It is significant to observe how music history has left aside these composers, despite their impressive outputs. Carlo Farina, Vincenzo Albrici, Wilhelm Furchheim and many others effectively guided the aesthetic evolution of the period, undoubtedly exerting an influence on their successors, not only because of the beauty and quality of their works, but because of their experimentation with form. There were many more composers active during this period than just Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, but unfortunately, music history was written too quickly, allowing valuable material from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to lay dormant in libraries. For example, Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony is composed in the same manner as Justin Heinrich Knester’s L’image de la nature, a programmatic symphony composed in 1790 with which Beethoven was familiar. But it never formed part of the repertory, it was never published, and it was never performed again. Consequently, it doesn’t exist and has been forgotten.

Why are there still so many hidden treasures?

Often musicologists don’t want to truly educate the general public. They prefer to count bars, compare tonalities and other trivialities, instead of demonstrating the richness of the music. They don’t feel obliged to generate artistic understanding among the wider public. They prefer to keep these delights to themselves.

How did the role of the conductor of early music originate?

The figure of the conductor as it is understood today didn’t really exist until the nineteenth century. Prior to this, it was taken for granted that a Kapellmeister knew how to play the harpsichord or the violin. The conductor is an invention of the nineteenth century.

Is this the reason why there are no early-music courses for orchestral conductors?

Yes, they can’t be implemented. The conductor’s role is to actively participate in the performance (ie, play an instrument). If not, it is very complicated. This became very clear to me when I conducted Monteverdi’s Orfeo in Hannover. It is almost impossible to conduct because it begins in 4/2 metre, but immediately changes to 3/2 or 2/2 and this must be felt and experienced. That’s why it is so hard to conduct music that was originally composed to be performed without a conductor. The Brandenburg Concertos can be performed with a conductor, but they weren’t designed to be.

Today it is common for many instrumental soloists or singers, such as Jacobs, Stubbs or you yourself, to take up conducting. These conductors direct large productions with sound musical ideas, but without any special preparation such as gestural communication and rehearsal techniques. Do you think the presence of a conductor in these cases helps or hinders?