Music before Bach

With “The Leipzig Collegium Musicum Vol. 1: Music before Bach,” the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum, under the direction of Reinhard Goebel, launches a new series of recordings exploring musical Leipzig at the beginning of the 18th century. Long before Johann Sebastian Bach took over the leadership of the renowned Collegium Musicum, numerous student and amateur ensembles shaped the musical life of the trade fair city and made Leipzig a center of new musical developments.

The program brings together works by Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Friedrich Fasch, Christoph Graupner, Johann David Heinichen, Johann Beer, and Georg Melchior Hoffmann, painting a vivid picture of the era. Several world premiere recordings, including a horn concerto by Hoffmann as well as overtures by Beer and Heinichen, offer fascinating insights into a repertoire that has largely fallen into obscurity today. The solo parts are performed by recorder player Max Volbers and Clemens Röger, principal horn of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig.

Founded in 1979 by members of the Gewandhausorchester, the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum is one of Germany’s leading ensembles for historically informed performance. Since 2021, it has been under the artistic direction of Reinhard Goebel, whose name has stood for decades for stylistically distinctive and source-informed interpretations of Baroque music.