very sedately due to huge note values or Telemann refers to the mathematical interest of the islanders by representing the time signature as a formula. The Capricornus Consort Basel, highly praised for it's subtle and sensitive interpretations and decorated with prizes, allows Telemann's wealth of ideas to shine in a colourful way, which will hopefully convince even the last person who still thinks Telemann is a second-rate prolific writer of the opposite!

The motet Lord, make me an instrument of your peace by the young composer Noah Roloff (*1999) was the catalyst for the founding of the chamber choir Voces Palatinae and also for this CD. The piece was written at the beginning of the war in Ukraine and picks up on the mood of this event and the associated longing for peace. What all the pieces on this program have in common is that they express a deep longing for peace, which is given particularly intense emphasis here with the wonderful choral sound of the young vocal ensemble.

Vocal Music (German Baroque) - Buxtehude, D. / Tunder, F. /

Classical Music

Kreiser: St. Mark Passion

Chamber Music - ABEL, C.F. / QUANTZ, J.J. / BENDA, F. / TELE

The brief heyday of the Anhaltinische Hof in Zerbst (Saxony-Anhalt) coincided with the work of it's court Kapellmeister Johann Friedrich Fasch. The benevolent and prudent Prince Johann August von Anhalt-Zerbst (1677-1742) expanded his court orchestra and engaged outstanding musicians for this purpose. The duties of his Kapellmeister were varied and extensive, including providing special compositions for the birthdays of the ruling family. For the prince's birthday on 9 June 1723, he composed "The Four Day Times", a serenata for four soloists and a very colourful and lavish orchestra. With Aurora (the morning), Phoebus (the noon), Hesperus (the evening) and Cynthia (the night), the deities of the four times of day appear to pay homage to the ruler. The programme is complemented by an equally colourful four-movement Fantasia, which unusually requires three different soloist scorings: first 2 oboes, then 2 transverse flutes and the last two movements are then a first version of Fasch's concerto for chalumeau, the preliminary form of the clarinet. All works are world premiere recordings.

Johann Kuhnau (1670-1722), Bach's eternal 'predecessor' as Leipzig's Thomaskantor, has only been rediscovered in recent years and his true greatness has not yet been truly recognised. He was highly respected by his contemporaries, however, and not just as a musician: he had a doctorate, worked as a lawyer, wrote satirical novels - a polymath... His musical oeuvre must have been extensive, much of it is lost. It is therefore all the more pleasing that his magnificent Christmas cantata "Frohlocket, ihr Volker, und jauchzet, ihr Heiden" ['Rejoice, ye nations, and shout for joy, ye heathen'] has been preserved. It opens the programme on this CD and, with it's instrumentation and duration of over 25 minutes, surpasses many a great cantata by his famous successor. The quality of his work is also evident in his second cantata "Uns ist ein Kind geboren" ['A child has been born to us']: it was long regarded as a work by Johann Sebastian Bach! Peter Gortner with the chamber choir of the Christuskirche Karlsruhe and the orchestra L'arpa festante complements these two Kuhnau cantatas with well-known movements by Michael Praetorius and Johannes Eccard to create a festive Christmas CD.

Sabine Lutzenberger and ensemble officium have built up an outstanding reputation for sacred vocal music from the early Middle Ages through the Renaissance to the Baroque. This 3-CD box set contains the beautiful chants of the Cistercians.

Classical Music