Johann Wilhelm Hertel is one of the lesser-known composers of the late baroque and early classical era. Born in Eisenach in 1727, as a young man he travelled to the north of Germany with his father, who was a viola da gamba virtuoso engaged as a Kapellmeister at the court of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Already as a young man Johann Wilhelm showed a remarkable talent for music. He excelled on the harpsichord and violin, but his father wanted him to additionally study law. However, a trip to Berlin and contact with Berlin court musicians Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Franz Benda pushed the young Johann Wilhelm to devote his life primarily to music. In particular he studied the harpsichord with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the violin with Franz Benda and composition with Karl Heinrich Graun. He spent his life in the service of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz and -Schwerin courts, and he was also music director in Stralsund. It was during this time that he had many opportunities to meet authorities from both the musical and scientific worlds.

His oboes concertos are exemplary compositions of these times. The autographs, which are preserved in the Library of the Royal Conservatoire of Brussels (Sig. no. B-Bc-5562 and B-Bc-5563), together contain 10 oboe concertos in various keys. Nine of them are collected (and numbered by librarians) in Sig. no. B-Bc-5562 ,and one is separately placed as B-Bc-5563. As there is no catalogue of Hertel’s works, the numbers given for the concertos are taken from the manuscript Sig. no. B-Bc-5562. Some of the pieces are dated 1749 (Concertos nos. 3 and 9) and others 1756 (Concerto no.2). All the concertos were prepared for this recording by Katarzyna Pilipiuk, copying with a focus on accuracy; only minor mistakes were corrected so as to give the most faithful transmission of the composer’s ideas. The material is very clear, with all the pieces noted by the composer in score form. All of them have signs of stylistic inspiration from the works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, in particular Concerto no.5, which is an excellent work in the Empfindsamer Stil.