When the Swedish crown prince marries the Prussian Princess Luise Ulrike in 1744, Johan Helmich Roman, Sweden’s first major composer, writes the wedding music. The king’s brother travelling as ambassador between Stockholm and Kassel brings Johan Joachim Agrell from Uppsala to Germany where the composer lives and works for forty years. The Saxon Johann Adolph Scheibe in turn is recommended by his employer to the Queen of Denmark who happens to be his sister and becomes an influential co-creator of musical life in Copenhagen. And Telemann, musical director of Hamburg, wittily portrays Swedes, Danes and Germans in his suite – after all the second largest Danish city is right at his doorstep – Hamburg Altona. Their music speaks a language that is understood everywhere because it joyfully absorbs the best of all nations.