Frederick and his sister: music for Postsdam and Bayreuth created for Frederick the Great and Wilhelmine of Bayreuth

Recorder concertos from Sanssouci: Quantz, CPE Bach, Benda, Graun, Isaac Makhdoomi, Ensemble Piccante; Prospero

In Wilhelmine's footsteps: the music of Bayreuth: Wilhelmine, Johann Pfeiffer, Bernhard Joachim Hagen, Locatelli; Camerata Øresund; Channel Classics
Reviewed 29 July 2025

Civilised, elegant and sometimes cutting edge, a chance to dip into the music worlds of the royal siblings whose lives did not always provide musical opportunities.

Both of King Frederick William I of Prussia's eldest surviving children, Prince Frederick (later Frederick the Great) and Princess Wilhelmine (later Margravine of Bayreuth) were musical which caused clashes with their harsh authoritarian father. Prince Frederick would go on to succeed his father, combining a highly musical and artistic court with dazzling military victories. Princess Wilhelmine was married to Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth. It was a marriage that was only accepted by Wilhelmine under threats from her father and with a view to lightening her brother's disgrace.

As King, Frederick the Great remained a talented musician, playing the transverse flute and much of the surviving music of his court centres around this instrument. His sister was no less active, both as a composer and as a patron with her and her husband virtually bankrupting themselves with their rebuilding projects including a new opera house which was then the largest in Germany.

Two new discs give us a chance to drop in on the siblings and experience the sort of music that was current at their courts. On Prospero Classical, Ensemble Piccante and Isaac Makhdoomi present us with a programme of concertos by Quantz, CPE Bach, Benda and Graun, the composers most associated with Frederick the Great's court. Over on Channel Classics, Camerata Øresund delve into Frederick the Great's sister's musical world with In Wilhelmine's footsteps: the music of Bayreuth, with music by Wilhelmine herself plus Johann Pfeiffer, Bernhard Joachim Hagen, and Locatelli.

On the Prospero disc, Isaac Makhdoomi is a recorder player and instead of playing concertos on the transverse flute (Frederick the Great's own instrument) he uses a recorder. In his booklet note, Makhdoomi comments  "modern instruments may surpass those from the Baroque period in sound, brilliance, and volume. Recorder makers have argued this point based on various tonal parameters of historical instruments and their measurements. This leads me to the conclusion that the replacement of the recorder by the flute is probably also due to a lack of expertise in the construction of sonorous recorders, and that more compositions would probably have been written for the recorder."

The music of the period reflected the changes in taste, with less highly wrought structures, simpler melodies over unadorned harmonies and a striving to speak emotionally to the individual. We begin with the Concerto in A major by Quantz, the flautist and composer with whom Frederick the Great had lessons, their first encounter in Dresden leading to Quantz' employment at Frederick's court. The vividly virtuoso first movement gives Makhdoomi a real chance to shine and blow away any doubts we might have for the substitution of recorder for flute. This is true also in the gentle more fluid slow movement where Makhdoomi finds both a singing quality and depth of tone. We return to the more vivid for the final movement. 

Next comes the Concerto in D minor by CPE Bach. What we hear is an arrangement of a harpsichord concerto, but analysis of the concerto suggests it was originally written for flute. With music we begin to move away from the galant of Quantz into music that would lead to the sturm und drang beloved of Haydn. The first movement is full of changes of harmony and a significant expressive range, then with the slow movement we reach CPE Bach's sensitive style, and the movement is about far more than a simple lovely melody over a throbbing accompaniment and we even hear hints of early Mozart. The final movement is real sturm und drang, terrific stuff.

The Concerto in D minor by Benda keeps us in sturm und drang. In fact, Benda was known as a violinist and this was originally a violin concerto. Here, Benda alternates vivid orchestral passages with more intimate yet still busy solo passages. The slow movement is graceful, with a significant contribution from the orchestra. We end something delightfully perky.

The disc ends with an aria from Graun's opera L'Orfeo which was commissioned by Frederick the Great for his mother's birthday. Here, we hear it in a transposed version with the solo voice played by alto recorder. It is a graceful, galant work and displays Makhdoomi's expressive style to perfection. Throughout the disc there is an intentness to the playing that almost feels like that players saying 'listen to this, it's terrific'.

The move to Bayreuth from Berlin begins with a suite by Johann Pfeiffer, Wilhelmine's concert master and composition tutor. His Suite in G minor is an engaging mix of French dance suite with more virtuosic elements, including some whizzy bits for the harpsichord as well as more bravura solo writing (here a violin) ending on a graceful Chiacona that must surely have got everyone dancing.

Next comes a harpsichord concerto long attributed to Wilhelmine herself but more recently given to Johann Gotthilf Jänichen. The perky opening movement has a certain backward-looking quality, then we have a more graceful slow movement where the unaccompanied harpsichord takes centre stage for much of the time. We end with a pair of gavottes, as if this was an orchestral suite, again a sample of the backward looking elements in the work.

Wilhelmine's opera Argenore is most definitely tragic, six of the seven characters die! We hear first 'Un certo freddo orrore’ sung by Josefine Andersson. As the booklet suggests the aria has a hint of the frost scene by Purcell which presumably suggest the Lullian inspiration for the piece complete with a faster, showier middle section. Hardly modern for 1740, it receives a fine performance.

Not only did Wilhelmine's brother play the flute, but her husband did too. We hear her Flute Sonata in A minor from 1730. The opening 'Affetuoso' showcases the flute's affecting elegance, with a vivid 'Presto'  middle movement complete with busy bass line which was definitely intended to challenge the continuo player! It ends with an 'Allegro' that dances along in a rather elegant way and seems to reflect more modern musical concerns.

Bernhard Joachim Hagen also worked at the Bayreuth court and his is regarded as important composers of the Baroque era for the lute. We hear his Concerto in D minor for lute. The elegant opening movement seems to promise an intriguing new voice. Using a lute as a solo instrument is challenging and even the passages where the instrument is supported just by cello rather favour the bass line. Hagen keeps the instrumentation light and it can surely only be the concerto's slightly challenging instrumentation that prevents it from being better known. The second movement is graceful with the lute alternating between melodic felicity and throbbing accompaniment of the two violins. The final Allegro is stylish rather than headlong, again with a distinctive feel.

We return to Wilhelmine's Argenore for 'Senza alta', and here we are definitely in Handel and Vivaldi territory. The disc ends with something slightly earlier, the twelfth of Locatelli's Opus 1 Concerto Grossos. In 1728, nineteen-year-old Wilhelmine had the chance to accompany Locatelli's violin playing when he visited Berlin. His Concerto Grossos date from 1721 and serve to suggest Wilhelmine's inspirations.

Both these disc form engaging recitals that can be enjoyed in their own right, along with the chance to dip into the musical worlds of Frederick and his sister.

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