American organist James D. Hicks continues his exploration of organ music by Nordic composers, with performances upon the 1980 Virtanen pipe organ of Turku Cathedral, and the 2002 Gronlund's organ of St. Michael's Church, Turku, Finland. This installment features works by Fridthjov Anderssen, Peter Askergren, Juhani Pohjanmies, Arild Sandvold, and more. James D. Hicks lives and works in Bernardsville, New Jersey, and holds degrees in music from the Peabody Institute of Music, Yale University, and the University of Cincinnati. Other studies include instruction at the Royal School of Church Music in England. He is an associate of the American Guild of Organists. Hicks held liturgical positions throughout the eastern United States, and in 2011 retired after 26 years of service at The Presbyterian Church in Morristown, New Jersey. He has recorded seven collections of music on the Pro Organo label.

This recording is a modern portrait of the music that Swedish clavier-players might have carried to the organ in the latter half of the 1700s. Since hardly any Swedish music of the time was written exclusively for the organ, we must rely on historical sources for a sense of the possibilities. The selection offered here is largely a work of reconstruction, and except for the short movement by Roman, none of this repertoire has been recorded before, at least in this form for organ. Jonas Lundblad is an organist and musicologist. He studied church music in Malmö, Lübeck and Piteå, specializing in organ interpretation. A prolific freelance career performing both as an organ soloist and with choirs and orchestras has taken him to countries across Europe. When choosing repertoire, he looks mainly to the Romantic era and to new music, and enjoys delving into the sources to discover unknown or forgotten works. While a student for Hans-Ola Ericsson, he performed the complete works of Olivier Messiaen. Since then, the music and mental landscape of Messiaen have remained one his central influences.

Naples and Venice were two of the most important centers for music in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries. On this new recording of baroque recorder concertos from Italy, the Bremen Baroque Orchestra and Clara Guldberg Ravn once again demonstrate their great joy of playing and the highest quality of baroque performance practice. In addition to well-known works by Antonio Vivaldi and the recorder evergreen by Giuseppe Sammartini, the young Danish recorder player has also ventured into rather unknown baroque works by the Neapolitan Nicola Fiorenza and the Swede Johan Helmich Roman.

Throughout the years, Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble have had the opportunity to work and tour in a number of countries and continents, among them the United States, China, Australia, Spain, Germany, France, and Japan. Many esteemed artists and musical directors have chosen to collaborate with the ensemble. In Sweden, concerts have been arranged together with Eric Ericsons Kammarkör and Bachkören. Among international names may be mentioned the directors Christopher Hogwood, Andrew Parrott, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Sigiswald Kuijken, Emmanuelle Haïm, and Alfredo Bernardini, as well as soloists such as Anne Sofie von Otter, Malena Ernman, and Emma Kirkby.

Roman was Kapellmeister at the court in Stockholm and certainly the most important Swedish composer of the 18th century. He was trained by Handel and Pepusch, among others, and was familiar with all musical developments in Europe thanks to two extensive educational journeys. The works recorded here likely represent all of Roman's compositions in which the oboe, whether single or double, plays a solo role. In many other works, we find oboes as orchestral instruments, though they almost always double the strings and only rarely appear as soloists in individual sections.

Göteborg Baroque is pleased to announce the release of Johan Helmich Roman's Then Svenska Messan, one of the most significant and beloved works in Swedish music history. Roman was a pioneer who was far ahead of his time, and today we see him as the founder

Through this exciting recording, the violinist Fabio Biondi pursues his exploration of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century repertoire for solo violin. Two years after his complete recording of Johann Sebastian Bach’s solo Sonatas and Partitas (V 5467), he lands on entirely unknown territory, the Assaggi by the Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758). Rarely lasting more than twelve minutes, the Assaggi is thus a fascinating melting-pot of multiple aesthetics in vogue in Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Fabio Biondi champions this little-known territory of the European late baroque with a voracious generosity and highly eloquent sense of phrase.

In his own time, Roman was an important figure in the violin world. His career led him to the four corners of Europe, affording him the opportunity to meet many crucially important figures on the German and more southern musical stages, composers as well as renowned performers, especially when he was in Italy, where he visited Tartini. He also played with Handel. In Dresden, he met Pisendel, then dazzling everyone with his playing. In Hamburg, he probably met Telemann, whose Fantasias for Solo Violin, a highly creative and secret aspect of the great North German baroque master’s work, he studied intensely.

All of these encounters had a long-term influence on Johan Helmich Roman’s style, a different and important take on les goûts réunis. If the highly polyphonic structures of the Assaggi naturally remind us of the Swede’s Saxon origins (BeRI 314), if their study-like nature willingly brings to mind the twenty-four Fantasias of Telemann, works as much intended for professional musicians as for accomplished amateurs (the last movement of BeRI 310), the harmonies, which like the melodic outlines in Roman’s work are subtly tinged with an Italianate flavour, clearly recall contrasting works by Tartini (the second part of BeRI 320 for instance, or again the Andante of BeRI 324).