The program takes you on a wonderful journey through Baroque Italy, illuminating compositions of different colors written for recorder and basso continuo. Some of the...

The program takes you on a wonderful journey through Baroque Italy, illuminating compositions of different colors written for recorder and basso continuo. Some of the great music centers of the time – Milan, Venice and Naples – are visited and the listener can immerse themselves in a bygone era. Various styles emerged in these centers, which are known today as the "Venetian school" and the "Neapolitan school", and which ultimately lead to the "gallant style". Major influences from Arcangelo Corelli's compositional style can also be heard in some of the sonatas in the program. As soon as the instrument recorder appears, one always asks oneself whether this was a marginal instrument or whether it could have been of great importance within the music scene. What is certain is that there are numerous sonatas composed specifically for this instrument, as well as extensive contemporary transcriptions of the oboe and violin repertoire for recorder. Influenced by the great popularity of the recorder, composers such as the German-speaking oboe virtuoso Sieber also decided to travel to Italy in order to become respected masters of this instrument.

The present program therefore consists exclusively of works that exist in an original historical manuscript. The manuscripts are now scattered in numerous libraries from Europe to the USA - and yet they all have one thing in common: they contain wonderful sonatas for recorder and basso continuo, all of which were composed in Italy within 30 years. And the deeper you finally delve into this program, the more amazed you can be about the variety and also about some mysteries that suddenly open up...