All the composers on this recording provided the Elector of Brandenburg between 1608 and 1678 with music to accompany his wild boar. Most of these attractive dances and songs were written before the Thirty Years War, leaving Reusner's more mature and formalized Lute Suites as the only mid-baroque examples from this civilized court. The other composers listed on the front are little-known Kapellmeisters: Eccard, Zangius and Bartolomaeus Praetorius. Expatriate Englishman, William Brade, a highly influential if nomadic string player and composer, is inexplicably left off the front cover, though his three Pavan and Galliard 'setts' are as musically engaging as anything here.
Some of the songs display affecting devices in an increasingly text-conscious age—Zangius's deeply-felt madrigalizing in Ade meins Herzen Kronlein, (''Farewell, jewel of my heart'') is a case in point—but it is the accomplished craft of German, or in Brade's case adopted German, part-writing in the earlier instrumental pieces which will afford the greatest pleasure and admiration: each line has a direction and individuality even when it seems little more than an embellished accompaniment. The Lautten Compagney allows these string consort works to float beautifully with some finely-judged accentuation. Axel Kohler has a ripe and fruity alto sound which especially suits texts such as Eccard's Unser lieben Huhnerchen (''Our dear little hens'') where he does not feel the need to hold back. An agreeable foray, then, into German court life of the (mainly) early seventeenth century though probably only for those who already have an eye on this period.'