Buried Treasure

Recorder player Maurice Steger shares three rarities from his record collection The Passion of Musick

Dorothee Oberlinger (recorder), Johanna Seitz (harp), Markus Märkl (harpsichord) et al

Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 88875064762 I like this recording very much, largely because of the repertoire. Dorothee Oberlinger plays a lot of English music here, mainly from the 17th century, and uses many styles of ornamentation, improvisation and instrumentation. There is one work I particularly love, and that is Nicola Matteis’s Diverse bizzarrie sopra la vecchia sarabanda o pur ciaccona. It’s wonderfully composed, with many strange colours, and a hint of folk song. You need to interpret this music with a lot of fantasy and good taste, as is done here.

Rosetti Symphony in G minor

Concerto Köln

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For me, Antonio Rosetti was interesting because he had dark passionate ideas in an era when, in my opinion, music could be a little boring. I really like his G minor Symphony which is brilliantly scored in its instrumental writing. Maybe it was also a model for Mozart, just as Rosetti’s horn concertos were – I’m sure Mozart must have heard this music, because when you listen to his own G minor Symphony, the similarities are huge. Sounds & Clouds Works by Hosokawa and Vivaldi Jeremias Schwarzer (recorder); Holland Baroque

Channel Classics CCSSA37615

What I like about Hosokawa’s music so much is that it’s very modern, so tasteful and so full of freedom and silence. In his Singing Garden in Venice he had the idea of emerging from silence into sounds, mainly from nature, and the work is based on Vivaldi concertos such as La tempesta di mare. He said you can combine his work with the Vivaldi pieces, but the music’s so good you don’t need to. The last part, ‘Nachspiel. Nacht – Schlaf’, is fantastic. Maurice Steger’s ‘Dinner at Handel’s’ (Harmonia Mundi) is out in 2019