Epoca

Hasse: Sonatas and Trio Sonatas represents the maiden voyage for decade-old period instrument ensemble Epoca Barocca on the Chandos label. For the occasion, Epoca Barocca has elected to perform six previously unrecorded chamber works of late Baroque composer Johann Adolf Hasse, which have scrupulously been sought out in manuscripts and early prints canvassed from the libraries of Europe.

Johann Friedrich Fasch was seven years younger than Georg Philipp Telemann was and outlived him by one year; Fasch, Telemann, and Johann Sebastian Bach all traveled in similar circles. In 1720, for example, both Fasch and Bach were gainfully employed in the courts of the Anhalt princes, Bach in Cöthen and Fasch in Zerbst. However, Telemann provided the model for the sonatas heard on CPO's Johann Friedrich Fasch: Trios & Sonatas, featuring Epocca Barocca, a period-instrument ensemble based in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany.

Janitsch was a superb contrapuntist, so it's fortunate his historically significant compositions are among the surviving manuscripts in the Archive of Berlin's Singakademie. In this recording on CPO, they offer the modern listener a vibrant impression of the cultured and imaginative spirit that animated Janitsch's Musical Academies in Berlin. The members of the chamber music ensemble Epoca Barocca share a passion for the performance of baroque music on original instruments, and their programmes regularly feature unjustly neglected works from the baroque era.

The quadri or quartets of Georg Philipp Telemann were among the first works to use that name and have sometimes been proposed as ancestors of the string quartet. They may or may not be that, but they're among Telemann's most progressive works, exploiting instrumental contrasts and pairing them with harmonic experiments. Sample the Quadro in E major for two transverse flutes and two cellos, TWV 43:E1, which could almost be early Haydn. The weakening role of the basso continuo in later Telemann chamber music like that on this album is shown by the fact that the quadro or trio designated by the work title sometimes includes the continuo and sometimes does not…