Zelenka Bern

Zelenka was a Bohemian contemporary of Bach, Handel and Telemann. He held a post as court musician at Dresden from 1710 until his death in 1745; but he travelled, too, and studied in Vienna with Fux, and also in Italy. These six trio sonatas are the only known chamber ensemble pieces by Zelenka, though he contributed a canon with 14 inversions to Telemann's periodical, Der getreue Music-Meister (1728–9). In five of the six sonatas Zelenka specifies two oboes and bassoon with two obbligato basses whilst in the remaining Sonata (No. 3) he requires the first oboe to be replaced by a violin. Zelenka's ''two obbligato basses'' have bewildered editors in the past.

This 55-CD set chronicles the remarkable Archiv label, begun in 1947. Devoted mainly to early and Baroque music, the recordings presented here, in facsimiles of their original sleeves (a nice touch), cover the period from Gregorian chant to Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth symphonies, played on period instruments. There are stops in between for a great deal of Bach, music of the Gothic era, the French Baroque (Mouret, Delalande, Rameau, etc), Gibbons, Handel (Alcina, La Resurrezione, Messiah, Italian cantatas), Telemann, Zelenka, Gabrieli, Desprez, Haydn, LeJeune, and plenty of the usual, as well as unusual, suspects. There’s also a final CD with selections of new releases (more Handel, Cavalli, Gesualdo, Vivaldi).