The Zürcher Barockorchester: |La Dresda Galante

When one contemplates the Augustan era in Saxony, the large residential city of Dresden immediately comes to mind. The city experienced an apex across all areas of cultural development in the eighteenth century, poignantly reflected in the city’s uniquely elegant architecture. The music at the court of Dresden in particular was widely renowned, and it incorporated a number of different European styles of the day. Under the direction of Renate Steinmann, the Zürcher Barockorchester perform works from this exceptionally diverse repertoire. Their selection of vocal and instrumental compositions by Johann Adolf Hasse, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann David Heinichen, Antonio Vivaldi, and Giovanni Alberto Ristori creates a broad canvas which demonstrates the multifaceted range of music that was performed and valued at the Dresden court in the eighteenth century. The twelve musicians of the Zürcher Barockorchester (Renate Steinmann, violin; Jermaine Sprosse, harpsichord) are joined by soprano Miriam Feuersinger. Paying much attention to nuance, the musicians achieve today what had been achieved in Dresden two-hundred years ago: curiosity and a cosmopolitan worldview allow the performers to combine diverse musical styles, generating something truly unique.