Dresden was a music capital of European rank during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, which means that this German city and baroque music
have a common history. It was in Dresden that important composers and
musicians of the time lived and worked. In 1991 graduates of the Dresden
College of Music discovered their shared interest in this musical epoch and
founded the Dresden Baroque Orchestra. Its members are committed to
offering energetic interpretations on baroque instruments in keeping with
the tenets of historical performance practice and to the rediscovery of
forgotten works from the collection of the Dresden court chapel – top
priorities for them that have also become their trademarks. »Considering
the international significance of the Dresden court chapel during the first
two thirds of the eighteenth century, it is particularly fortunate that a
substantial part of the performed instrumental musical repertoire continues
to be extant today in the form of approximately 1,800 music manuscripts.
These music sources were catalogued after the Seven Years’ War and
deposited in Schranck No: II in the Catholic Court Chapel, where they were
neglected for almost a century. It was first during the years around 1860
that this cabinet was rediscovered, and its contents have received
increasing attention from researchers and musicians above all during recent
decades. This collection contains numerous works by composers famous far
and wide such as Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, and George
Frideric Handel and by musicians known today only by name and from a few
pieces of information pertaining to their lives. In accordance with the
demands of ‘mixed taste,’ the most important genres of Italian and French
instrumental music from this time – the overture suite, instrumental
concerto, sinfonia, solo sonata, and trio sonata – are represented in
various individual forms and shapes« (Dr. Gerhard Poppe).