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Camerata Bern is one of Europe's leading chamber orchestras. It has toured throughout the world and regularly performs with elite soloists. Since its debut, the ensemble has performed without a conductor, taking cues instead from its concertmaster.

Camerata Bern was founded in 1962 by string students studying under Max Rostal at the Berne Conservatory, along with a harpsichordist. One of the Camerata's founding principles was to perform without a conductor, so it has taken its cues from the concertmaster since its formation. The group's first concertmaster and artistic director was Alexander von Wijnkoop. Under Wijnkoop's leadership, the Camerata began to tour throughout Europe shortly after its founding; following tours of the U.S. and Asia in 1967, the ensemble has gone on tours of Europe, both of the Americas, Australia, and throughout Asia. Wijnkoop would lead the Camerata until 1979, when he was replaced by Thomas Füri, who served in this role until 1993. During Füri's time as concertmaster, the Camerata signed its first recording contract with the Archiv label. Antje Weithaas was named artistic director in 2009. In 2010, the Camerata began an educational project in which it performs in schools across Bern; by 2019, the ensemble had performed over 150 of these concerts. Patricia Kopatchinskaja was named artistic director in 2018. The Camerata performs on period and modern instruments (though its inclination towards performing on period instruments developed well after its founding), and its repertoire stretches from the Renaissance to contemporary. The group regularly performs, tours, and records with soloists, who have included Heinz Holliger, Sol Gabetta, Göran Söllscher, and Barbara Hendricks.

The Camerata has released several dozen recordings, mainly on Archiv, but it has also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, ECM, and Novalis, among others. In 2019, the Camerata issued an album of Mozart keyboard concertos on Sony Classical, with accordionist Viviane Chassot, and its first album with Kopatchinskaja, Time & Eternity, on Alpha. It has earned several awards for its recordings, including the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and the Grand Prix International du Disque. ~ Keith Finke

Italian composer Tomaso Albinoni is best known for the Adagio for strings and organ, a work he did not write, not even in part. The real Albinoni was an important figure in the development of the concerto and an influence on Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach. While there are few unique characteristics in his style, he still managed to impart individuality to his music through his structural schemes and his tendency for repetition. During his lifetime, Albinoni was known for his work in opera, though only two now survive. His most famous authentic work is the Concerto à cinque (Oboe Concerto) in D minor, Op. 9/2.

Not much is known about Albinoni's life. He was the eldest son of a Venetian paper merchant. The family was very well off, and in his adult life Albinoni was financially independent so he did not seek professional employment in music. He thought of himself as an amateur musician, although he was completely trained in his art and on the violin. Initially, Albinoni attempted to compose church music, but didn't meet with much success. However, in 1694, with the publication of 12 trio sonatas, Op. 1, and the production of his opera Zenobia, Regina de Palmireni, Albinoni had found his milieu. In 1705, he married the soprano opera singer Margherita Rimandi. Meanwhile, Albinoni had inherited a portion of his father's estate and opened a singing school. The second (Op. 7) of his four sets of 12 Concerti à cinque appeared in 1715. Margherita was also quite busy during these years, appearing in opera productions as far away as Munich (1720), despite having given birth to seven children. On August 22, 1721, at only about 37 years of age, she died suddenly. Albinoni managed to keep busy during this tragic period, composing more operas, the Sei Balletti e sei sonate a tre, Op. 8 (1722), and his remarkable 12 Concerti à cinque, Op. 9 (1722), which is among the most important and influential instrumental compositions of its time and his most enduring work. With the appearance of the Opp. 8 and 9, the composer's career horizons seemed to broaden. He could confidently look beyond Italian borders now, since his reputation in opera, vocal and instrumental music was clearly spreading throughout Europe. He was invited to Munich, also in 1722, where a production of his opera I veri amici was given as part of the festivities honoring the marriage of the Prince Elector to the daughter of the Emperor. By the early years of the next decade, Albinoni's inspiration began diminishing. After his opera Candalide (1734), his next, Artamene, which he would not complete until 1741, would be his last. The composer had turned back to the instrumental realm in the 1730s, producing his Op. 10 collection, another set of Concerti à cinque, in the years 1735 and 1736. Albinoni suffered from diabetes in his later years and began failing in 1749. He died on January 17, 1751.

