After several years in the pipeline (mostly due to the bottleneck known as “my desk”), over 50 volumes are already available, but the final few titles are in the finally stages of proof-reading and final formatting.

I have recently been in discussion with Matthias Kirsch, who reckons that Pohle did not composer all of the 20 sonatas that survive as an incomplete set of partbooks at the Murhardsche Bibliothek in Kassel. Whilst additional manuscripts seem to confirm his authorship of some (those in Uppsala, for example), sources in other collections attribute some works to Antonio Bertali, and there certainly seems – even to me – a great disparity in the quality of some of the music. Even when there are multiple sources, they are rarely unanimous and in one case I have been forced to produce two editions, as the “versions” are so different.

There remain two problems – the marvellous Sonata a8 (recorded  which is not in a source of which I do not yet have a copy, and two other Kassel sonatas with missing Violin 1 parts which are so esoteric that even an arch inventor / pasticheur like me is struggling! Usually I find such work a thrilling challenge, but there two have me pulling my hair out! Anyone fancy giving it a go?

For those of you still unfamiliar with David Pohle’s output, click here (but not before getting some tissues!)

In other pieces, he seems to obsess on a particular rhythm. This is the case in the sister orchestral suite in G major, again for three oboes, bassoon and continuo. Here both the opening section of the French overture with which the suite begins and the ensuing “fugue” use the same rhythm. All previous renditions I have heard failed to solve the conundrum of how to make two such similar pieces work side by side with one another. Prima la musica! recently produced a new edition of the work, and it was used for the first time in a recent concert in Poland by a baroque orchestra called Musica Humana. If you have never heard of them, don’t worry – I had not either. Just remember that you read about them here first, as this is a formidable ensemble with a very bright future ahead of them!

Their approach is simply to allow the opening section, typically treated as rather edgy (let’s say mostly over-dotted) manner, making more drama of the style than the music, to relax and breathe, almost in a 12/8 sort of way – allowing the strings plenty of time to resonate and the wind players lots of time to shape their notes in a way that a faster tempo would have prevented. Then the faster middle section is just that – not the blur of notes at the speed of light, mind; instead we hear sprightly oboes and wonderfully dexterous ensemble from the strings (especially nice to hear the violas’ contribution!) The remainder of the suite is equally fresh and, somehow, just right. My favourite moment (which I hesitate to mention, as some people will find the very idea shocking and heretical) is in Fasch’s “signature movement”, the Jardiniers: just as he is about to re-introduce the theme towards the end of the second half, they let the music die away to nothing, and then dramatically burst in at full volume – I can imagine this being just the sort of joke Mr Fasch would have loved

Musica Humana are certainly no one-trick pony, though – the other work on the live recording they sent me was a sinfonia by Bach, in which once again the mellifluous woodwinds were beautifully balanced by the incisive string playing.

Their next orchestral project in Warsaw is a concert of music by Joseph Martin Kraus. Any performance of his music is well worth hearing, but I am more than sure that these performances will be VERY special. If you find yourself in Warsaw at the time of their concerts, make sure you go along!

Check out their facebook page for the latest news.

Have recently been working on some large scale motets by Lully. The first source I was sent was a lovely scan of a Brossard studio score. All went well until the last section. A couple of pages had not been scanned, and then a couple more, and then – horror of horrors – the end was missing!

Eventually, new sources were supplied; another contemporary score and a beautiful set of parts, engraved by order of no less a personage than Louis XIV himself!

Now, while these have proved invaluable, they have not been without their own difficulties. The score, for example, may be complete but it has far more copying errors than the other. The parts are gorgeous but they differ from both scores in a variety of ways. All very puzzling!

In the end, I have decided that the parts will serve as the primary source, especially as some have contemporary corrections. Hopefully the musicians and the audience will enjoy the results of my labours!

A marvellous rendition of Telemann’s A minor suite with recorder opened the programme – soloist Andreas Böhlen embellished the composer’s already challenging lines without ever interrupting the flow of the music, and the supporting ensemble (two pairs of violins, one viola, with cello, bassoon, bass, harpsichord and organ continuo) provided a beautifully shaped backdrop for his virtuoso display.

The next soloist was the organist, Masato Suzuki (son of the group’s director, Masaaki), in Handel’s Concerto in F, Op. 4 No. 4. A pair of oboes joined the accompaying band (including the fabulous San’nomiya Masamitsu and the versatile Andreas Böhlen) for a lively account – it was very easy to imagine Handel improvising such things in the intervals of his operas, which Suzuki junior’s skilful manipulation of the music’s pulse.

