The city of Dresden was a magnificent and sumptuous setting for culture and the arts in the middle of the 18th century, especially for music, and indeed, one of the most famed and admired orchestras of the time was to be found there. With its focus on religious music, the present recording provides a reflection of this golden age, while pointing up the differences which existed between two separate periods at the Dresden court: the first came under the influence of French musical taste (1670-1733) and in it the highly distinctive, very personal style of Jan Dismas Zelenka was developed, whilst the other, lively and monumental (1733-1764) and headed by Johann Adolph Hasse, bore Italian influences. The baroque ensemble Accademia Barocca Lucernensis (ABL) was founded in 2014 by the conductor Javier Ulises Illán and the cultural manager Martin Caduff in Lucerne (Switzerland). ABL comprises both an orchestra and a choir, and follows historically informed performance practices on period instruments and with period tunings.
