Couperin: Premier livre de pièces de clavecin • Kuwagata
François Couperin "Le Grand" (d. 1733) wrote prolifically for keyboard — unsurprisingly, given his career as both organist and harpsichordist.
HIP
Scott Ross – A Retrospective of Erato Discography
Scott Ross was born in Pittsburgh (1951) and early on studied piano and organ. His father died early in his youth, followed by a move with his mother and siblings to France, where he began to live "on his own" at the…
Empfindsamkeit – Music for Piano and Flute • Arnaud de Pasquale
This new album featuring a copy of a Silbermann piano, including two works for piano and flute, takes its title from a sentiment embraced by Bach’s son: Empfindsamkeit.
Telemann: Double Concertos and Ino • Florilegium
In this album, Rachel Podger re-joins Florilegium to record concertos and the dramatic cantata Ino with director Ashley Solomon. Elizabeth Watts is the soprano soloist for the cantata.
To the World – Music for Lyra Viol • Pandolfo
This album presents music by Alfonso Ferrabosco the Younger, sponsored by, and performed on an instrument commissioned by the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis – Hochschule für Musik Basel.
Æmilia • Andrea Chezzi
This new release from Da Vinci Classics explores a little-known corner of Renaissance keyboard repertoire, drawing from the manuscript collection of the Collegiate Church of Castell’Arquato in Emilia—a provincial…
Lagrime – Les Larmes de la Vierge • Ricercar Consort & Céline Scheen
This album, save for a few instrumental numbers, celebrates through a solo voice the role the Virgin Mary has in our lives.
Histoires d’un Ange and Visions du Diable • Johanna Rose
As the notes for the new album, Visions du Diable, communicate, this album is viewed as a second installment, if you will, from the artist’s earlier recording Histoires d’un Ange.
Johann Michael Bach: Complete Organ Chorales • Cindy Castillo
Keeping track of all of Bach’s relatives can be difficult, given that some of them shared names. Johann Michael Bach (1648-1694) was the father of Bach’s first wife, Maria Barbara and was an organist and harpsichord…
L’Apothéose de Corelli – Works by Leclair, Corelli, and Couperin • Terakado & Kim
The trio sonatas presented here with two violins and continuo form a thoughtfully curated program centered on Corelli and his influence beyond Italy. Alongside Corelli’s op. 3, no.
The last mouthful of sweetness (Der letzte Mund voll Süße) • Musikalische Garten & Isabel Schicketanz
The music on offer here is from the Graun brothers, Johann Gottlieb and Carl Heinrich. The first was a violinist and the second was a celebrated opera composer. They both trained in Dresden. J.G.
Tranquilles Coeurs • Ensemble Théodora
Ensemble Théodora’s debut album features German music written in the French style, or so that’s the idea, but the composers represented (with one work attributed to no one) includes pieces by Lully and Campra.
Handel – Water and Fire • Collegium 1704
The curiously named album (props for the creativity) features, as we might imagine, Handel’s orchestral suites known as the Royal Fireworks Music and the Water Music (HWV 348-351).
Rosenmüller: Sonate a 2-5 Stromenti da arco et altri • Ensemble Masques
N.B. I first published this review in 2013; I am revisiting it now in 2026 and have modified this review, assigning it a rating for the first time.
Mozart: Piano Concertos (nos. 6, 8, & 18) • Pashchenko
This album features two concertos written by Mozart in 1776-1777, performed upon a Tangentenflügel, a unique instrument not often heard today.
Bach, Telemann, Albinoni: Concertos and Suites • Ensemble Masques
This recording (July 2025), just over an hour long, would make an excellent concert program: Bach’s well-known violin concertos alongside Telemann’s viola concerto, two string concertos by Albinoni (mercifully not the…
Bach – Mein Geist • Le Banquet Céleste
In the most recent review I did of Bach’s three works performed on two smaller cellos, one four-stringed and one five-stringed, I was a bit influenced by the commentary in the liner notes of this release: two cantatas…
Bach on Nine Strings • Brunello & Valli
The starting point for this album comes from an interesting source: the transcriptions by Gustav Leonhardt of Bach’s violin works for keyboard.
Biber – Rosenkranzsonaten • Leila Schayegh
The sonatas known today (in English) as the Rosary or Mystery Sonatas by Heinrich Biber are extraordinary for multiple reasons.
