Musicians of the Old Post Road: Into the Light: Rediscovered chamber music by Christoph Graupner and others
OPR Recordings

A staggering number of recordings featuring the music of Bach, Telemann, and Handel is issued each year; ones presenting material by their contemporary, the German harpsichordist and Baroque composer Christoph Graupner (1683-1760) are, needless to say, far fewer in number. Yet while his music might not be at quite the same level as Bach's, Graupner's isn't without its merits. Making a compelling case on its behalf is the Boston-based chamber ensemble Musicians of the Old Post Road, acknowledged specialists in the period instrument presentation of music from the Baroque to early Romantic eras. Issued on its OPR Recordings label, the quintet's eighth album augments four chamber works by Graupner with ones by his associates Johann Friedrich Fasch, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Graupner's Darmstadt patron Count Ernest Louis.

The group certainly had much from which to choose: Graupner wrote more than 2000 compositions (1300 church cantatas), many of them during his long tenure as Kapellmeister at the Darmstadt court. While his music was renowned during his life-time, it fell into obscurity after his death and only in recent years, thanks to efforts by groups like Musicians of the Old Post Road, has it begun to receive renewed attention. Founded by Artistic Directors Suzanne Stumpf (traverso) and Daniel Ryan (cello), the ensemble's fleshed out by Sarah Darling (violin, viola), Jesse Irons (violin), and Marcia Cassidy (viola). Harpsichordist Benjamin Katz guests on the release and makes a substantial contribution to the group's sound.

The vitality with which the performances are delivered argues strongly on behalf of this oft-beguiling programme, and further to that the timbral contrasts between the instruments makes for a consistently enticing presentation. Movements are largely one to three minutes in duration—no twenty-minute, Bruckner-sized odysseys here—which makes for a rapidly changing presentation that's never less than stimulating. Melodies sing sweetly, but solemnity is present too when almost of the works unfold across three or four compact parts. Only Louis's lilting, swoon-inducing “Chaconne,” taken from his Symphonie No. 1 in A Major, is a single-movement affair. The album's sequencing offers a study in contrast when it alternates throughout between a Graupner work and one by another.

Seducing at the album's outset is his Quartet in G Minor for strings and continuo, which advances from a lustrous exercise in stately solemnity to a lively fugal second distinguished by contrapuntal string gestures and Katz's sparkling interjections. A second plaintive movement allows for a catch of breath before the energized fourth part ushers the work to a devilish close. Replicating the slow-fast design of Graupner's Quartet in G Minor is Telemann's sumptuous Quartet in D minor, its two “Adagio” movements affecting in the gracefulness of their expression and their artful “Allegro” counterparts notably effervescent.

Also changing from one piece to the next are arrangements. While flute's absent on the opener, it partners with violin, viola, and continuo on Fasch's Sonata à Quattro in G Major; the twice-occurring alternation between slow and fast movements in Graupner's piece arises in Fasch's too, with Stumpf's vivid traverso prominently featured and conversing contrapuntally with the strings. The arrangement's reduced to three for Graupner's Trio Sonata in B minor, with traverso, violin, and harpsichord the instrumentation. The number of movements reduces also, with two allegros framing a largo. Whereas counterpoint between the woodwind and string instruments dominates the opening part, the balance is more equally shared by the three in the “Largo,” even if Katz's sprinkles often function as a ground for exchanges between the others. Delivered at a breathless pace, the concluding “Allegro” plays like a spirited danse macabre—like life, over too quickly. The presentation shifts again for Graupner's Sonata in G Major for flute, which positions traverso and harpsichord at the forefront and uses cello as support. While the central “Adagio” largely plays as a duet between the frontliners, their interactions sensitively essayed and a clear sense of back-and-forth evident between them, the playful “Allegro” caps the work with the cellist on equal footing with the others. Into the Light concludes, appropriately, with one more piece by Graupner, the Concerto in D Major (c. 1732), the moods spirited in the first and third parts and elegiac for the disarmingly lovely second.

January 2026