Foreign Masters Max Volbers & Alexander von Heißen

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 centre of trade, a place of nobility and the rich, but also of the hard-working and underpaid population. People from many up-and-coming industrialised 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 theatres. You can hear 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 bluntly: wanted to earn money - went to London and presented their music there.

Max Volbers and Alexander von Heißen have compiled music from ten composers and one anonymous source in this novel - oh, sorry: on this album - that turned the London music world of the 18th century on its head. All of them, apart from a certain William Babell, did not come from England, but from Italy, France and Germany. Without the continent's skilled 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 been forgotten. But this 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.