Deutsche Grammophon has signed a long-term deal with the acclaimed period-instrument ensemble – and multiple Gramophone Award-winners – Freiburger Barockorchester.

The partnership will see the Yellow Label issue a series of albums by the group over several years, starting with an album exploring Mozart’s connections with Mannheim, a great European musical centre in the 18th century, setting his music alongside those of composers he’d have encountered visiting the court of the Elector Palatine in the late 1770s.

Works on that first album will include the world premiere recording of Christian Danner’s Violin Concerto in F Major – performed by the FBO’s joint Artistic Director, Gottfried von der Goltz – and pieces by Carlo Giuseppe Toeschi, Christian Cannabich and Georg Joseph ‘Abbé’ Vogler, alongside Mozart’s Symphony in C Major K 208/102.

‘This exciting relationship shows DG’s commitment to bringing Early Music to the widest possible audience,’ said Hans-Georg Kaiser, Intendant and Managing Director of the Freiburger Barockorchester. ‘We were thrilled when they asked us to create album programmes based around the music of a particular region or historical court.’

The Freiburger Barockorchester’s impressive current catalogue is strongly weighted to Harmonia Mundi, where they’ve widely collaborated with the label’s leading artists including conductors René Jacobs and Pablo Heras-Casado, violinist Isabelle Faust and the FBO's other Artistic Director, fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout.

Recordings on other labels have included an album of sacred cantatas by Bach Telemann with Philippe Jaroussky on Erato, and Mozart arias with Christian Gerhaher on Sony Classical. We shortlisted them in the augural Gramophone Orchestra of the Year Award in 2018.

Now in its fourth decade, when Andrew Mellor profiled the FBO in our March 2020 issue, he described it as able to ‘make a good claim to be the most distinguished ensemble of its kind, one associated with the sound of Baroque music delivered with balance, elegance, vitality and not inconsiderable expertise.’

Andreas Kluge, Deutsche Grammophon’s Senior Manager Artist Promotion and A&R, added: ‘In my opinion, the Freiburger Barockorchester has surpassed all other period-instrument orchestras for consistency and quality when it comes to innovative programming, musical precision and the sheer joy of performing. I have been to many of their concerts over the years. Each has been a voyage of discovery into new, if seemingly familiar territory.'