Violinist and conductor Gottfried von der Goltz has gained recognition as the leader of the Freiburger Barockorchester (or "Freiburg Baroque Orchestra"), an innovative historical-performance ensemble. He also performs widely as a violin soloist. Von der Goltz was born in the Bavarian city of Würzburg on June 1, 1964. He studied with his father, Georg Conrad von der Goltz, and his mother, Kirsti Hjort. Von der Goltz studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover under Rami Shevelov, moved to New York for graduate studies at the Juilliard School, and continued taking lessons with Rainer Kussmaul in Freiburg. At age 21, von der Goltz earned a violin chair in the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg, looking forward to a secure career with a solid German orchestra. Two years later, he relinquished that post in favor of the Baroque violin, in the mid-'80s, not a terribly common instrument in Germany. That led to von der Goltz's leadership of the Freiburger Barockorchester, where he continues, with Kristian Bezuidenhout, to hold the post of artistic director. With the Freiburg group, he has amassed a large catalog of recordings, beginning in 1994 with an album of works by Purcell and Handel.

Just when you think you have all your Dall'Abacos in a row, they bring along a new one: Joseph-Marie-Clément Dall'Abaco was the son of famed cello virtuoso and composer Evaristo Felice Dall'Abaco. His long lifespan witnessed an unimaginable measure of musical developments; born the year Vivaldi published L'estro armonico, the younger Dall'Abaco died the year Beethoven commenced work on his Fifth Symphony. For all that time on earth, Dall'Abaco's extant catalog of works, all for cello, is comparatively slim; about 40 sonatas and this set of 11 caprices, preserved only in a very bad manuscript copy made in the nineteenth century. Although these works defy dating, stylistically, they seem to belong to the late Baroque, probably composed before Joseph-Marie-Clément Dall'Abaco was made a baron by the court at Munich in 1759. Although he appeared there many times, Dall'Abaco was never a member of the court orchestra in Munich, and the honorific may have been bestowed as a retroactive gesture to the memory of his father, whose exalted reputation Dall'Abaco was never able to outgrow while he lived.