From Halle to Hamburg

Join Trio Hesperi for a whirlwind musical tour of cities in the Hanseatic League across the eighteenth century. The arts flourished in these independent city states, where wealth and good transport links made life attractive for the best musicians of the day. In central Europe, the very heart of the league, we visit the city of Mühlhausen, one of Germany’s most important trading cities in the Middle Ages, where Bach worked as an organist in his youth; the salt-mining centre of Halle, where Handel was born and spent his early years; Hamburg, where Telemann spent the majority of his working life, and curated his splendid garden; and Berlin, the hometown of Anna Amalia of Prussia, an influential patron and composer of chamber music.

Beyond the borders of modern-day Germany, the Flemish city of Ghent was a valued member of the league, with its thriving cloth industry. Here, we drop by the recorder-loving composer Loeillet, before heading north to Sweden’s most important port Stockholm, for a quirky sonata by the well-travelled composer Roman. And finally, to Scotland, whose burghs were long-standing trading partners with the Hanseatic League – and a miniature floral air by Fife-born composer James Oswald, whose floral miniatures feature on the ensemble's second commercial release A Gift for your Garden, recently selected as album of the week on BBC Radio 3.