This is one of Musica Antiqua Koln’s most diverting and original projects of late, tracing with illumination and alacrity the hidden treasures of the late Hanseatic age. Indeed, as Reinhard Goebel eloquently describes in a richly-woven note, the Ostsee became a patriciate of merchants who disseminated German culture and manners to trade-route centres – such as Lubeck, Stockholm, Riga or Danzig – before local musicians transmitted the received wisdom in their own dialect. This programme is no mere journey through the Baltic ports but a riveting expose of high-class instrumental music from the seventeenth century. Not many sources survive after the ravages of a war-torn region whose remaining collections faced the ultimate assault in the last war. Goebel has assembled a good deal of his astonishingly varied programme from the wonderful ‘safe-haven’ Duben Collection in Uppsala, Sweden.
The heady mix of styles ranges here from the fragrant chorale-fantasies of the North German contingent (Fischer’s Herzlich tut mich verlangen is a little peach) to the Viennese-influenced works such as Andreas Kirchoff’s taut and quixotic vignette; the unabashed regional swagger of Albrici’s Sonata for two trumpets which, if less ostentatious than examples by Biber and Vejvanovsky, provides an uncompromisingly distinctive Nordic flourish. The English pavan, with its imploring contrapuntal grandeur, infuses the earlier Fantasies by Luetkeman and Anonymous and the Baltzar work; Vierdanck’s Italianate extroversion and Meder’s skilful progammatic pieces (though the Sonata di Battaglia is rather too much of a good thing) are only a soupcon of national taste and genre.
Musica Antiqua Koln is alive to all of them. Whilst the early-century works might generally benefit from viols (rather than the comparatively astringent mid-baroque, violin-dominated consort), the degree of focus and incandescence is only intermittently undermined by fluffy entries and the occasional suspect intonation. Listen to the Baltzar Pavane a 3, and hear how each line is beautifully voiced and caressed. A first-rate undertaking, both revelatory and immensely pleasurable.'