Listening to Leipzig Before Bach: A Musical Landscape of the Collegium Musicum Painted by Goebel

Tonight, we are listening to "The Leipzig Collegium Musicum Vol. 1: Music before Bach," released on July 31, 2026, by PENTATONE, featuring the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum Leipzig under the artistic direction of Reinhard Goebel.

The title is "Music before Bach." However, the composers featured here—Telemann, Heinichen, Fasch, Graupner, and others—were mostly contemporaries of Bach.

The term "before Bach" here seems to refer to what kind of music was performed in Leipzig before Johann Sebastian Bach arrived as Thomaskantor in 1723.

A Collegium Musicum was an organization where music-loving students, citizens, and professional musicians gathered to perform vocal and instrumental music. According to the booklet, there were quite a number of such groups in early 18th-century Leipzig.

In 1701, the young Telemann, who had come to Leipzig University to study law, also organized a Collegium Musicum made up of students. After Telemann left the city, Georg Melchior Hoffmann and others took over its activities, and in 1729, Bach would lead the Collegium Musicum that had existed since Telemann's time.

In Bach's day, concerts were held regularly at places like Zimmermann's Coffee House, famous for the "Coffee Cantata," where concertos, orchestral suites, and secular cantatas were performed.

However, there is much that remains unknown about the Collegium Musicum of that time. Who chose the works, where were the scores obtained, what kind of musicians gathered, and were they paid? Because multiple groups frequently split and clashed, almost no documents remain to convey the reality of their existence.

The Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum Leipzig performing here is an ensemble founded in 1979 by Max Pommer and members of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Since 2021, it has been under the artistic direction of Reinhard Goebel, who left a significant mark on early music performance as the founder of Musica Antiqua Köln.

The performances of Reinhard Goebel and Musica Antiqua Köln had a major impact on the early music scene of the time with their sharp attacks and intense momentum. I believe they were a presence that presented historical performance not as a gentle restoration of the past, but as music that cuts into the present, showing one direction for early music performance.

Today, Goebel conducts modern orchestras and is also focused on applying the results of historical performance research to performances using modern instruments. Therefore, although the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum Leipzig performing here might at first glance seem like an early music ensemble, it is a modern orchestra using modern instruments.

Goebel did not try to recreate a specific concert of the Collegium Musicum, but rather collected works that might have been performed by the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig around 1700 to 1720. It is, so to speak, an album that reconstructs the musical landscape of Leipzig before Bach's arrival from the few remaining clues.

Let's listen right away.

First of all, the recording is excellent. It is clear and energetic. While such collections are often performed by early music ensembles today, this performance has the brilliance of strings unique to modern instruments.

The performance style is quite historically informed, with minimal vibrato. Goebel's characteristic sharpness is also present. One can also feel a sense of grandeur from the orchestra's sound, which spreads widely to the left and right.

Listening to the opening overtures by Johann Beer and Heinichen, I feel as if I am touching the source of the style that leads to Bach's orchestral suites.

Following the solemn French-style overtures, dance movements such as the bourrée, air, menuet, polonaise, and rigaudon appear one after another. Of course, since Heinichen was almost the same generation as Bach, he is not an "ancestor" in a chronological sense.

However, considering that the style of overtures and dances that spread from the French court to Germany also flowed into Bach's orchestral suites, it feels as if we are listening to their source.

Compared to Bach's orchestral suites, the contours of the dance movements are more distinct, and even with their slightly raw quality, they are interesting to listen to. Precisely because I know the later Bach, I can listen while imagining, 'So this is the style that led to that music.'

Johann David Heinichen's Overture in G major for two oboes, strings, and basso continuo, S.205. Heinichen was a composer who was active as the Dresden Court Kapellmeister.

Like the previous piece, this work is an orchestral suite that begins with a French overture. The addition of two oboes makes the sound of the overture even more magnificent.

Consisting of six movements in total—'Air', 'Bourrée', 'Air', 'Rigaudon', and 'Air Vite'—it skillfully fuses the elegance of French court music with the fluid melodic beauty of Italian music. The two oboes respond to each other brilliantly, and the bassoon's low notes are added to create a three-dimensional sound. The contrast between the lively dance movements and the lyrical sections is also vivid.

Following this is Fasch's Recorder Concerto. This is a composer whose name almost always comes up when searching for flute or recorder repertoire.

At first listen, it reminds me of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 4.