Apollo’s Fire Plays the VCU Chamber Music Series
A reduced ensemble from Apollo’s Fire recently stopped in Richmond, Virginia—my hometown—on a multi-city tour. The Sunday afternoon concert took place at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Singleton Center for the Arts.
Juvenilia • Gabriel Smallwood
The concept behind this album, featuring early works for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach, is to perform his early works within the context of the music he might have known during his youth.
Johann Ludwig Bach: Cantatas
This album reminded me of a point to consider as we look at music and what it means to us, out of the context for how it was written.
Vis à vis: Music by Bach, Biber, and Pachelbel • Urban Strings
The concept of this album, which came out in 2023, is to pit one violin against another. The opening work by Biber, the sixth “Partia” from his Harmonia Artificioso-Ariosa Diversimodè accordata is played with exquisite…
Virtuosissima Sirena – Music by Barbara Strozzi • Laura Catrani & Accademia dell’Annunciata
I just recently reviewed another album featuring the vocal music of Barbara Strozzi, a composer of quite some talent, who somehow managed to make herself well known as a musician in a period dominated by the…
A French Odyssey • UnderStories Ensemble
Founded in 2018, UnderStories focuses on exploring the rise of the cello as a solo instrument, and especially the repertoire for two concertante cellos in the 18th century.
Per la viola bastarda
This curiously named album is born out of polyphonic music from the early baroque, but realized for instruments instead of voices.
Antimelancholicus – Bach Cantatas
Olivier Spilmont directs this recording of Bach cantatas with Alia Mens, following an earlier release from 2017. The title refers to a volume in Bach’s library, advocating against Calvinism.
Veracini Sonatas • Minasi
I reviewed this album back in December of 2010. I wanted to revisit it, sadly, that Musica Antiqua Roma were a flash in the past.
Bach: The world of the harpsichord • Gordis
Lilian Gordis is a Franco-American harpsichordist who left California at 16 to study with Pierre Hantaï in France.
Monteverdi Memories • Capella de la Torre
Katharina Bäuml founded her ensemble, Capella de la Torre, featuring winds with continuo, back in 2005 and have become, in my eyes, a kind of similar ensemble one might set in the same genre as Pluhar’s L’Arpeggiata.
A Handel Celebration • Tafelmusik
I am expecting that Tafelmusik, their choir, and soloists Amanda Forsythe and Thomas Hobbs recorded this album after their late spring public performances back in 2024.
W.F. Bach: Six Sonatas for Two Flutes • Granatiero & Biščevič
Before auditioning this release, I was not familiar with W.F. Bach’s flute duets; the liner notes provide a good historical perspective, suggesting he was inspired by Telemann’s collections of duets.
Pastorale • Ensemble 1700, Oberlinger
Likely because of the Christmas theme, I came across this release from November 2022 by Ensemble 1700, directed from the recorder by Dorothee Oberlinger.
Bach: Complete Chorale Cantatas • Gli Angeli Genève
Stephan Macleod’s Geneva-based ensemble recently released a Bach cantata project, one that took over six years to record.
Strozzi: Portrait in 5 Acts • Mields & Blažiková
Barbara Strozzi is now widely regarded as the most prolific and artistically substantial female composer of the 17th century, and one of the leading composers of secular vocal music in mid-Baroque Italy regardless of…
Handel: Venus & Adonis • Zefiro
This was originally reviewed on December 24, 2010. I've updated the review based upon a recent re-listen; the original review did not appear with a rating.
Telemann: Auf Christenheit! • Kölner Akademie – Willens
In this recent release from the Kölner Akademie, we get a recording across two discs of Telemann’s Frankfurt festival music (TWV 12:1), pieces that had a lasting space in Telemann’s mind.
À due • Raimondi & Demgenski
The premise of this disc on Da Vinci Classics is to present a variety of baroque violin sonatas with an unusual continuo option: single cello. I am not sure this pairing would have been so unusual in the Baroque.
Simply Mozart: Sinfonia concertante, Overture, and Symphony
Le Concert de la Loge, directed from the violin by Julien Chauvin, offers us their final installment of the project surrounding Mozart’s final symphonies. This album features no.
Krebs Vol. 6 • Devine
The last album I examined in this series was Volume 4. According to the liner notes, this sixth release marks the final installment of Steven Devine’s traversal of the harpsichord works of Johann Ludwig Krebs.