Around 1730, the so-called "galant" style started to assert itself all over Europe. Its typical traits were the gradual relinquishment of contrapuntal writing, a taste for delicate, bucolic melodies and for soft dance rhythms, and above all the adoption of a more fluent and colloquial language, far from the severity and magniloquence of the Baroque period.

In Northern Germany, where the influence of rigorous style was more felt and the contrapuntal tradition more solid, the galant style took on a very peculiar form, quite different from those that developed in Italy and France.

It ended up absorbing - often to very interesting and pleasant results - many aspects of the old style, bending them to fit a more intimate and colloquial form of expression. The language that ensued blended Bach's mastery of form with a lighter musical approach, in which the pure and simple pleasure of making music took precedence over respect of the rules or display of erudition. It was in this spiritual and cultural context that Johann Gottlieb Graun, Johann Christoph Graupner and Johann Friedrich Fasch lived and worked.

The present CD includes Graupner's wonderful Concerto in F Major for recorder, strings and basso continuo, and two arias for mezzo-soprano. The Concerto is a distinctly Vivaldian work with an abundance of Italian stylistic traits.

Especially noteworthy is its slow movement, an Andante, with the solo instrument soaring over the pizzicato accompaniment of the violins.