Schmelzer: Sonata à 3

The versatile ensemble Caecilia-Concert, a group which specialises in the interpretation of 17th century music for instruments and voices, here perform pieces by a range of German and Italian Baroque composers who worked at the Habsburg Court including Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Johann Joseph Fux, Marco Antonio Ferro, and Antonio Bertali. The works included on this CD are among the last, highly virtuosic compositions for a range of period instruments like the cornetto and the dulcian. In the 18th century, the leading role of these instruments was taken over by more ‘modern’ instruments such as the baroque oboe, the baroque bassoon, not to mention the violin and cello, but during the 17th century compositions for these instruments were extremely popular at the Great court of the Habsburgs in Vienna. Many of the leading composers of the day, including Schmelzer and Fux, took up residence there and wrote many delightful pieces. The group Caecilia-Concert was formed in 2001 by a group of young instrumentalists who were already working at the forefront of authentic performance practice in Europe. The aim was to rediscover and bring to today’s audiences music which had been lost, forgotten about, or had simply lain for hundreds of years in the shadows of other great works. Since then, Caecilia-Concert has not only made a name for itself as a virtuosic, flexible, small-scale recital ensemble of the highest international level, but has on occasion, expanded to incorporate other instruments and singers performing rarely heard masterpieces from Italy, Germany, Austria and The Netherlands.

“We have recorded works by violinist-composers Biagio Marini, Antonio Bertali, and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer. Dario Castello is the exception: he was a brass player. Why did those composers pick the trombone, of all instruments, for this purpose, rather than, say, the horn? One of the reasons was that the trombone was the only brass instrument of that period which was capable of playing a complete chromatic scale. In other words, the trombone could execute melodies and runs in the same way as a violin. Around 1800, the newly-invented valves were added to trombones, horns, and trumpets. That made the chromatic scale possible for hornists and trumpeters as well, and it resulted in a kind of terrain shift. Later on, the trombone’s role within classical music was primarily within the symphonic orchestra, where it was used for color and reinforcement. But in music of the baroque period for small ensembles, the trombone was making music together with the strings, as a soloist.” (from liner notes by Katja Reichenfeld)