Like this! Five boxes, each containing 100 CDs. Musica da Camera has just received its printed CD release, Music from Mannheim. It's a live recording of early, formative classical music recorded at St Peter and Paul's Catholic Cathedral in Goulburn in Nov 2017. MdC is a string orchestra, this time led by Christian Renggli with viola soloist Justin Julian and augmented with four wind players for the viola concerto. The Court of Mannheim is important for the early development of classical music, was influential for Mozart and the like, introducing a string of innovations.
The works were from the pens of the Johann and son Carl Stamitz, FX Xavier and Franz Beck. Very exciting, too, that one work, Johann Stamitz Sinfonia Ebmaj (WolS.I Eb-10; not Op.11 no.3 which is common), seems to not appear anywhere on YouTube, Spotify or Naxos. You can now catch some of this as a video on YouTube (search under "Musica da Camera Canberra") or better,
buy a CD. Very reasonably priced.
Musica da Camera received its CD release, Music from Mannheim. The CD will be launched with a free public concert at the High Court on 15 April (bookings required, from High Court website under About>Concerts).
Mannheim is just an hour’s local train ride from Frankfurt. This was somewhat a personal indulgence, given Musica da Camera’s CD entitled Music from Mannheim. I hadn’t even known of the Mannheim School before that, but UNESCO has Mannheim as a City of Music. It’s ~400,000 population, has an excellent October-long jazz festival now going on with local towns (incl Hiedelburg) with Archie Shepp in residence and visits from Jason Moran, Tord Gustavsen, Jan Garbarek, Vijay Iyer, Aaron Parks, Branford Marsalis and the like. Mannheim is also a UN-recognised centre for innovation (first bicycle, first diesel car, BASF, Siemens, etc), has a lively music scene from classical and new music and jazz to pop, from serious to seductive. We just walked around to see the baroque palace and some museums and hand out a few CDs. Like much of Germany it looks modern (post-WW2 bombing) but I saw many an instrument case and some lovely if local collections. A few pics.
