Jacob Klein – Scordatura Sonatas

Most composers in Western music history were professional musicians. This “most” seems to imply that there were also composers who were not professional musicians, and that is indeed the case. In various countries and at various periods amateur composers have played an important role. Tommaso Albinoni, Francesco Antonio Bonporti and Benedetto Marcello, for example, were all well-known amateur composers active in Italy at the beginning of the eighteenth century. They proudly called themselves “amatore” or “dilettante” on the title pages of their published works. The German-speaking countries and the Netherlands also had their share of amateur composers in the first half of the eighteenth century. Among Dutch amateur composers Jacob Klein the Younger, who lived from 1688 to 1748, is perhaps not the best known – this prerogative certainly goes to Count Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer, composer of the famous VI Concerti armonici, anonymously published in the Hague in 1740 and later incorrectly attributed to their editor Carlo Ricciotti detto Bacciccia or even to Pergolesi – but his music certainly merits performance and is well worth listening to and recording.