Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. He is one of the most prolific composers in history, at least in terms of surviving oeuvre. Telemann was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time, and he was compared favourably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, who made Telemann the godfather and namesake of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, and to George Frideric Handel, whom Telemann also knew personally.

String instruments and especially the violin demanded a key position in Baroque music particularly in Italy. Like many of his contemporaries Tomaso Albinoni composed a large number of pieces for string ensemble and many concertos for the violin. With his concertos for one and two oboes Albinoni more or less introduced a new genre. He did not copy Vivaldi’s violin concerto form but for both form and style drew on his vast experience as an opera composer. Most entertaining Baroque music elegantly performed by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra under Nicol Matt, with oboe soloists Stefan Schilli and Giovanni Deangeli.

Gustav Mahler never heard Das Lied von der Erde, his penultimate completed work, nor the Ninth Symphony, which followed it closely. He was probably working on them more or less simultaneously. Despite his state of health, he managed not only to complete the full score of Das Lied, but also to prepare a version with piano accompaniment in place of the orchestra. There is however a third version, started by Arnold Schönberg - who saw Mahler as his mentor - in 1920, and scored for a chamber orchestra. This release features the European Chamber Soloists under Nicol Matt, with soloists Anna Haase (mezzo-soprano) and Daniel Sans (tenor).