Rockets from Mannheim and fireworks from Linz

It was the CEO of cpo, Burkhardt Schmilgun, who had the idea. He asked Michi Gaigg if she would be interested in recording works from the Mannheim School and other pre-Classical composters. Hesitation… pre-Classical, this is no-man’s-land in music history, not Baroque anymore, not Classical yet, the era between eras. In short, neither fish nor fowl.

In this case then, shall we politely decline?

Well, on the other hand the pre-Classicals, including the Mannheim School, depict a time packed with contradictions and turmoils, with endings and new beginnings, with not anymore and not yet, in short, as Michi Gaigg says, a time in which everything seems to be found at the wayside. It is a way leading straight to Vienna, to Haydn and Mozart. In the meantime Michi Gaigg and the L’Orfeo Barockorchester have recorded more than a dozen CD’s with works from this period and have grown to become advocates and experts for this music. Nobody knows the lumps and bumps of Fils and Holzbauer better, know how to dust down Gluck and Leopold Mozart and know where to find the end of the cord to ignite Wagenseil and Monn’s fireworks.

Off to Mannheim then!