Ernst Gottlieb Baron (1696-1760)
Music for Lute Solo & Lute and Recorder
Concerto for Lute and Recorder in D minor
Concerto for Lute, Flute and Cello in G
Sonata for Lute solo in B-flat
Sonata for Lute and Flute in G
Partie for Lute solo in F
Concerto for Lute, Oboe and Cello in C minor
Duet for Lute and Flute in G
Bernhard Hofstötter (lute), Barbara Korchynska (recorder),
Mariya Bil (cello)
rec. 2021, Lviv, Ukraine
Brilliant Classics 96080 [69]

In his lifetime, Ernst Gottlieb Baron was well regarded as a lutenist and a writer on music. His name is little known nowadays, even if he gets an entry in the better reference books. I suspect that in our own time, his name is familiar only to serious lutenists and to musicologists with a special interest in the lute and/or the late baroque. In part this is because of his treatise Historich-theoretische und practische Untersuchung des Instruments der Lauten, published in 1727. The book discusses the famous lutenists, the main composers for the instrument and lute-makers, of his own time and earlier. It must be said, however, that some of Baron’s details are unreliable. Even so, the treatise is valuable for what it has to say about matters of technique and performance practice and is important for scholars concerned with the history of the lute and its repertoire.

Since Baron is now largely forgotten, it seems appropriate to provide a brief biography of him at this point. He was born in Breslau, where he was initially educated, his father being a maker of gold lace. It was soon clear that Ernst Gottlieb had a great fondness for music. He seems to have had his earliest lessons in the lute from someone called ‘Kohott’ who, as Bernhard Hofstötter suggests in his booklet notes, may have been “the father of the later famous Viennese lutenist Karl Kohaut (1726-1784)”. It is known that Karl Kohaut was the son of a musician, which gives some plausibility to Hofstötter’s suggestion. In 1715 Baron entered the University of Leipzig as a student of philosophy and law, but he seems never to have completed a degree there.

From 1719 onwards he led a peripatetic life, travelling around the courts of Saxony as a musician and student (primarily of music). He spent time in Halle, Köthen, Saalfeld and Rudolfstadt before arriving in Jena in 1720, where he spent two years and studied music theory with the well-known organist and scholar Jacob Adlung (1699-1762). Six further years of wandering followed, years in which he spent time in Kassel, Merseburg and Zerbst. Finally, a permanent and prestigious appointment came his way when, in 1737, he entered the service of the famously music-loving Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia at Ruppen. When Frederick became King of Prussia in 1740 Baron accompanied him to his new court in Berlin. Baron was now in very distinguished musical company, since Frederick’s court musicians included Carl Heinrich and Johann Gottlieb Graun, Johann Joachim Quantz and many other significant figures. Baron remained in Frederick’s service until his death, in Berlin, in 1740.

After his initial difficulties, Baron’s reputation grew, not least because of his work at the court of Frederick the Great. Important reference works such as Gottfried Walter’s Musikalisches Lexicon (Weimar, 1732) and Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg’s Historisch-Kritische Beyträge zur Aufnahme der Musik (Berlin 1774/4 onwards) contained biographies of Baron. In his booklet notes, Bernard Hofstötter writes that “in the list of the most important German musicians published in 1747 by Lorenz Christian Mizler […] Baron is named alongside composers such as J. S. Bach, Telemann, Weiss and Stölzel”.

Baron’s music was largely unavailable before the publication of the surviving works (quite a lot has probably been lost) in 2005 in an edition by Jan W J Burgers. Such music by Baron as I have previously heard has left me feeling that he was a skilled and knowledgeable craftsman rather than a strikingly good composer. Pleasant as this new disc is, I have to say that it hasn’t done a great deal to make me modify that judgement. There are two works for solo lute; the Partie in F is somewhat bland in texture, the writing doing little to intrigue or excite the listener, though Bernhard Hofstötter’s performances are technically assured and thoughtful. A piece such as this makes it likely that Hofstötter is correct in observing that some of Baron’s surviving pieces for solo lute, since they do not “demand too much technical competence from the performer”, may have been written for the use of his pupils.

There is more musical substance in the six movements (Fantasia – Allegro – Bouré – Aria – Rondeau – Tempo di Menuet) of the Sonata for Lute solo in B flat, which is, in all but name, a suite. The music has much more character, the writing is more complex and technically sophisticated; the melodies are more fully developed and there are more changes of emotional register. This ‘Sonata’ probably gives us a good idea of how Baron himself played.

The five remaining pieces on the disc are for lute with one or two other instruments: i.e. a ‘Concerto’ for Lute and Recorder in D minor, a ‘Concerto’ for Lute, Flute and Cello in G, a Sonata for Lute and Flute in G, a ‘Concerto’ for Lute, Oboe and Cello in C minor, and a Duet for Lute and Flute in G. Much of this music is attractively inventive, especially the Concerto for Lute and Recorder in D minor which is the first work on the disc. Its first movement (marked Adagio) has a gentle beauty; at times the lute is used purely to provide the basso continuo beneath the flute, but at other points in the movement there is some delightful melodic conversation between the two instruments. The ensuing Allegro is less emotionally rich, but is charmingly playful, especially in its changes of rhythm. Each of these two opening movements lasts less than two minutes, but they are thoroughly attractive miniatures. The third movement is a gently lyrical Siciliana, which is only a little longer, at 2:14. The ‘Concerto’ closes with a Gigue which quietly invites the listener to dance; once more the dialogue between the instruments is inventive and pleasurably fascinating. Hofstötter and Korchynska play impeccably and persuasively, and the recorded sound is, as throughout the disc, pleasant and clear.

However, my pleasure in some of the other ‘chamber’ music is rather lessened by the fact that in all the other works where the flute is specified, the recorder replaces it. Baron would surely have had the transverse flute in mind. For all the evident skill and musicality of Barbara Korchynska (and of cellist Mariya Bil in the one work in which she is heard) the fact that we don’t hear the music with the sound palette the composer had in mind is disappointing. Replacing the oboe by the recorder in the Concerto for Lute, Oboe and Cello in C minor, for example, is surely a misjudgement; by its very nature, the recorder has qualities quite distinct from those of the oboe.

Despite my reservations, I believe this disc will be enjoyed by lovers of the lute.

Glyn Pursglove

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