Max Volbers - Sammartini: Sonata in G Minor, Op. 13 No. 5: II. Presto

Discover the new Album "Foreign Masters" by Max Volbers & Alexander von Heissen: BC.lnk.to/fore...
The album “Foreign Masters” by recorder player Max Volbers and harpsichordist Alexander von Heißen could also be compared to an exciting historical novel. The story takes place in bustling 18th century London. Even then, it was one of the largest cities in the world, a trading center, a place of nobility, the rich, but also of the hard-working and underpaid population. People from many up-and-coming industrial nations come together in London and a wide variety of languages are spoken on the streets. At the same time, London is also the cultural capital of Europe with a rich and lively music scene. In the evenings, people come together at the opera, in the concert halls, but also in the many private salons and theaters. They listened to new music by George Frideric Handel, Arcangelo Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti and Giuseppe Matteo Alberti. These cultural highlights were widely reported in the first daily newspapers of the time, which did not go unnoticed abroad and attracted even more musicians and composers to London. For this is the story of the foreign masters. London was then, as it is today, a melting pot of the European cultural scene. Anyone who thought highly of themselves, or who - to put it simply: wanted to earn money - went to London and presented their music there.
In this novel - oh, excuse me: on this album - Max Volbers and Alexander von Heißen have compiled music by ten composers and one anonymous source who turned the London music world of the 18th century on its head. All of them, with the exception of a certain William Babell, came not from England, but from Italy, France and Germany. Without the specialists from the continent, musicians and composers, this important music scene would not have existed. Many of them are still regarded as masters today, while a few have unfortunately fallen into oblivion. But that is another reason why this excellent compilation offers added value. Some of the pieces became so well known that today they would be described as “hits”. For example, Corelli's Violin Sonata op. 5, which was written and published in Italy but triggered a Corelli hype in England that lasted for more than 50 years. Yet Arcangelo Corelli never set foot on English soil. We owe this hype to the resourceful music publisher John Walsh, who gathered the European composer elite of the time around him, published their works, printed them and had them performed. He turned some composers into stars in the cosmopolitan city of London.
In the entertaining and informative booklet text, Max Volbers underlines another phenomenon that led to the music quickly becoming popular: “Walsh and Co published popular works in arrangements for ‘domestic use’: What people acclaimed in opera and concert in the evening could be bought hot off the press the next morning. And this is where the recorder comes into play. As a popular instrument of English high society, the gentleman's flute was often the recipient of such transcriptions.” For one of the great recorder virtuosos of our time, this is of course more than enough reason to take a closer look at this sheet music.
Max Volbers, who was awarded the OPUS KLASSIK Young Artist of the Year in 2023, and Alexander von Heißen, who won the Bach Competition in 2022, bring a dazzling facet of the musical metropolis of London to life with “Foreign Masters”. At the same time, this story makes it clear that it was migration that gave English music a tremendously rich heritage. A fact that we cannot remind ourselves often enough in times of Brexit, isolation and the suspicious gaze abroad!
Video: Mudi Productions
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Discover the new album ‘Foreign Masters’ by Max Volbers & Alexander von Heissen: BC.lnk.to/foreignmastersID

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Ouah bravo et le souffle qu’il faut avoir bravo magnifique 👍🤩🎶🤩👏👏👏