Vol. 1: Music before Bach

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE HISTORIC COLLEGIUM MUSICUM The Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum (NBCM) and artistic director Reinhard Goebel launch a new series with The Leipzig Collegium Musicum Vol. 1: Music before Bach, which offers a vivid glimpse into the rich musical life of Leipzig at the beginning of the eighteenth century. At that time, the city boasted numerous Collegia Musica – academic ensembles dedicated to performing the latest vocal and instrumental works – which played a central role in shaping the musical culture. Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Friedrich Fasch, Christoph Graupner and Johann David Heinichen were among the most important figures within these circles, although much of their repertoire is nowadays only vaguely reconstructible. Goebel compiles a programme that is "roughly equivalent" to this pre-Bach world, with overtures by Johann Beer and Heinichen, a horn concerto by Georg Melchior Hoffmann (all in world premiere recordings), as well as concertos by Fasch, Graupner and Telemann. The solo parts are performed by recorder player Max Volbers and Clemens Röger, principal horn of the Gewandhausorchester. In 1729 Johann Sebastian Bach took over the Collegium Musicum of Telemann, which then performed in Zimmermann's coffee house and became a cornerstone of Leipzig's musical life. This eventually led to the founding of the Großes Concert in 1743 and the Gewandhausorchester. The NBCM, founded in 1979 by members of the Gewandhausorchester with Max Pommer, has since built an international reputation thanks to acclaimed recordings and has been led by Reinhard Goebel since 2021, a pioneer of historically informed performance practice and founder of Musica Antiqua Köln.