Sep 7, 2025
This album presents a recital, offering us a variety of compositions to help us understand what was fashionable in the world of art music…
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Aug 31, 2025
Before we even audition these two recordings, the liner notes of each tell us a lot about the approach each musician has taken to the…
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Aug 30, 2025
Mozart’s quintets are for a quartet texture with an extra viola (not piano); the first one is scored for a “basso” as the lowest…
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Aug 17, 2025
Albums like this one often serve as calling cards for younger pianists: they establish technical command through repertoire that everyone…
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Aug 16, 2025
This collection—Telemann’s fantasias for viola da gamba—presents, as Sara Ruiz, the soloist here attests, a unique opportunity.
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Aug 16, 2025
This new release on Channel Classics features works by each of Bach’s eldest sons and rounds the recital with BWV 1032, an arrangement of…
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Aug 10, 2025
This album includes Bach’s Toccatas for keyboard, BWV 910-916, in addition to three bonus tracks, the Kempff arrangement of BWV 1031, a…
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Aug 3, 2025
This album featuring baroque violinist Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir, dips into the same collection of Biber violin sonatas that were the feature…
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Aug 3, 2025
The promotional notes for this album say that Ferrari was well-known as an eighteenth century violinist/composer, but this is my first listen to his works.
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Aug 2, 2025
Newly released on Berlin Classics is a recording of Bach’s Art of the Fugue BWV 1080, an interesting album, for it opens on solo…
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Jul 24, 2025
My composition teacher in college told me about a trip he’d taken to London; his opera was being performed and he’d had the occasion to…
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Jul 21, 2025
Locatelli’s “Theatrical introductions” are six in number, akin, perhaps, to some of Vivaldi’s “concertos for strings,” that would be used…
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Jul 19, 2025
My recent journey to the United Kingdom included a day in Cambridge, where I walked right past the Fitzwilliam Museum, which I could now…
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Jul 19, 2025
I have no doubt that the title of this album is a cheeky nod to the Canadian singer Justin Bieber.
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Jul 13, 2025
On Sunday, July 6, 2025, I attended a concert by the Vision String Quartet at London’s Wigmore Hall. The program included two pieces plus an encore: The concert was special for me on several fronts: first, the location.
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Jul 2, 2025
I grew up with Trevor Pinnock’s recording of Corelli’s concerti grossi on Archiv Production.
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Jul 1, 2025
Known both as the Chandos Anthems and the Anthems for Cannons, the latter showcasing the name of an estate, Handel was, in 1717, a…
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Jul 1, 2025
Many of the solo sonatas written for an instrument with continuo, starting some fifteen years into the seventeenth century, were intended for “sopranos,” which might include the violin or the cornetto, as the two primary candidates; recorders may also have…
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Jun 22, 2025
I last reviewed an album of the music by Roman last November. I was pleased to explore this Swedish composer’s music in that album; I am also familiar with some of his flute music. This is my first time auditioning his music for solo violin.
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Jun 21, 2025
I’ve been waiting for someone to make a visual pun on Biber’s name, and at last, this album’s cover does just that—and well.
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Jun 21, 2025
Margravine Wilhelmine von Bayreuth is the focus of this album, although the music presented includes pieces by Johann Pfieiffer, Johann Gotthilf Jänichen, Bernhard Joachim Hagen, and Pietro Locatelli.
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Jun 19, 2025
Alessandro Quarta led his Concerto Romano in a recital at the Boston Early Music Festival this year in a program dedicated to pieces from the early Italian baroque dedicated to the role of nannies in operas that spoke directly to the audience about the…
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Jun 19, 2025
This album came in just on the heels of my writing about the use of original instruments as part of HIPP and after a recording of Pachelbel on the piano.
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Jun 13, 2025
In a full hour recital with only a couple pauses for Taylor to speak briefly with the audience, the French harpsichordist presented a tasteful program of works for the harpsichord from well-known composers, including Couperin, d’Anglebert, Lully, Rameau, and…
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Jun 12, 2025
This duo performed Thursday night at Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory of Music. The hall was empty, save for a green and gold-decorated harpsichord.
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Jun 8, 2025
Veracini joins other famed Italians for both his compositional and performance skills at the violin—names like Locatelli, Tartini, Vivaldi…
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Jun 8, 2025
Johann Pachelbel is known to you more than likely for his work for three violins and continuo, his Canon and Gigue in D major, which has…
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May 26, 2025
These two recordings challenged me. Readers will know—but may not agree with me—that baroque music can be played rewardingly with different philosophical approaches applied.
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May 24, 2025
There’s an infamous quote about the sound of the harpsichord, attributed to the British conductor, Thomas Beecham: The sound of a…
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May 24, 2025
My favorite album by Tristano is his earlier “On Early Music,” which in addition to Frescobaldi and Gibbons (among others) are his own…
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May 19, 2025
This album, featuring harpsichordist Anastasie Jeanne, a name with which I’m not familiar, features 70 minutes of music from composers you…
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May 18, 2025
Benjamin Alard’s recording of Bach’s keyboard works, continues here in its tenth volume, coupling the trio sonatas for organ (BWV 525-530)…
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May 12, 2025
Bach’s sonatas for violin and keyboard are well-recorded; this album features a bonus, in that the final G major sonata comes to us in…
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May 10, 2025
This chamber music recording is headlined by the Czech recorder player, Michaela Koudelková, whom is a new name to me.
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May 10, 2025
I’d missed the release earlier this year of music by Johann Christoph Schmidt—a composer born into a musical family based in Dresden.
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May 3, 2025
This recording combines a collection of various early and middle-period baroque sonatas, with the basso continuo support provided by lute.
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May 3, 2025
28 tracks and just an hour to explore Handel through the lens of a violinist with continuo.
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Apr 19, 2025
This month brings a new recording of the Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, performed by Italian pianist Alessandro Deljavan.
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Apr 19, 2025
This album features two works that are disparate in style, but the liner notes make the case for them appearing side-by-side, suggesting…
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Apr 5, 2025
Some weeks ago I took in an online webinar from the Clavecin Society in San Francisco which featured a conversation with Skip Sempé.
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Mar 29, 2025
Jeannette Sorrell has released a new recording featuring baroque music inspired from Italy (and Spain).
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Mar 29, 2025
JS Bach: The Weimar Years brings thoughtful programming and polished performances from Paul Agnew and Les Arts Florissants, pairing three…
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Mar 25, 2025
We’ve thankfully had several ensembles over the years champion the music of Georg Philipp Telemann, a contemporary of Bach and Handel.
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Mar 23, 2025
Quickly: arrangements for viol da gamba, gambas, and organ, featuring—among some anonymous pieces—works by Johann Sebastian Bach and…
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Mar 22, 2025
On the Alpha Classics label comes another strong album from the Musiciens de Saint-Julien, featuring François Lazarevich on flute (and…
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Mar 15, 2025
Last year, bassoonist Sophie Dervaux released an album of concertos with La Folia Barockorchester (Dresden) and they’ve just released…
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Mar 15, 2025
This week I’m continuing my Bach streak by reviewing a counterpoint (ha!) to last week’s review by Albert Cano Smit.
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Mar 9, 2025
I was asked recently why I sometimes pair two recordings together in a review. The answer I gave was both pragmatic and reader focused.
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