One of the most innovative young early music groups in Europe, the Elbipolis Baroque Orchestra, performs a series of rarely heard concertos by the early eighteenth century composer Johann Christian Schieferdecker. Schieferdecker was a pupil of Dieterich Buxtehude, and succeeded him as musical director at Lübeck Marien's church in 1707. The Elbipolis Baroque Orchestra Hamburg is formed from a nucleus of leading musicians from Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin and has performed at major festivals around Europe.

For someone as obscure as Johann Christian Schieferdecker, a pupil of Buxtehude, he certainly has gotten his share of play recently. Not only has my Read more Fanfare 34:3) but another, Jerry Dubins, reviewed and recommended an entire disc of these instrumental works in a recent issue ( Fanfare 35:6) performed by the Elbipolis Hamburg period-instrument ensemble on Challenge. Both found them recommendable, though the latter seemed reticent on whether or not Schieferdecker represents a marvelous new rediscovery. This disc may not decide that issue, but I do find it curious that in the space of a very short time, a composer who was completely dissed by Johann Mattheson, the early chronicler of Hamburg music but who grew up practically as the blood brother of Reinhard Keiser, should suddenly emerge from shadows.