A salute to the virtuosity of the wind players of the Dresden Court Orchestra with music by Telemann, Fasch, Bach, Biber and Zelenka.

Throughout the Baroque period, the court orchestra at Dresden was one of the most renowned in Europe. Its wind players were noted as some of finest players of their time. The first two sections of Bach’s Mass in B Minor were dedicated to the Elector at Dresden, and Telemann was tempted by a lucrative position offered to him at the court, which in the end he declined. Composers working at the court such as Fasch, Heinichen and Zelenka wrote works especially to favour their skilled woodwind players. Devon Baroque’s programme features a concerto for bassoon and a suite in which the three wind soloists play an important part. The multi-faceted Telemann is represented by a rollicking suite for strings, where all four string parts have different time signatures in one movement. Each movement of Biber’s battle piece (the earliest composition in the programme) describes scenes including drunken revellers and a lament for the fallen.