Albinoni was at one time accorded a place in the history of music next to Arcangelo Corelli and Antonio Vivaldi. He was extremely prolific and is said to have composed over 80 operas, 40 solo cantatas, 79 sonatas, 59 concerti, and 8 sinfonias. His compositions are extremely individual, and he possessed great gifts as a melodist. They were much admired by Johann Sebastian Bach, who used themes of Albinoni's in several of his keyboard fugues. Bach also used to practice realizing continuo harmonies using Albinoni's basslines and used Albinoni's works for teaching. Albinoni's operas were popular throughout Italy and are very original, but not well-known today because all but two were unpublished. In his oboe concertos, he treated the oboe as a lyrical, melodic instrument, much as the voice would have been treated. At the beginning of the 20th century, editions of his works were published, which is perhaps why the musicologist Remo Giazotto thought that his own Adagio for strings and organ might pass as one of Albinoni's compositions. ~ TiVo Staff

In his day, Johann Sebastian Bach was better known as a virtuoso organist than as a composer. His sacred music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that concealed immense rigor. Bach's use of counterpoint was brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities of his compositional style -- which often included religious and numerological symbols that seem to fit perfectly together in a profound puzzle of special codes -- still amaze musicians today. Many consider him the greatest composer of all time.

Bach was born in Eisenach in 1685. He was taught to play the violin and harpsichord by his father, Johann Ambrosius, a court trumpeter in the service of the Duke of Eisenach. Young Johann was not yet ten when his father died, leaving him orphaned. He was taken in by his recently married oldest brother, Johann Christoph, who lived in Ohrdruf. Because of his excellent singing voice, Bach attained a position at the Michaelis monastery at Lüneberg in 1700. His voice changed a short while later, but he stayed on as an instrumentalist. After taking a short-lived post in Weimar in 1703 as a violinist, Bach became organist at the Neue Kirche in Arnstadt (1703-1707). His relationship with the church council was tenuous as the young musician often shirked his responsibilities, preferring to practice the organ. One account describes a four-month leave granted Bach to travel to Lubeck, where he would familiarize himself with the music of Dietrich Buxtehude. He returned to Arnstadt long after he was expected and much to the dismay of the council. He then briefly served at St. Blasius in Mühlhausen as organist, beginning in June 1707, and married his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, that fall. Bach composed his famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 565) and his first cantatas while in Mühlhausen, but quickly outgrew the musical resources of the town. He next took a post for the Duke of Sachsen-Weimar in 1708, serving as court organist and playing in the orchestra, eventually becoming its leader in 1714. He wrote many organ compositions during this period, including his Orgel-Büchlein, and also began writing the preludes and fugues that would become Das wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-Tempered Klavier). Owing to politics between the Duke and his officials, Bach left Weimar and secured a post in December 1717 as Kapellmeister at Köthen. In 1720, Bach's wife suddenly died, leaving him with four children (three others had died in infancy). A short while later, he met his second wife, soprano Anna Magdalena Wilcke, whom he married in December 1721. She would bear 13 children, though only five would survive childhood. The six Brandenburg Concertos (BWV 1046-51), among many other secular works, date from his Köthen years. Bach became Kantor of the Thomas School in Leipzig in May 1723 (after the post was turned down by Georg Philipp Telemann) and held the position until his death. It was in Leipzig that he composed the bulk of his religious and secular cantatas. Bach eventually became dissatisfied with this post, not only because of its meager financial rewards, but also because of onerous duties and inadequate facilities. Thus he took on other projects, chief among which was the directorship of the city's Collegium Musicum, an ensemble of professional and amateur musicians who gave weekly concerts, in 1729. He also became music director at the Dresden Court in 1736, in the service of Frederick Augustus II; though his duties were vague and apparently few, they allowed him the freedom to compose what he wanted. Bach began making trips to Berlin in the 1740s, not least because his son Carl Philipp Emanuel served as a court musician there. The Goldberg Variations, one of the few pieces by Bach to be published in his lifetime, appeared in 1741. In May 1747, the composer was warmly received by King Frederick II of Prussia, for whom he wrote the gloriously abstruse Musical Offering (BWV 1079). Among Bach's last works was his 1749 Mass in B minor. Besieged by diabetes, he died on July 28, 1750. ~ Robert Cummings

