In his booklet-notes, Reinhard Goebel makes no bones about this not being profound music. “Unobtrusive, homophonic sonorities, unassertive changes of register, virtuosity held in check,” he writes of his selection of ‘table music’ composed to accompany banquets. “The music is not merely the handmaid of the words, but even yields to the chef’s aspic-coated masterworks.” Actually Goebel tells nothing about the individual pieces, preferring instead to relish thoughts of damask tablecloths and the pieces de resistance of the pastry-cook, showing as he does so the kind of imaginative lateral thinking that can make him such a provocative musical interpreter. Here he does not pretend that this is music one should sit down and listen to with full attention, either in concert or on record, and indeed the best use for the CD may well be to play it in the background while eating dinner. Mind you, you will have to come with something a bit more imposing on your table than fish fingers, chips and peas; there are ten short fanfares for two trumpets from the appendix to Biber’s 1676 Sonatae tam aris quam aulis servientes running through the programme, while the spacious feel and leisurely inconsequence of the various ensemble sonatas suggest nothing less than an unhurried repast involving roast swan and copious draughts of red wine. The sonata by Valentini, with its bombastic exchanges between strings and recorders supported by a lusty bassoon, has an especially flatulent feel to it.
In the end, one has to wonder whether this music is really worth the trouble of a whole CD – the Biber and Schmelzer sonatas do not represent their composers at their best, and the most interesting piece is probably that by Anon – but having said that, it is hard to imagine it being better performed.'