ドレスデンのオーケストラのために Vol.1 「序曲」

18世紀初頭世界最高のオーケストラのために書かれた華麗な作品集

1709年から半世紀間、ザクセン選帝侯アウグスト一世及び二世時代のドレスデンはヨーロッパ最高の音楽家を集め、そのオーケストラは「世界で最も壮大」と賞されていました。大バッハがワイマールやライプツィヒで活躍していたのと同時期、ドレスデンの宮廷で繰り広げられた華麗でまばゆいばかりの作品を集めたシリーズの第1弾は「序曲」。
関係作曲家たちは、そのオーケストラの機能を最大に生かした作品を生み出しました。多くは歌手が主役を務めますが、器楽奏者たちの名人芸も反映されていて聴き応え満点。フルート奏者で指揮者のアレクシス・コセンコが2010年に創立した若い古楽器団体レ・ザンバサドゥールの妙技にひたれます。
キングインターナショナル

The Dresden court of the Elector of Saxony was a major center of many arts and technological developments in the 18th century, and its orchestra, whose players were all specialists on their chosen instruments, was second to none. The court had a slight impact on Bachs career, a greater one on Telemanns but most of the music on this release by Les Ambassadeurs - La Grande Ecurie is hardly known, and it offers listeners a conception of the late Baroque different from what they may have known. The music is splendid, making full use of the capabilities of the big orchestra, ideally reproduced by the newly amalgamated orchestras here, led by conductor Alexis Kossenko. There is a large riverine outdoor work, the sonata Diana sullElba, by Johann David Heinichen, during which hunted animals were driven into the Elbe River. There are operatic and choral works by the still underappreciated Jan Dismas Zelenka and a concerto for two flutes by Johann Joachim Quantz with a gorgeous central slow movement. There are pieces by Pisendel and Fasch, and the best is saved for last in the form of a concerto grosso by Heinichen, where the players nail the virtuoso twin Baroque horn passages. The album is consistently absorbing and a great deal of fun, and its marred only by a rare engineering misstep from the Paris recording outfit Little Tribeca, which situates the music in an abbey that is entirely inappropriate for the secular music and even overwhelms the church music; it is bizarrely over-resonant. Still, recordings of these pieces are much-needed, and the album is going to open up whole fields of repertory for early music groups and even for traditional orchestras.