Galant Court Music

At the centre of these world premiere recordings is what is believed to be the only surviving work of Franz Xaver Hassl (1708-1757), a composer barely known to us these days, Hassl wrote the trio sonatas whilst director of music at the Prince-Bishop's court in Pruntrut/Porrentruy where they were most likely performed within an ecclesiastical setting. The sonatas are framed by three sacred arias found in a song collection by Zurich's town trumpeter, Johann Ludwig Steiner (1688-1761) and a selection of canzonettas by Johan Freidrich Agricola (1722-1774) illustrating the secular side of this charming 'galant' music.

Though the music of Ernst Gottlieb Baron (1696–1760) is scarcely known to the wider public, the complete edition of his surviving compositions presented by Jan W.J. Burgers in 2005 (which forms the basis for the recordings on this CD) offers an excellent opportunity to study and perform the works of this late Baroque master and restore them to the status they deserve.

The Boston Early Music Festival has recorded George Frideric Handel’s very first opera, Almira, Queen of Castile, with a superlatively sumptuous ensemble. For its previous recordings of Baroque operas this successful ensemble has won prizes such as the Grammy, the German Record Critics Annual Prize, and the Echo Klassik. The Hungarian soprano Emõke Baráth sings the role of Almira with a choice ensemble of singers, all of whom have performed in the world’s most renowned concert halls and opera houses. Handel’s Almira is based on a freely invented plot featuring fine entertainment in the form of love and marriage schemes among the nobility, infidelity and mistaken identities, and a happy ending brought about by a court servant’s negotiations. This work was presented at the Hamburg Opera House in 1705 about twenty times and with great success.

Carl Theodor of the Palatinate. Richter joined this renowned ensemble in 1747, serving as a composer, violinist, and bassist. His works combine Baroque stylistic features with elements of the style galant, and he numbered among the masters of the Mannheim school who made very important contributions to the beginnings of the early classical symphony. While Johann Stamitz, Ignaz Holzbauer, and Anton Fils, drawing on ideas of Italian provenance, shaped the new musical language of what came to be known as the Mannheim school, Richter’s own comparatively conservative view of music was an obstacle to his advancement. His collection of Six Symphonies op. 2 dedicated to Prince Elector Carl Theodor was printed by the publisher Johann Julius Hummel in Amsterdam in 1759. All six symphonies have three movements, and in these works Richter generally adhered to the model established by the opera sinfonia.

Johann Gottlieb Janitsch (1708-1763) was born in Schweidnitz, Silesia (today Poland). His special inclination towards music led him to undertake a brief period of study in Breslau (today Wroclaw) with the court musicians who were under the employment of the Archbishop of Breslau. In 1733 Janitsch moved to Berlin where the then Crown Prince, Frederick offered him a position as a double bass player. With the permission of the Crown Prince, he founded the circle "Freitagsakademien" (Friday academies), in which music was performed by professional and amateur musicians alike.

Both C.P.E. Bach and Franz Benda were composers who enjoyed the favour of the court of Frederick the Great and who developed a highly individual and lasting style of music in the monarch's service. Though ‘Old Fritz’ demanded works in the pleasing galant style for his almost daily music sessions from his court musicians, Franz Benda succeeded in humouring the king without stooping to compromise quality. His three concertos for flute seem to have been tailor-made for Frederick II; in the galant style, yet full of sensitivity and profound emotion.

These five solo concertos from the Swedish Rococo are all typical of the period. The most interesting aspect is how they manifest variations of the European model. And the model is the concerto for one or, sometimes, several soloistic instruments in three movement followed by a slower, lyrical one and a fast final movement.