Much of what is known about Alessandro Marcello comes not from his few compositions, but from his professional career and social activities as a member of Venice's nobility. Both he and his more famous brother Benedetto studied law and were members of the city-state's high council. Alessandro was educated at the Collegio di S. Antonio, then joined the Venetian Arcadian society, the Accademia degli Animosi in 1698, and served the city as a diplomat in the Levant and the Peloponnese in 1700 and 1701. After returning to Venice, he took on a series of judiciary positions while dabbling in a number of creative endeavors. He was responsible for paintings found in the family palaces and parish church and, after joining the literary society, the Accademia della Crusca, published eight books of couplets, Ozii giovanili, in 1719. That same year, he was named head of the Accademia degli Animosi, and as such, he did much to expand its collection of musical instruments, many of which are now in Rome's National Museum of Musical Instruments. Marcello's compositional output is small, consisting of not much more than a dozen each of chamber cantatas, violin sonatas, and concertos. Most of his works were published under the pseudonym "Eterio Stinfalico," which is one of the reasons why it wasn't known until the mid-twentieth century that Bach's Keyboard Concerto in D minor, BWV 974, was a transcription of Marcello's Oboe Concerto in D minor, and even so, both the Bach and the Oboe Concerto are still often attributed to Benedetto Marcello. His cantatas dealt primarily with pastoral subjects and contained topical references, and, befitting his station in society, were clearly intended for Venice's and Rome's best singers, including Farinelli, Checchino, Laura and Virginia Predieri, and Benedetto's student, Faustina Bordoni. His instrumental works reflect a knowledge and understanding of the differences in French, Italian, and German music of the time, including choices of instruments for both the solo and continuo parts and use of ornamentation. Of all of his works, what is best known is the Adagio from the Oboe Concerto, which has become a staple of wedding music collections.

Georg Philipp Telemann was born in Magdeburg, the son of a Lutheran deacon who died in 1685, leaving the mother to raise their three children alone. The youth showed remarkable talent in music but was temporarily discouraged in his chosen pursuit by Puritan Lutherans, who told Telemann's mother that he would turn out no better than "a clown, a tightrope walker or a marmot-trainer." In opposition to his mother's wishes, Telemann continued to study in secrecy until she relented, allowing him to train under the highly respected Kantor Benedict Christiani at the Old City School. Outside of some early lessons in reading tablature, Telemann was self-taught and was capable of playing the flute, violin, viola da gamba, oboe, trombone, double bass, and several keyboard instruments.

Telemann began to write music from childhood, producing an opera, Sigismundus, by age 12. He was sent away to Zellerfeld in 1694; at the age of 20, the composer resolved to study law in Leipzig, but a chance meeting in Halle with 16-year-old Georg Friedrich Handel appears to have drawn him back to music. Telemann began writing cantatas for a church in Leipzig and quickly became a local celebrity. In 1702, he was named director of the Leipzig Opera, and over the next three years, he wrote four operas specifically for this company. Early on, Telemann's career was marked by sharp contrasts, both professionally and personally. In 1705, he became the Kapellmeister in Sorau, now part of Poland, only serving three years before moving on to the court in Eisenach (1708-1712). In 1712, Telemann accepted an appointment in Frankfurt to the post of Kapellmeister at the Church of the Barefoot Friars and as director of municipal music. Telemann married Amalie Eberlin in 1709, who died in childbirth during the first year of their union. Telemann remarried in 1714 to Maria Katharina Textor, whose gambling addiction was so bad the citizens of Hamburg took up a collection in order to save the couple from bankruptcy. Later, Telemann's second spouse would abandon him in favor of a Swedish military officer.