The thing I love about this ensemble is the way each individual part in the texture is allowed to speak democratically. Somehow the single viola player is able to cut through the treble and bass instruments with ease.

After the interval came two works by Johann Sebastian Bach – Ryo Terakado and Yukie Yamaguchi were the outstanding soloists in a well-paced and beautifully executed reading of the Concerto in D minor for two violins, and soprano Joanne Lunn pretty much stole the show with some of the best Bach singing I have ever heard in the concert hall. She not only crafted every note with great care, and shaped every line to match Masamitsu’s sinewy oboe obbligatos, but she conveyed the blissful ecstasy of the cantata’s text through her facial expressions and her body movements.

As if that were not enough, the group’s choice of encore (the final aria from the cantata they will performed tomorrow night (Saturday, 3rd March), Mein Herze schwimmt in Blut) was another utter joy – Wie freudig ist mein Herz; if the congregation of St Thomas’s Leipzig left church with the same spring in their step as I left the Perth Concert Hall last night (and that tune ringing in their ears), no wonder there were grumblings at the time about Bach’s music being too theatrical!

I, for one, cannot wait to hear Saturday’s concert when two more soloists will be showing us that every part of the Bach Collegium Japan is taken by virtuosi! I hope even more people will turn out to take advantage of the truly amazing opportunity to hear them.

This was no mere topping and tsiling exercise. This was a full-on run through the programme and, if I already sounded excited yesterday, I now cannot wait for the concert tomorrow, when the presence of an audience can only serve to draw even more exhilarating performances!

If you are one of those people who think recorders are for children, you are in for a big surprise. And, if you never heard Joanne Lunn singing Bach, prepare yourself for some of the most beautiful and eloquent expressions of joy you are ever likely to hear in these parts.

They only decided to come last night, so the flights have cost an arm and a leg. But you can imagine my amazement when I went to find out about tickets that none of the concerts is sold out. Indeed, there are still a large number of spaces at all prices! The fact that such a fabulous group has given four days to the Perth residence – they have no other uk dates this year – is astonishing. If large numbers of music lovers do not turn out to hear and appreciate them, I shall despair of Scotland’s cultural future…

I’ve rather neglected my blog for the past few months – mostly because I’ve been obliged to completely re-write www.primalamusica.com – and it was only because I received an email saying someone was following it that made me think, “oh well, I’d best write something…”

As far as musical anniversaries go, 2012 is John Stanley’s year, and I hope there will be LOTS of performances of his very fine music. Sadly not much has survived in readily accessible form. Over the course of the year, I will be producing editions of his Op. X concertos (for keyboard, two violins and continuo) in conjunction with Tempesta di Mare‘s Richard Stone. Typical of the man, he has actual programmed such radically unfamiliar music in the Philadelphia group’s concert season – it’s a little too far for me to travel, but I will definitely be there in spirit (and hopefully I’ll get to see a video of the event…)

Of course, 2012 is also an anniversary year for Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, and if I thought anyone would perform / record them, I would be editing his works, too…

Other projects on the go include the surviving works from two complete cycles of church cantatas by the Darmstadt Kapellmeister, Christoph Graupner, for which the ever-resourceful Kim Clow has put together an impressive array of editors, lending their support to the project. There are a LOT of cantatas involved, so let’s hope that German church choirs take up the challenge to perform some of them. The two cycles selected are those for 1712-13 and 1740-41. There is much fine music for choir and soloists.

I am hoping that Cosimo Stawiarski and myself will complete the Geist Edition in 2012, and similarly that the Pohle Edition (in conjunction with Gottfried Gille and Juliane Peetz) will reach completion. My brief but thoroughly enjoyable trip to Copenhagen last November proved that Geist more than ably stands beside Buxtehude, who is something of a deity on Danish soil. More performances of Pohle and Geist can only help spread their popularity.

Actually, the first concert I heard in Copenhagen included music by other obscure cantatas, and NONE of their work seemed second rate – the was a particularly beautiful psalm setting by Kaspar Förster the Elder.

I am currently helping Gwen Toth in her preparations for two concert programmes in February, built around Johann Rosenmüller’s music – the first of sonatas and music with solo voices, the second of larger settings with strings and brass: an rich feast for the ears!

As the website re-write nears completion, you can look forward to new release blogs at regular intervals again.

Any requests gladly received and considered!

Of course he knows that is not the case. He extols the virtues of Hyperion’s English Orpheus series (which I totally agree with, though with a tinge of sadness as I recently learned that there would be no further volumes), and he lists a whole variety of discs of music by Garth, Mudge and William Hayes that he has reviewed in Finland.

