History
According to legend, it all began on New Years Eve in 1985, when several students at the College of Music in Freiburg – excited about the upcoming new year and in full flush thanks to a few glasses of sparkling wine – decided to form an ensemble and play Baroque music on historical instruments. After two years of rehearsals, with intensive research into sources and animated discussions on how on earth to play this or that phrase in Baroque style, they were ready: the musicians appeared for the first time under the name “Freiburg Baroque Orchestra” in the Burgheim Church in Lahr on 8 November 1987. The program consisted of Baroque music from England (Purcell), France (Lully), Italy (Corelli), Austria (Muffat) and the Netherlands (Wassenaer).
Even then, the music-making of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra had something of the experimental about it: what instruments and which interpretation would be best for the individual style of a particular work? And above all: how does one make this music of a bygone century sound as if the ink were still damp on the manuscript paper? After all, in the 18th century one always played “contemporary music”. The desire for new compositions was so great that almost every work landed up in a big box of music after its first performance – and thus sank into oblivion. So while there was indeed a consistent form of practical performance during the Baroque period, there was also a constant desire to invent a new type of music, and a still unrivalled musical splendour to be discovered in every newly composed work.
Even after more than twenty years, the musicians of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra still approach every single work or concert programme from this perspective. Though in the meantime its repertoire has enlarged impressively, ranging from the Baroque 17th century, through the Classic and Romantic periods, to contemporary works. Yes, the “Freiburgers” (as they are often referred to in the music scene) have also inspired experimental musical interest amongst contemporary composers to create works for their Baroque instruments. Indeed, very often with an explicit Baroque reference, for example during the Bach Week in Ansbach where the musicians baptised an “Ansbachian Concert” by Manfred Trojahn in August 2009, whose instrumentation and operatic concert form referred to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Fourth Brandenburg Concerto.
Another property inseparably connected with the FBO is that they mostly play without a conductor. As was usual in the 18th century, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra is also led from the concertmaster’s platform. Less historically, actually in an extremely modern manner, the “Freiburgers” fill this position with two Artistic Directors of equal status (a form of dual command), who alternately manage individual projects: Gottfried von der Goltz and Petra Müllejans. Conductors are, of course, invited for works involving a larger number of players. The most prominent guest, and particularly popular amongst the musicians, is René Jacobs, under whose leadership the FBO won the German Record Critics’ Award in 2009 for their recording of Mozart’s Idomeneo. Often, and this too is a special quality of the FBO, the ensemble’s own musicians appear as soloists in concerts and on CD. And this brings us to the trade mark of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra: major demands, enormous playing pleasure and a lively musical inquisitiveness. Whereby rediscovering unknown music is just as important as getting familiar music to speak in a new dialect. The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra has conquered the most famous concert halls on the international music scene with this artistic credo, where they can be heard with about 100 appearances per year. Often with some of the most famous interpreters of our time, such as Cecilia Bartoli, Thomas Quasthoff, Andreas Staier and René Jacobs. The orchestra’s discography has meanwhile grown to over 60 CDs, of which many recordings have won prizes. That the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra has also played itself to the top of the traditional classical scene is demonstrated by the fact that it was the very first Baroque orchestra to be invited to open the Salzburg Festival in 2009.
In addition to its own concert series in the Freiburg Concert Hall, the FBO has also found a musical home in the Stuttgart Liederhalle and the Berlin Philharmonie for over 10 years with a series of concerts that it organises itself.