Das renommierte Berliner Barockensemble Lautten Compagney feiert 2009 sein 25-jähriges Bestehen. Mit seinem neuesten Programm "Handel With Care" feiert es aber vor allem den großen Komponisten Georg Friedrich Händel anlässlich dessen 250. Todesjahres. Viele Melodien aus Händels Arien und Chören waren bereits zu Lebzeiten des Komponisten regelrechte Schlager. Wolfgang Katschner, der 2004 mit dem Händelpreis ausgezeichnet wurde und seine Lautten Compagney haben unter dem Motto "Instrumente singen" für "Handel With Care" ihre Lieblingsarien aus Opern und Oratorien wie "Rinaldo", "Tamerlano", "Samson" u.v.a. für Soloinstrumente und wechselnde Instrumentalbesetzung neu arrangiert.

At its time Rinaldo created a sensation; it premiered on 24 February 1711 and was staged more than any other Handel opera during his lifetime. The renowned German baroque ensemble lautten compagney Berlin under the musical direction of Wolfgang Katschner, whose great passion applies to music theatre in a historically informed performance practice, presents an adorable interpretation of Handel’s fi rst opera in London on this CD.

Ina Siedlaczek and the Lautten Compagney present George Frideric Handel’s Nine German Arias alongside arias from his Brockes Passion. Siedlaczek’s pure and flexible voice is ideally suited to these works; her direct and natural style of singing balances the opulence of the baroque texts. The instrumental sonorities on this recording are characterised by an extraordinarily colourful sound palette both in the melody and the continuo parts: the obbligato instrumental part is taken in turn (even within the same aria) by a flute, oboe and violin and also playing together. In the aria Brich mein Herz, zerfließ in Tränen (track 3), the violin part is played by a viola da gamba, giving this piece an especially personal character.

Christmas is a colourful festival - the boys of the Staats- und Domchor Berlin and the Lautten Compagney prove this in a colourful and fresh way on this CD of German Christmas songs from the time of the Reformation. The Lautten Compagney, with its historical instruments, brings the traditional sounds of yesteryear back to life and, together with the boys of the State and Cathedral Choir, draws a musical picture of how magnificently Christmas was celebrated in the early 17th century.

Amore Doppio, or to give it its full title, "La costanza non gradita nel doppio amor d'Aminta" is a serenata from 1694 for three voices by Giovanni Battista Bononcini. The piece involves a dialogue between the shepherd Aminta and his two loves, the nymphs Filki and Dori. Torn between desire for both and unable to choose, he finally ends up with neither.

Anna Prohaska asked Wolfgang Katschner and the Lautten Compagney at the outset of the coronavirus crisis whether they shouldn’t spontaneously organize a musical get-together in this period. This has now resulted in #ERLÖSUNG/REDEMPTION, a sequence of music selected solely from Bach cantatas, compiled in keeping with the aforenamed conceptual association. We see the motto ERLÖSUNG/REDEMPTION as having multiple meanings, for instance: can music give us consolation in times of sickness and crisis; can it open up emotional and contemplative spaces for us; is it redemptive for us as musicians to be the “Instruments” in engendering music and therefore spirituality… ? Besides Anna as soloist and three other singers, we cast a larger group of musicians – around twenty instrumentalists – which stands for the lautten compagney and communes in accompanying the arias Anna sings, hence also initiating a statement or a kind of living sign of a collective such as the ensemble normally represents.