Johann Sebastian Bach: Christmas Oratorio BWV 248
Parts (Cantatas) I-III

Maria Ladurner, soprano
Alois Mühlbacher, alto
Virgil Hartinger, tenor
Markus Volbert, bass
Collegium Vocale Salzburg
L’Orfeo Barockorchester
Michi Gaigg, conductor

Johann Sebastian Bach: Christmas Oratorio BWV 248
Parts (Cantatas) I-VI

Johanna Falkinger, soprano
Monika Schwabegger, alto
Daniel Johannsen, tenor
N.N., bass
L’Orfeo Barockorcher
H. Ewald Nathanael Donhoffer, direction

Franz Schubert: Arias and Romances from:
Adrast D 137 (1819-21), Die Zauberharfe D 644 (1820), Lazarus D 689 (1820),
Alfonso und Estrella D 732 (1821-22) and Fierabras D 796 (1823)
Symphony No. 2 in B flat major D 125 (1814-15)

Daniel Behle, tenor
L’Orfeo Barockorchester
Michi Gaigg, conductor

“To embark on this excursion with Behle’s wonderfully luminous and elegantly lavish tenor is like a journey through lush greenery and light-flooded summer freshness.” (BR Klassik) The programme sounds as poetic as this review – the titles of Schubert’s Singspiels and operas alone let the imagination run wild: “Die Zauberharfe”, “Alfonso and Estrella” or “Fierabras”. These enchanting gems of the opera repertoire have rarely been heard on German stages. And it is undoubtedly to the credit of Hamburg tenor Daniel Behle that he is bringing Schubert’s astonishingly extensive stage works, which with few exceptions were never performed even during his lifetime, back to life.

Johann Stamitz: Sinfonia I [in D major] from: Sei Sinfonie a piu istrumenti intitolate La Melodia Germanica Op. XI (1758)
Antonio Rosetti: Concerto in G a Oboe principale (c. 1780)
Anton Fils: Symphonia II [in G minor] from: Six Simphonies à quatre parties obligées Œuvre IIme (1760)
Franz Xaver Richter: Sinfonia IV [in D minor] from: Sei Sinfonie a più strumenti opera IIIa (1760)
Carl Stamitz: Simphonie concertante [in E flat major] à plusieurs instruments et exécutée au Concert spirituel
for violin, oboe, viola and bassoon solo (1775)
Ignaz Holzbauer: Sinfonia I [in E flat major] from: Six Simphonies à huit parties obligées Œuvre IIIe (1769)

Carin van Heerden & Philipp Wagner, oboe
Julia Huber-Warzecha, violin
Lucas Schurig-Breuß, viola
Makiko Kurabayashi, bassoon
L’Orfeo Barockorchester
Michi Gaigg, conductor

What would they have been, the masters of the Mannheim School – first and foremost Johann Stamitz as its founder, his sons Carl and Anton, the Kapellmeister of Viennese origin, Ignaz Holzbauer, who was appointed to him in 1753, the supposed outsider and lateral thinker Franz Xaver Richter or their congenial, early deceased comrade-in-arms Anton Fils, without the European musical capital of the time, Paris, and its lively and broad-based publishing scene? It was precisely these minds and their innovative musical creations that decisively shaped concert life there from the late 1750s to the 1780s – an outstanding position that was only to be disputed by the works of a certain Joseph Haydn.