The bright G major sound, the recorder darting about lightly, and the lively interplay with the strings. Bach's No. 4 is a far more complex and brilliant work featuring two recorders and a solo violin, but there is a commonality in their lively atmosphere.

The form is more concise, and the simple, bright tone of the recorder is lively, making it a joy just to listen to.

The recorder player is Max Volbers, who is active in Germany. He possesses wonderful technique and musicality. On my blog, he has appeared in this article before.

In the recording, the solo recorder is captured quite closely, and it sounds with a larger image than in a live performance.

The recorder is an instrument that I think most people experienced in elementary school, but within a string ensemble, the sound image is easily buried, making it an instrument that is difficult to balance in live performance. In this recording, the solo recorder is clearly brought to the fore, finished so that the protagonist of the concerto is clearly identifiable.

In Hoffmann's concerto, the colors of the music expand all at once.

Hoffmann is the person who took over the work at the New Church, the opera, and the Collegium Musicum after Telemann left Leipzig. However, he died at only about 35 years old, and today his works are not often performed. The fact that this concerto is a world premiere recording is a great value of this album.

It is a work like a horn concerto, and Clemens Röger's horn is greatly highlighted. He is the principal horn player of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

In particular, the trills that seem to move between natural harmonics are truly beautiful. One is captivated by the way he rolls the notes vividly through subtle control of his lips. He also plays quite technical arpeggios with ease, and while blending into the sound of the two oboes and strings, he adds a three-dimensional quality and a unique color to the music.

In the third movement Adagio, the horn rests, and the music becomes like an oboe concerto. It has been a while since I listened to Baroque music on a modern oboe, but the homogeneous and glossy tone, different from a Baroque oboe, is beautiful.

The final minuet has a peaceful atmosphere. In the trio, the two oboes and bassoon take center stage, and by shifting to a minor key, it adds a slight shadow to this piece.

Graupner, who follows, is also a composer with deep ties to Bach.

In 1722, when the position of Thomaskantor became vacant upon the death of Kuhnau, the Leipzig City Council first sought to welcome Telemann, and then Graupner, as strong candidates. However, Telemann did not take the position, and Graupner was not allowed to resign from the Darmstadt court, so Bach was ultimately appointed.

As a result, we have come to enjoy the vast number of cantatas written during the Leipzig era to this day.

Graupner's recorder concerto is in F major, the same key as Fasch's work, yet the musical expression is quite different.

The solo recorder begins with long, sustained notes that possess an early music-style vibrato. There is a unique twist to the melody and rhythm, and especially in the final movement, which begins after a short second movement accompanied by pizzicato, fugal writing is incorporated, allowing the unique personality of Graupner to be heard.

And finally, the Telemann concerto placed at the end.

Six high-pitched parts—three oboes and three violins—call out to each other and overlap as the music progresses. Goebel points out the possibility that this writing style served as a model or source of inspiration for the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, which Bach would later write.

When you actually listen to it, you find yourself agreeing with that observation. The way the three oboes and three violins each remain independent while creating a vivid tapestry of sound is certainly reminiscent of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3.

While it may not be as tight or massive a construction as Bach's, the seeds of that idea can certainly be heard.

In music history, we tend to think that Bach suddenly appeared and everything started from there. But in reality, before him, there was Telemann, Hoffmann, Heinichen, Fasch, Graupner, and others.

They studied at the University of Leipzig, performed in churches, operas, and the Collegium Musicum, and created their own music while absorbing new styles arriving from France and Italy.

Bach, too, must have arrived in such a rich musical environment and elevated his own music by absorbing the various styles that filled his surroundings.

The Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum Leipzig, while based on historical performance practices, does not have a thin sound. The string instruments have luster, and the timbres of the oboes, recorders, and horns are vivid.

I feel that Goebel's characteristic clear rhythm and transparency of parts are combined with a rich resonance that evokes the Gewandhaus tradition.

From Bähr and Heinichen to Bach's orchestral suites, from Fasch to the Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, and from Telemann to the No. 3.

As I continue listening, the dots connect, and the landscape of the era in which Bach's music was born gradually comes into view.

This is not only a collection of unknown works from before Bach, but also an album that allows us to re-listen to the Bach music we know so well from a slightly different angle.

Since it is labeled 'Vol. 1,' this series will likely continue. A very exciting series has begun.

Past articles are available from the blog below