Exposing oneself to new musical styles was one of the aims of the Grand Tour, a rite of passage for young, upper-crust English males from the mid 17th to mid-19th centuries. In the baroque era the places of pilgrimage centred around France and Italy, where the tussle between those two national styles was one of the dominant musical narratives of the times, exemplified in the early 1750s by the “Guerre des Bouffons”. 

While these bellicose buffoons were mainly concerned about opera, the development of instrumental music played out all over Europe along similar lines, but found its most satisfying synthesis in Germany, particularly in the works of JS Bach.

Tracing a more modest trajectory of some 800km from Freiburg in the southwest to Berlin in the northeast, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra explores the variety of baroque styles that flourished in Germany through scores, both obscure and well-known. 

First stop on the tour is Rastatt where Johann Caspar Fischer (c.1670-1746) was employed as Kapellmeister to the Margrave of Baden-Baden. Fischer, who possibly studied with Lully, is credited with disseminating the Frenchman’s style through Germany. Fischer’s suite