Lorenz Borsche

Throughout his life, from his very beginnings right up to the end, Telemann wrote for the basse de viole (as the French called it) and especially in chamber music. Of course, the viola da gamba also plays an important role in works intended for larger formations, such as concertos and orchestral suites, church cantatas and, lastly, oratorios. According to the custom of the time, Telemann also used the viol in funeral cantatas. Furthermore, he wrote for it as a solo instrument: for example, the Sonata in D major, TWV 40:1, recorded here, or sonatas for two viols or for viol and basso continuo. The present recording brings together various works with solo viol, selected from different periods of the masters output. Here one will find a double concerto for recorder, viol, strings and continuo, two solos with basso continuo, a sonata for solo viol and two quartets.

Johann Joseph Fux was a contemporary of Bach, but his compositions owe more to the lyrical, Austrian-Italian musical tradition of Biber, Muffat, and Schmelzer than to the contrapuntal complexities of his North German colleagues. This is all the more remarkable when you consider that he was the author of the most revered counterpoint textbook (Gradus ad Parnassum, Vienna, 1725) in the history of Western music. Written in Latin in the form of a Socratic dialog, the book offered such a thorough and systematic course of self-study in the musical language of “Golden Age” composers such as Palestrina, and was so immediately successful, that it completely obliterated Fux’s reputation as a composer.