Stölzel: Quadri di Dresda e Bruxelles

tölzel & Epoca Barocca The importance of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel was taken for granted by his contemporaries. A highly esteemed composer mentioned in the same breath with Bach, Telemann, and Handel, he was maestro di cappella at the court of Saxe-Gotha and Altenberg for thirty years. Today his name has largely vanished from our concert programs, but not from the cpo catalogue. That Stölzel did remarkable things in the field of sacred music has already been impressively demonstrated by our previous releases, including his Christmas Oratorio and Brockes Passion. Now we give you Stölzel the composer of chamber music. His Quadri di Dresda e Bruxelles for oboe, horn, bassoon, and basso continuo thrives on the Italianate concertante interplay of these instruments. Fully in line with Quantz's notion of the "mingling of concertizing instruments," Stölzel unites all three melody parts in a sensitive texture of motivic imitation where even the continuo has occasional moments of glory. He gives each player an opportunity to stand out as a soloist while the others remain discretely in the background. The members of Epoca Barocca, a chamber ensemble founded and inspired by Alessandro Piqué, again display their common passion for presenting this music on period instruments.