J.S. Bach: Viola da gamba Sonatas • Zipperling & Belder
On the heels of another Bach gamba album, this one presents music both familiar and perhaps unfamiliar for the gamba.
HIP
J.S. Bach: Partitas for Viola da gamba • Teodoro Baù
Of course, Mr. Baù teases us with these unknown gems for the viola da gamba by Bach. A recent discovery? No. He’s turned to Bach’s Sei Solo and selected the partitas for violin, BWV 1002, 1004, and 1006.
Imprinting: Beethoven and Schubert • Accademia Bizantina
I was a bit surprised to see another Italian conductor taking up Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony so soon after our earlier experience here with Enrico Onofri’s album.
J.S. Bach: Komm!
The recorder occupies a distinctive place in Johann Sebastian Bach's sacred music, its gentle, breath-driven sound frequently associated with mortality, consolation, and the promise of eternal life.
Duologues
Bach wrote the Inventions to teach his students to play cleanly in two parts at the keyboard, and the four Duettos of Clavier-Übung III are keyboard music too.
Venezia Sottosopra • Gaillard & Daragó
Venice has always been a city of contradictions, where elegance and vulgarity, sacred tradition and popular entertainment, melancholy and exuberance coexist.
Maitre Bach • Hantaï
This generous recital of Bach's music speaks directly to those of us who are, perhaps, not the most accomplished keyboard players.
G. F. Handel: Messiah • English Baroque Soloists & Monteverdi Choir
Early music ensembles tend to reshuffle their rosters more than the big orchestras do. Philadelphia or Vienna tend to keep their players for a year, and the those bigger ensembles tend to keep the principal players…
Palestrina: Song of Songs • The Sixteen
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's fourth book of motets (1584) sets poetry from the Old Testament as five-voice works, SSATB, SATTB, and SAATB.
Anna Magdalena • Feuersinger
Miriam Feuersinger is here accompanied by the Capricornus Consort Basel in a program dedicated to works for soprano, an effort to present pieces that may have been performed by Johann Sebastian Bach's second wife, a…
Berlin Viola Concertos • Ensemble Diderot
When we think of the hundreds of concertos Vivaldi wrote, the violin is the star — though he was never opposed to offering us other colors.
Monteverdi: Vespro della beata Vergine • InALTO
When you study Baroque music history with a Monteverdi specialist, you can imagine you get a proper education in the composer and his musical legacy.
Apollo & Marsyas • Marsyas Baroque
Presented across six "acts," Marsyas Baroque (Paula Pinn, recorder and bassoon; María Carrasco Gil, violin; Konstanze Waidosch, cello, violoncello piccolo, and gamba; and Sara Johnson Huidobro, harpsichord and organ)…
Aurora Germanica
Violinist Louise Ayrton describes this program as an attempt to trace the thread of time backward — to the foundations of the old masters of the Germanic school.
Vivaldi’s Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione (opus 8)
There's no doubt what Vivaldi's most famous music is today, and those four concertos are the first of 12 that make up his contest between harmony and invention, a rather colorful title.
An Italian Portrait (Cantatas by G.F. Händel)
This album features cantatas for solo voice, sung here by countertenor Gabriel Díaz. Before I discuss the music, the production value of the booklet that accompanies this album has some issues.
François Couperin: Pièces de violes • La Bellemont
The liner notes describe Couperin's Pièces de violes (Paris 1728) as his "penaltimate publication" [sic] — his second-to-last, before the fourth book of harpsichord pieces closed out his catalogue in 1730 — comprising…
48° North. Caldara, from Venice to Vienna • BanXhies
The name of this album isn't particularly helpful in understanding what you're going to hear within; in a store you'd have the opportunity to turn the disc over and see a track listing: Caldara, Biber, Vivaldi, Bach…
J.S. Bach: The Motets • Gaechinger Cantorey
Bach's motets, as the excellent liner notes to this release note, are among his most beloved vocal works. I can see how, for modern audiences, their format — continuous singing — makes for a more easily digestible…
Mozart: Complete Flute Quartets • Besson
Mozart's "Complete" flute quartets may be a misnomer, as we may not have everything he wrote; what's offered here are 10 tracks' worth, with a bonus of an arrangement made by Hoffmeister of one of Mozart's piano sonatas.
