Description
If Venice, with its art and culture, above all its High Baroque music, may be called "La Grande Serenissima", the "Most Serene Republic", then the ensemble Weimar Baroque together with organist and cantor Hans Christian Martin transform the small Saxon town of Crostau into "La Piccola Serenissima" for this recording. For here, too, it was the nobility that allowed music to flourish in the seventeenth century: more precisely, Count von Watzdorf, who commissioned the construction of a Silbermann organ in Crostau. Its magnificent sound has endured through the centuries, as demonstrated by Johann Sebastian Bach's famous Dorian Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 538). This architectural masterpiece of sound now frames chamber works by Tomaso Albinoni. The composer was not only admired by Bach, but was also a friend of that musically minded patron, Count von Watzdorf, to whom he dedicated his Opus 8, a collection of sonatas for two melody instruments and basso continuo as well as suites. From this collection and from Albinoni's Opus 9, a set of works for five instruments, Weimar Baroque performs a tasteful selection. Thus, an exciting dialogue unfolds between Central German austerity and Venetian elegance. Particularly fascinating is the constant presence of the Silbermann organ, which is heard not only as a solo instrument but also as part of the continuo, a practice far closer to historical performance traditions than the use of a modern chamber organ.