In 1721, Telemann's opera Der geduldige Socrates was performed in Hamburg. That same year, Hamburg's officials awarded Telemann the positions of Kantor of the Johanneum and musical director of the city's principal churches. In doing so, Telemann accepted the responsibility of writing two cantatas for every Sunday, a new Passion setting annually, and contributing music to a wide variety of liturgical and civic events. Telemann readily met these obligations and in 1722 accepted the directorship of the Hamburg Opera, serving until its closure in 1738.

Telemann was also one of the first composers to concentrate on the business of publishing his own music, and at least forty early prints of his music are known from editions which he prepared and sold himself. These published editions were in some cases extremely popular and spread Telemann's fame throughout Europe; in particular, the Der Getreue Musik Meister (1728), Musique de Table (or Tafelmusik, 1733), and the 6 Concerts et 6 Suites (1734) were in wide use during the composer's lifetime. Starting in the 1740s until about 1755, Telemann focused less on composition, turning his attentions to the study of music theory. He wrote many oratorios in the mid-1750s, including Donnerode (1756), Das befreite Israel (1759), and Die Auferstehung und Himmelfährt Jesu (1760). Telemann's long life ended at the age of 86 in 1767.

Georg Philipp Telemann was considered the most important German composer of his day, and his reputation outlasted him for some time, but ultimately it was unable to withstand the shadow cast by the growing popularity of his contemporary, Johann Sebastian Bach. Telemann's enormous output, perhaps the largest of any classical composer in history, includes parts of at least 31 cantata cycles, many operas, concertos, oratorios, songs, music for civic occasions and church services, passions, orchestral suites, and abundant amounts of chamber music. While many of these works have been lost, most still exist, and the sheer bulk of his creativity has made it difficult for scholars and performers alike. The inevitable revival of interest in Telemann did not arrive until the 1920s but has grown exponentially ever since, and in the 21st century, more of Telemann's music is played, known, understood, and studied than at any time in history. ~ TiVo Staff

Independently wealthy, Wassenaer was an amateur musician and composer. In addition to serving as an ambassador and administrator for his country, he was responsible for many compositions initially attributed to Pergolesi, Birkenstock and others. His works generally conform to a conservative south Italian style, are richly scored and contain many fugual sections. ~ Lynn Vought

The second surviving son of J.S. Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel was the most innovative and idiosyncratic member of an extremely talented musical family. His music, unlike that of his father or that of the master he influenced, Haydn, did not define an era so much as reveal a deeply personal response to the musical conventions of his time.

C.P.E. Bach could play his father's technically demanding keyboard pieces at sight by the time he was seven. An exceptional student in areas other than music, he enrolled at the University of Leipzig in 1731 to study law, then transferred to the University of Frankfurt an der Oder. He graduated in 1734 but remained in that town giving keyboard lessons, involving himself in public concerts, and learning the composer's craft.

By 1740, Bach was in Berlin as harpsichordist to Frederick the Great of Prussia. Here, he was first exposed to Italian opera seria, and its dramatic style infiltrated his instrumental music. Little of this was heard at court, where Bach accompanied the flutist-king in one reactionary concerto after another by Quantz. He made several attempts to find a new position, but the stress of the king's disfavor was partially relieved in 1756 when Frederick became distracted by the Seven Years' War and was frequently away from the court. Bach found a select audience for his remarkable and experimental series of keyboard works such as the so-called "Prussian" and "Württemberg" sonatas (composed in the early 1740s) and the Sonatas with Varied Repeats (1760). Bach finally got himself released from Frederick's service in 1768 in order to succeed Telemann as cantor at the Johanneum in Hamburg, also serving as music director for the city's five major churches; he held this post until his death.