J.S. Bach: Dritter Theil der Clavier Übung • Croci
Bach's third set of keyboard works was published for organ in 1739, after some delay. Bach had real renown as an organist among those who had heard him play outside his ordinary Leipzig duties, and it is easy to read…
Spice of Italy – Music by Nicola Matteis Sr. and Nicola Matteis Jr. • Duo Dorado
The Nicola Matteis we often celebrate today through recordings is the one born around 1645, who would later arrive in London an established violin virtuoso.
Still Life: Early Baroque Fantasy • Música d’Outrora
This album, directed by Pablo Devigo, puts on offer mostly Italian music from the earlier half of the baroque period. The recording is made in a very reverberant space—St. Alban's Church in Birmingham, England.
Die Kunst der Fuga • Pieter-Jan Belder
Among the most prolific recording artists, in addition to his roles as a teacher, Pieter-Jan Belder has recorded several large collections of music, including Domenico Scarlatti's sonatas for keyboard, the Fitzwilliam…
Bohemia • Van Diemen’s Band
This short album (46 minutes) covers favorite repertoire of mine by composers as diverse as Johann Pachelbel, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Froberger, Pezel, Muffat, and Kerll.
Viennese Lute Music • Satoh
This album, released nearly eight years ago on the Carpe Diem label, features music composed by François Ginter (Adam Franz Ginter), Jacques-Alexandre de Saint-Luc and Johann Georg Weichenberger.
Telemann: Recorder Music • Roed
This recording features music that, for Telemann fans, has been recorded well enough already. So the question is the one I always end up asking: what's new or interesting here?
Concerti Bizarri • Irish Baroque Orchestra
A friend recently sent me a picture of this recording, asking if I'd auditioned it. I remembered the cover but not much about the performances.
Of grief and the divine • Ensemble Cosmos
The verse anthem was England's answer to a problem the Reformation had created: how to make music that served an English liturgy without the Latin polyphony that had carried the old one.
Handel & Vivaldi: Sacred Works • Grace Davidson
I'm not going to pretend I know what has happened to England's two great period-instrument ensembles — maybe nothing has — but their presence in the world recording market has changed considerably since the heyday of…
Spiritillo Mediterraneo – Music for Violin and Continuo
This album, featuring the Spanish violinist Cristina Prats Costa, was recorded in Toronto (where she is working toward her DMA), with works by Falconieri, Matteis, Biber, Rebel, de Nebra, Vivaldi, and Schop.
Lemniscate – Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuga • New Collegium
The calculating machine on this album cover is a handsome image, but it doesn't tell us what lemniscate means—probably not a word in most listeners' vocabularies. It refers to the infinity symbol: a sideways 8.
Biber: Vesperæ a 32 • Ars Antiqua Austria
This album's cover is a little short on detail. The music is shared between Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber and Benedikt Anton Aufschnaiter (b. 1665). The vespers portion combines Biber's Dixit Dominus and Magnificat, C.
Alle lacrime – Concerti Grossi • Le Moment Baroque
Six concerti grossi here — multi-movement works for string ensemble whose solo passages differentiate the texture and set up a dialogue between players.
l’Europe réunie • New Collegium
“Handcrafting baroque music since 2006” is this ensemble’s tagline, which can be found via their website, alongside information about its principal musicians.
Robert Valentine: Chamber Music • Ensemble Afflatus
Robert Valentine is remembered as a recorder virtuoso who also played violin and oboe. The oboe sits this program out; the other two instruments are well represented across a cross-section of the British composer's…
C.P.E. Bach: Sonatas for Clavier and Flute • Mathot/Verhagen
This recital — recorded, presumably, at the home of Tini Mathot and producer Ton Koopman — gathers five sonatas for harpsichord and flute, plus a solo sonata in G minor for harpsichord.
Schaffrath: Harpsichord Concertos • Anna Firlus
Christoph Schaffrath (1709–1763) served as a harpsichordist and composer alongside Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach at the court of Frederick the Great.
J. Schenk: Sonatas for violin, op. 7 • Ensemble Castor
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 of Petra Samhaber-Eckhardt (violin), Philipp Comploi (cello), and Erich Traxler…
Pièces en solitude • Nicolas & Payne
North American gambist Caroline Nicolas and her husband Kevin Payne here perform French pieces for the viola da gamba, many accompanied by theorbo.