Why should things be more fair in musical history than elsewhere? Here, too, the wall that stands between fame and obscurity is very thin and, moreover, rather arbitrarily erected. But it can be unsurmountably high. Coincidences, small vicissitudes of life can decide between success and failure in the eyes of posterity. The composers whose works we find on this recording are prime examples of this. On the one hand, George Frideric Handel, the cosmopolitan, widely known composer, chapel master to His Majesty, the King of England, and director of the Royal Academy of Music, who hardly needs any further introduction, and, on the other hand, Johann Sigismund Weiss. Who?

The name Weiss only brings to mind Sylvius Leopold, the famous lutenist at the Dresden court, acquainted with Bach – this was the older brother of our Weiss. He, too, was a professional musician, and, as his works show, one who was entirely on a par with his brother, indeed even with Handel – but he never became famous. He was born ca. 1690 in Breslau, and died in Mannheim in 1737. We hardly know anything about his life and work. From 1708 to 1718, he was lutenist of the Electoral Palatinate court chapel in Düsseldorf, subsequently – until 1723 – he held the same position in Mannheim. There he advanced to court Kapellmeister. But his path should cross with that of Handel.

If you listen to this SACD with closed eyes: try to decide whether you just hear Händel - or Weiss?