The Grand Tour: German Baroque Music • Freiburger Barockorchester

The baroque orchestra centered in Freiburg has had significant recording career, across multiple labels. This new release on Aparte is a live concert recording featuring music from various German sources, collected on a supposed route from Freiburg to Berlin. Such a concert program fulfills two needs, as far as HIPP performances are concerned: it presents us with the familiar alongside the new.

The music of Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer for me has been presented already through his compositions for solo keyboard. His six-movement suite “Le journal du Printemps” opens this recording. This piece an ode to France with its style, a short opening “overture” is followed by dances: an entrée, rondeau, gavotte, menuet, and passacaille. Oboes and bassoon join strings. It might not be surprising that this work includes a strong whiff of France, as the composer may have studied with the Versailles-based Italian named Lully.

From the pen of Johann Christoph Pez comes a Concerto Pastorale, another orchestral suite, this one seven movements. Recorders lend the piece is pastoral affiliation. The highlight for many may be the longer movement, another passacaglia.

My favorite key of G minor is the center of Johann Sigismund Kusser’s orchestral suite “Apollon enjoué” in eleven movements (many are very short).

Thanks to the pioneering work by Musica Antiqua Köln, readers may already be familiar with this “Bachiana” piece by Johann Ludwig Bach, the Overture in G major. For me personally, it’s nice to have another recording of this piece, whose nearly quirky affect is at once familiar hearing it again. Freiburg’s interpretation here is lighter in touch, which I think suits the music.

The last two works fall into what I imagine is familiar territory for readers: a pairing of Telemann’s famous E minor blue and violin concerto TWV 52:e3 and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 2, BWV 1047.

There’s no question the group kept the best for last; the flute playing in the Telemann comes with sensitive playing by Daniela Lieb, a seductive contribution. The Bach features trumpet player Moritz Görg, who for me, comes a bit forward in the balance, I’m assuming no fault of his own. (And yes, we can wonder what Bach was doing pairing a recorder with a trumpet!)

The live recording reveals to us some pros and cons; for some of the pieces the stereo effect with strings on either side is enjoyable, with the ensemble at full energy not presenting in extreme synchronicity. While that is something you want, the minute mismatch helps us remember this is “real.” The third movement of the Telemann gives the group’s leader, Gottfried von der Goltz a little run for his money, given that the solo is a bit relentless. I think Goebel’s recording of this in the late 1980s was a bit tidier, but again, in real life this lick should give us the sense that the soloist has worked up a sweat. That authenticity was maintained.

The sound on this recording too benefits, I think, from the live presentation. Live concerts often can be hit or miss, depending upon the hall and how many microphones are employed across the ensemble. Really good bass presentation shows itself as well as a convincing sense of soundstage.

Programmatically, there might be a case for having presented suites by Telemann and J.S. Bach to keep up with the earlier theme, but on the concerto side, I felt a bit more spontaneity from the musicians than what is typical in recordings. Again, this may well be the benefit of capturing a live performance.

This album likely will be of interest to those who closely follow this ensemble and have collected their recordings. The album works well on its own as an hour of entertainment; for those in search of the less familiar, the front portion of this album may well be listeners will spend the most time.