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Reviews

Jul 15, 2026

Composers
Johann Schenk
Label
Challenge

The opus 7 collection by Johannes Schenk (b. 1660), a composer known for his writing for the viola da gamba, has been recorded by the trio…

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J. Schenk: Sonatas for violin, op. 7 Ensemble Castor

Jul 14, 2026

Composers
Sainte-ColombeForquerayMarais

North American gambist Caroline Nicolas and her husband Kevin Payne here perform French pieces for the viola da gamba, many accompanied by…

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Pièces en solitude Nicolas & Payne

Jul 12, 2026

Composers
Christoph Graupner
Label
CPO

Graupner isn't nearly as well known today as Telemann, Handel, and J.S. Bach, though he was a contemporary of all three high-Baroque masters.

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Christoph Graupner: Sinfonias Il Gardellino et al.

Jul 11, 2026

Composers
PiazzollaMellitsO'HalloranErdenebaatar
Label
Arcis Records

Claus Hierluksch (soprano), Ricarda Fuss (alto), Anne-Marie Schäfer (tenor), and Jure Knez (bari) form this quartet with a release…

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Quirky Nightclub Chronicles Arcis Saxophone Quartet

Jul 5, 2026

Composers
Johann Sebastian Bach
Label
Prospero
Released
2026
Length
2:23:10

One might understand how a violist could feel slighted for not getting their own sonatas or suites when Bach’s music for the violin and…

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J.S. Bach: Cello Suites, arr. for viola Sabbah

Jul 4, 2026

Composers
VIvaldi
Label
Naïve
Catalog no
OP 30573
Released
2021

I often lament never learning to play the bassoon. Trained as a music educator, I learned to play many instruments, but bassoon, double…

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Vivaldi: Concerti per fagotto, vol. 6 Azzolini

Jul 4, 2026

Composers
RameauForquerayLullyD'Anglebert
Label
Alpha
Released
2026
Length
53:11

The sound of a harpsichord: two skeletons copulating on a tin roof, in a thunderstorm.

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Clavecins Concertants Fortin & Frankenberg

Jul 1, 2026

Composers
John Hingeston
Label
CPO

The liner notes of this album give good context to the composer, John Hingeston, who lived in the 17th century, who may have studied with…

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Hingeston: Fantasy-Suites Echo du Danube

Jun 29, 2026

Composers
Francesco Geminiani
Label
Challenge
Released
2024
Length
53:38

Francesco Xaverio Geminiani (d. 17 September 1762) was a Luccan-born violinist, composer, and theorist whose career traced an arc from the…

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Geminiani: Sonatas for Violoncello Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde

Jun 27, 2026

Composers
JSBach
Label
Naive

We have the next installment here of Francesco Tristano's recording of Bach's keyboard works with the so-called French Suites, BWV 812-817.

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J.S. Bach: The French Suites Tristano

Jun 27, 2026

Composers
JSBach
Released
2026
Length
1:12:58

This album is as much about Bach's music as it is about the performer and his workspace — Rowland has spent some forty years at Christ's…

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J.S. Bach: Organ Preludes & Fugues David Rowland

Jun 19, 2026

Composers
VivaldiGFHandelCalifanoFaschZelenkaTelemann
Released
2024
Length
1:00:34

This hour-long recital features music for winds—the ensemble's specialty—from Vivaldi, Handel, Califano, Fasch, Zelenka, and Telemann.

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Pyrotechnies Sarbacanes

Jun 16, 2026

Composers
JS Bach
Label
Linn
Released
2026
Length
1:08:03

This recital of Bach centers on his transformation of concertos by others into keyboard works.

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J.S. Bach: Transformations Nepomnyashchaya

Jun 14, 2026

Composers
Jacques Duphly
Released
2026
Length
1:01:24

Jacques Duphly's life traces the long twilight of the French harpsichord school.

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Duphly: Éclats et derniers feux Barrucand

Jun 13, 2026

Composers
JSBach
Label
Avie Records
Catalog no
AV2704
Released
2026

René Schiffer takes on Bach's solo suites here. A founding member of Cleveland's Apollo's Fire, he recorded the set in one of the area…

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J.S. Bach: Suites for Cello Schiffer

Jun 8, 2026

Composers
Domenico Scarlatti
Label
FHR
Released
2026
Length
1:16:22

Asako Ogawa is a name new to me; this recital offers fifteen of Scarlatti's ~550 sonatas in a seventy-six and a half minute recital upon a…

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Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas Ogawa

Jun 7, 2026

Composers
Joseph Bodin de BoismortierJean‐Féry RebelMichel Corrette
Label
Chaconne
Released
2016
Length
57:28

It’s funny sometimes how you come into discovering a new recording. And by new I mean new to me, not necessarily new to the world.

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Les Voyages de L’Amour Ensemble Meridiana

Jun 6, 2026

Composers
JSBach

Violin, flute, harpsichord: Bach specifies these instruments for his famous Musical Offering to Frederick the Great.

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A Musical Offering Le Caravansérail

Jun 6, 2026

Composers
JSBach
Label
Linn Records
Catalog no
CKD 796
Released
2026

This album "Have Mercy" includes an interesting combination of instruments: violin, five-string cello, and (4 string) cello.