As a publisher of obscure music, you would think that this would play right into my hands – surely I have lots and lots of music waiting for those keen to explore the riches of the English Baroque (and, as a proud Scotsman, I choose my words well), but no; until there is a market, why would I invest my time? Besides, there are perfectly good facsimile sets of much of the orchestral music already available from the likes of The Early Music Company.

2012, however, might just change that. It is the 300th anniversary of the birth of an English composer who really does deserve to be remembered: John Stanley. True, there is not a lot of surviving music apart from the concerti and the organ voluntaries. If I produce performing sets of his 15 surviving chamber cantatas, would anyone out there buy them? Perform them? Even more interesting for me would be if some larger group were interested enough to pay me to produce an edition of his oratorio “The Fall of Egypt”, or reconstruct “Zimri”…

Only once at a previous Fasch-Festtage have I been really *excited* to hear Fasch’s music. When the Sonatori della Gioiosa Marca gave us an Italian take on his oeuvre, it was *so* different to the normal German take – there was a sparkle and an energy to their performances; it was somehow like re-discovering why I love baroque music.

The 18 musicians of Tempesta di Mare gave me precisely that sensation tonight, too – they didn’t just play the notes, they really got under Fasch’s skin and sought out nuances of phrasing that have evaded many a “more famous” ensemble (in these parts, at least). Frankly, I was shocked that mdr (the regional state radio station, which had recorded the two previous concerts I attended – the second of which I did not even review here, for fear of upsetting some of the performers) thought it somehow appropriate NOT to record the first ever appearance at these events of a group from outside Europe – and what a great error of judgment THAT turned out to be. Word among those of the audience who actually knew anything about music and performance was that, quite simply, this was the best Fasch they had ever heard in all the years of the Zerbst Festtage. The Kantor of the Bartholomäikirche was particularly impressed by the way they brought the music to life. Four winners of the Fasch-Preis der Stadt Zerbst (people honoured by the city for their work on the composer and his music) were absolutely in agreement.

That is hardly surprising, though; Tempesta di Mare already have one very successful CD of Fasch’s orchestral music under their belt and are preparing a second; they’ve given several concerts of his music in the States; it is repertoire they love playing, and it is self-evident from their performances! From the intimacy of the lute concerto (with co-director Richard Stone as soloist, accompanied by a reduced band), through the drama and excitement of a slightly sinister-sounding sinfonia (directed by principle violinist Emlyn Ngai), to two large concertos and an overture suite (featuring the other co-director Gwym Roberts on 1st flute), there was nothing fault in the entire evening.

I say: Shame on you, mdr! And, what’s more, your loss!

The 11th festival devoted to the life and works of Johann Friedrich Fasch and his son, Carl Fasch (best known as founder of the Sing-Academie in Berlin) started this evening in the Sachsen-Anhalt town of Zerbst, where Fasch senior was Kapellmeister from September 1722 until his death in 1758.

After the formal introductions from the mayor, a representative of the Sachsen-Anhalt Culture Minister and Barbara Reul, the current President of the International Fasch Society (though not for much longer!), the Fasch-Preis der Stadt Zerbst was awarded to Hans-Heinrich Kriegel, who works as an orchestral oboist in Bochum, and who founded the Fasch Collegium in Bochum (with whom he has played for over 20 years now!), and who has edited and published dozens of previously unavailable works by J. F. Fasch.

The concert which followed was given by the Main-Barockorchester Frankfurt, and included works by Fasch (father and son!), and three major Dresden contemporaries – Heinichen, Pisendel and Zelenka. For most of the time, the band consisted of strings with double reeds and continuo. Works included a jolly D major sinfonia and the celebrated C minor concerto for Bassoon with 2 oboes and strings by Fasch (senior) – though parts of the latter were a little hasty for my taste – and a fine performance of Pisendel’s G minor violin concerto by leader, Martin Jopp. The concert ended with a piece of sheer indulgence – two flutes and two horns joined the ensemble for the 1st modern performance of a Sinfonia in F, reputedly written by 16-year-old Carl Fasch. Making allowances for his youth, it was not a bad effort, but it was hardly the prodigious stuff Mozart or Mendelssohn came up with.

Inevitably with a performance that was being broadcast live on radio, there were delays and hiccups, so it was hardly surprising that there was an odd squeak from an oboe, but overall this was a thoroughly professional performance, though I would question their decision to seat the double reeds at the front of the ensemble – how is the 2nd oboist to follow indications from the 2nd violins who are behind him?

Although I loved the music and enjoyed the performances, I will most remember this concert for the last person in the hall to switch off their mobile phone being one of the performers…