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Frederick Ernest Fisher – to give him the full name by which he went in England (although he liked to reduce the forenames to initials) – embodies the rare case of an exceptionally gifted eighteenth-century composer who was rediscovered a first time (during the 1950s) but very soon afterwards forgotten again, so that the present editions and the article complementing them in effect constitute a ‘relaunch’.1 Only twelve works by Fisher are known to survive. They form two published collections of trio sonatas for two violins, cello and harpsichord. Op. 1 came out c.1751, Op. 2 c.1761. Since Fisher was a violinist as well as a cellist, his writing for strings is highly idiomatic, although, true to the trio-sonata tradition, it makes no particularly exacting technical demands. The cello is treated especially generously, sharing to an unusually large extent in the thematic discourse of the upper voices.
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