La Stagione Frankfurt is a German ensemble of Baroque and classical music, adept at historically informed performance.
The ensemble La Stagione Frankfurt was founded in 1988 by the German flautist and conductor Michael Schneider[1] [2] [3] [4] around the members of the ensemble Camerata Köln.[5]
Schneider began his career as a solo flutist by winning a prize at the 1978 ARD International Competition in Munich.[1] [6] In 1979, he was one of the founding members of the chamber music ensemble Camerata Köln.[1]
In 1988, he founded the ensemble La Stagione Frankfurt with which he recorded more than 100 discs in the genres of opera, oratorio and symphony, in the spirit of historically informed interpretation,[1] i.e. on period instruments (or copies of period instruments).
The ensemble calls itself "Die Klang-Gourmets", i.e. "The gourmets of sound"..[1]
The Stagione Frankfurt is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of Hesse.[4]
An important aspect of the work of the ensemble La Stagione Frankfurt, whose motto is "Unerhörtes hörbar machen" (and "Bringing the undiscovered to your ears"), is the rediscovery of little-known works.[1] [6] [7] [4]
Michael Schneider and his ensemble are therefore committed to the performance of little-known composers representative of the (Georg Matthias Monn), the (Georg Anton Benda), the Mannheim school (Ignaz Holzbauer), the style galant (Karl Friedrich Abel) and sentimentalism (Joseph Martin Kraus), without neglecting Geminiani, Gluck, Hasse, Telemann, Scarlatti or Stradella.
La Stagione works with many soloists such as Claron McFadden, Christoph Prégardien and his son Julian, Gotthold Schwarz, Simone Kermes, Nuria Rial, Emma Kirkby,[1] [4] Barbara Schlick, Sandrine Piau and Klaus Mertens.
For the Early Music Review[8] [9]
For the Bach Cantatas website, Michael Schneider's versatility on the one hand, and the musicians' artistic flexibility on the other, allow a convincing and authentic performance of a wide range of works from the baroque to the classical symphonies and the contemporary repertoire.[7]
La Stagione Frankfurt has made numerous recordings for the following labels cpo, Cappriccio, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi and Koch-Classics:[4]