Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667-1752) was probably something of a child prodigy and Ernst Ludwig Gerber records that he received an appointment as harpsichordist to the Prussian Court at Berlin by the age of 14. Regardless of this and other successes in the theatre, Pepusch was most highly esteemed in his own lifetime as a composer of concertos. Georg Philipp Telemann considered him as one of the best six German composers. As with Handel, later Germans and Britons both claimed Pepusch as their own. Pepusch is best remembered today for his contribution to The Beggar's Opera (1728), for which he composed a fine overture. Apart from that overture, none of his other pieces had received commercial recordings until today. It is our hope that this CD goes some distance to remind audiences why Pepusch was once so highly regarded across Europe as a fine composer of inventive and dramatic concertos.