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Erbarme dich! Ayres Extemporæ

May 27, 2026

Composers
JSBach
Released
2016
Length
1:13:47

I am coming to this album late, as it was released in March of 2016. To my knowledge, a companion recording of the sonatas has not yet been…

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Bach: Partitas (for violin) Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir

May 26, 2026

Composers
JSBach
Label
Ramée
Catalog no
RAM2005
Released
2021

I’d never gotten around to reviewing this album which was released in late 2021, recorded in May of 2019: a collaboration between organist…

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Bach for Two Lischka & De Cat

May 25, 2026

Composers
JSBach

Born in 1949 into an artistic, bourgeois Shanghai family, Zhu Xiao-Mei was performing on Peking radio and television by age eight and…

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Bach: Goldberg Variations at the Thomaskirche Zhu

May 23, 2026
Composers
Telemann

Corelli’s solo sonatas were officially published in 1700, and Telemann came to publish a set of solo violin works in 1735 in the city of…

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Telemann: 12 Fantasias for Solo Violin

May 23, 2026

Label
Alpha

Early music specialists — as a concept — are people who focus on performing music from an earlier period of history. That may be all they do.

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Clavecin XX Justin Taylor

May 20, 2026

Label
Signum

Volume 1 of this set appeared in 2023, played by Boothby. I did not review that edition, but I did this past March audition the release of…

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Music to Hear: Ferrabosco Volumes 2 & 3 Boothby

May 19, 2026

Composers
Johann Gottlieb Janitsch
Label
CPO
Catalog no
555 772-2
Released
2026

Johann Gottlieb Janitsch (1708–1763) was born in Schweidnitz, a prosperous Lower Silesian city that had weathered the Thirty Years' War and…

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Janitsch: Concertos & Symphonies Świątkiewicz

May 18, 2026

Composers
Johann Sebastian Bach
Released
2026
Length
1:48:29

The oddity, perhaps, among Bach's vocal works is a set of four Latin masses, BWV 233–236.

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Bach: Lutheran Masses Willens

May 17, 2026

Composers
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber
Label
Accent
Released
2026
Length
1:29:32

I recently did a meta-assessment of recordings of this important collection by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. Perhaps I should have waited?

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Biber: Harmonia artificioso-ariosa Harmonie Universelle

May 16, 2026

Composers
George Frideric HandelHenry Purcell
Label
Prospero

Die Freitagsakademie performed with Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen in a recital of works by Purcell and Handel.

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Handel & Purcell: It Love’s a Sweet Passion

May 13, 2026

Composers
Franz Ignaz Beck
Label
CPO

Franz Ignaz Beck lived from 1734-1809 and this ensemble has made several earlier recordings of the composer’s symphonic repertoire.

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Beck: Symphonies Op. 4, 4-6 La Stagione Frankfurt

May 10, 2026

Composers
Joseph Haydn
Label
Alpha

Readers are likely already familiar with the Alpha Classics project with Giovanni Antonini who is recording all of Haydn’s symphonies by…

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Haydn 2032 – Trauer Il Giardino Armonico

May 9, 2026

Composers
Johann Sebastian Bach
Label
Harmonia Mundi

Les Arts Florissants continue their series of exploring Bach’s music, by location, with this volume 3 release featuring Durchlauchtster…

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Bach: A Life in Music – Köthen

May 9, 2026

Composers
Johann Sebastian Bach
Label
Arcana
Released
2026
Length
1:18:36

Gaudio has a great formative resume, having studied with Olivier Baumont, Blandine Rannou, Francesco Corti and Jörg-Andreas Bötticher.

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Bach on the Edge Cristiano Gaudio

May 3, 2026

Composers
Antonio Vivaldi
Label
Arcana

Vivaldi’s concertos are among the most recorded repertoire in early music, and opinions on whether the catalog needs more vary widely.

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Vivaldi 100 Giuliano Carmignola

May 2, 2026

Composers
Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt, a living composer, has attracted fans of early music because of his stylistic affinity for earlier forms, harmonies, and partly…

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Cello Octet Amsterdam – Music by Arvo Pärt

Apr 27, 2026

Composers
Johann Sebastian Bach
Label
Aparté

On the heels of that viola pomposa recording, we get the OG version of Bach's sonatas for viola da gamba and keyboard: BWV 1027–1029.

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Bach Gamba Sonatas Sakaï & Rousset

Apr 20, 2026

Label
Erato

The album takes its name from the Torre del Oro, the twelve-sided watchtower on the banks of the Guadalquivir in Seville — the departure…

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The Golden Tower L’Apreggiata

Apr 19, 2026

Composers
Steve Reich
Label
Colin Currie

Steve Reich’s music was easy enough to find even before I went to college.

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Reich: The Sextets Colin Currie Group

Apr 18, 2026

Composers
Johann Sebastian Bach
Label
Harmonia Mundi

In 2001, a quarter-century ago, the British ensemble Fretwork recorded Bach's Die Kunst der Fuga at Snape Maltings, an arts center in…

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Bach: Die Kunst der Fuga Fretwork

Apr 12, 2026

Composers
Johann Sebastian Bach
Released
2026
Length
48:56

With all of the recordings of Bach's "trio sonatas" we might have wanted to send him a message to the past to write more.

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Bach: Sonates en trio Les Curiosités esthétiques

Apr 11, 2026
Label
Dare2

Some time ago I came across the British bass player Dave Holland by accident; I subsequently learned about what a force and long-standing…

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Shadow Dance Dave Holland

Apr 11, 2026

Composers
Johann Sebastian Bach

The Italian pianist Maria Perrotta was a name I was unfamiliar with. Her bio reveals some details that you may be interested in.

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Bach: Die Kunst der Fuga Maria Perrotta

Apr 4, 2026
Composers
Johann Sebastian Bach

August 13, 2025: The first album, Bach Jazz, showed up in my Qobuz feed without much metadata and no mention of the performers.

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Bach played as jazz: Bach Jazz

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