Bach, C P E: Cello Concerto No. 3 in A major, Wq. 172 (H439); Bach, J C: Cello Concerto in C minor.

'The Flying Dutchman', a romantic opera in three acts, was first performed in 1843. The story of the Dutch captain Bernard Fokke provided the material for the plot. Unlike many other sailors, he did not succeed in circumnavigating the Cape of Good Hope. He tried to defy God and the forces of nature but did not wrestle them down because he cursed them and has since been doomed to cruise the world's oceans forever with his ghost ship. Anyone who encountered this ship with a black mast and blood-red sails was destined for misfortune.

Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 565) is by far the best-known organ work of European art music. It is traditionally attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach, even if his authorship was occasionally doubted. The composition consists of three sections: a toccata, i.e. a prelude (prelude) of fast runs and full-grip chords, and a subsequent four-part fugue, which in turn leads to a final section called "Recitativo," which again takes up the quasi-improvisational character of the beginning. Clear motivic and harmonious references connect all parts.

Smetana was a musician of great talent who, in self-imposed exile from his native Bohemia, taught music and composition in Göteberg, Sweden. Like other Bohemian artists and musicians in the mid of the 19th century, Smetana longed for the day when his native land would be free from the oppression of its Austrian masters. After the Austro-Hungarian Empire granted political sovereignty to Bohemia, Smetana and other Czech composers could finally return to their home- land to create a national cultural identity for the self-governing provinces.

Some songs are so deeply rooted in the attitude to life of a region that one can rightly call them 'Hits.' Broadway and its motion picture shows and theaters were synonyms of national cultural identity for New York and the American way of life. The names and melodies of composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Benny Goodman were omnipresent in New York. They are part of national history, just as the film in Babelsberg in Berlin developed a unique cultural flowering after the First World War. Talented composers such as Friedrich Hollander, Walter Jurmann, and Peter Kreuder became famous overnight through films like 'The Blue Angel.' The famous hit 'Falling in Love Again' (the German translation writes literally: 'I am attuned to love from head to toe') and the legs of the beautiful Marlene Dietrich enchanted Berlin and the whole world. With the invention of sound film, a new, sparkling musical genre emerged: dance and film music, which developed its specific sound through jazz bands.

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist.Telemann was one of the most prolific major composers of all time: his all-encompassing oeuvre comprises more than 3,000 compositions, half of which have been lost, and most of which have not been performed since the 18th century. This album consists of some of his most beautiful works: The rarely performed concerto for 2 flutes, violin, cello and orchestra, the sonata for trumpet and strings and the fabulous suite in A minor for flute and orchestra played by the soloists of the Cologne New Philharmonic under the direction of Volker Hartung.