Stylistically distant from his father's rigorous polyphony, C.P.E. Bach was something of a proto-Romantic; he was the master of Empfindsamkeit, or "intimate expressiveness." The dark, dramatic, improvisation-like passages that appear in some of Mozart's and Haydn's works are due in part to his influence; in time, his music became known all over Europe. His impulsive works for solo keyboard, which lurch into unexpected keys, change tempo and dynamics abruptly, and fly along with wide-ranging themes, are especially compelling. One account of Bach's after-dinner improvisations described the sweaty, glazed-eyed musician as "possessed," an adjective that would be applied to equally intense and idiosyncratic musicians in the Romantic age. Many of his symphonies are as audacious as his keyboard pieces.

In the area of chamber music, Bach pulled the keyboard out of its subsidiary Baroque role and made it a full partner with, or even leader of, the other instruments. Yet here he fashioned the music to the public's conservative expectations, as he did with his church music. He composed prolifically in many genres, and much of his work awaits public rediscovery.

Bach also produced an important account of performance practice in the second half of the 18th century, translated into English as Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments. ~ James Reel

Johann Ludwig Krebs was a composer whose career spanned the end of the Baroque and beginning of the Classical era. In many respects, it typifies the problems many musicians had in coping with the drastic change of style this implies. Since he was an exceptionally skilled writer of counterpoint, he might have ended up with considerably wider fame if he had been born 20 years earlier.

Johann Ludwig was the son of Johann Tobias Krebs, the organist of Buttelstedt, near Weimar, who had studied with Bach. Father taught son organ, harmony, theory, and counterpoint. The lad was sent to enter the Thomasschule in Leipzig, where Bach was music director. Krebs general studies and lessons in singing, lute, violin, and keyboard. He remained a singer in Bach's choir until 1730.

Krebs attended the University of Leipzig from 1735 to 1737, took part on an as-needed basis in Bach's choir at the Thomaskirche and was the harpsichord player in the university's collegium musicum, which was also directed by Bach. Krebs left Leipzig in 1737 to take a position as organist of the Marienkirche in Zwickau, an ill-paid job playing an equally ill-maintained organ. While there, he met and married Johanna Sophie Nackens, daughter of a civil servant there. Soon, they had the first of their children, Johann Gottfried Krebs (1741 - 1814), an organist who wrote a large number of cantatas in his long-standing tenure as Mittelorganist or Stadtkantor of Altenberg. In 1744, Krebs moved to Zeitz to become organist there for 12 years. He tried unsuccessfully to become Bach's successor. In 1755, he accepted a position as organist to the court of Prince Friedrich of Gotha-Altenberg. The organ was better, the court was more exalted, but the pay was little improvement. Still, he continued to get by and retained the post until death. Family finances were somewhat helped when Johann Gottfried became his assistant organist.

Krebs had a very high reputation among his contemporaries. Bach held him in high regard, punning on both their names ( Krebs [crab or crayfish] and Bach [brook or stream]) by saying "He is the only crayfish in my stream." It is not surprising that many of his works, especially his organ compositions, are very much like those of Bach. His harpsichord music is probably what was best-known of his work in his own time, published extensively, particularly in four volumes of Clavier Ubung. Krebs also wrote significant quantities of orchestral and choral music. His name and music contributed to one of the most delicious inside jokes in movie music history. To echo the on-screen motion of the giant crab in the film Mysterious Island, with its independently moving legs, Bernard Herrmann orchestrated a cancrizan (i.e. crab-motion) fugue by the "crab" composer, Krebs.