Johann Friedrich Fasch is primarily known to modern audiences through a few trumpet pieces that have served for weddings and other assertions of respectability like public television programs. But, as with his somewhat older contemporary Telemann, he left a great deal of music, and it may be that he has been underestimated simply because performers haven't known where to begin with it. This 1987 disc of oboe and bassoon music from the former East Germany, with performers working from manuscripts held in the Saxon State Library in Dresden (Fasch's longtime residence), reveals a composer whose music blended old and new. The overall mood is a bit less free and easy than with Telemann, and there's a facility of contrapuntal writing, erupting at times into full-fledged fugues, which can make you think you're listening to Bach. But Fasch's emphasis on melody points to the influence of Vivaldi, and some of the music even suggests Fasch as a forerunner of the Classical style. Sample the Sonata in F major for two oboes and two bassoons, without continuo (tracks 18-21) -- it's delightful from start to finish. Fasch's part-writing, with the two bassoons gracefully filling the dual role of harmonic support and full member of the texture, is the height of elegance. And the slightly dancelike, pastoral mood of the work tells us that the divertimenti and Feldparthien of the mid century were not far away; indeed it wouldn't be a surprise if music like this turned out to have been known by the young Haydn. The performances are technically confident and perfectly attuned to Fasch's slightly sober idiom, but those new to historical instruments should note that the Baroque oboe, even more so than other early instruments, takes some getting used to. The situation is not helped by the Communist-era sound, which puts the emphasis on all the wrong places (including the group breathtaking at the beginning of each movement), but this is nevertheless a worthwhile disc for Baroque collections.