At the beginning of the 18th century Italian instrumental music reached France and began to make its decisive impact. Michele Mascitti was a protagonist of this remarkable change. The young violinist moved from Naples to Paris where he spent most of his long life and managed to publish nine collections of instrumental music between 1704 and 1738. The extraordinary success and popularity of Mascitti’s works allowed him to live for many years as a free-lance musician and to be applauded and admired in the artistic circles of the French capital. His music brings us back to the fashionable and refined atmospheres of the Parisian aristocratic salons and to the galanterie so beautifully illustrated in the paintings of the time.

Domenico Gabrielli, unrelated to the more famous Gabrielis (spelled with one "l"), was one of a group of composers specializing in oratorio in the city of Bologna in the second half of the seventeenth century. Though the oratorio tradition was nurtured by the church of Santa Maria di Galliera in that city, some of the music was apparently semi-secular; the work recorded here, S. Sigismondo re di Borgogna (St. Sigismund, King of Burgundy), though its protagonist was eventually canonized, has a blood-and-guts story involving armed conflict, decapitation, and the burial of an entire family in a well. Sigismund was a historical figure, who died in 524, and his story might have been (or might still be) suited to operatic treatment.

This is a superb set of 5 CDs, covering works for viols by four 17the century English composers: John Jenkins, William Lawes (on 2 CDs), Matthew Locke, and Henry Purcell. It is a pure bliss for Baroque, especially chamber music lovers. The works recorded vary: fantasy, suite, pavan, consort, etc., but all are superbly performed by Fretwork Ensemble for 6 viols, sometimes accompanied by organ, spinet, and archlute. The quality of the recording is excellent: a 2001 remastering of previous various recordings done between 1986 and 1996.

Les Boréades is an ambitious 10-year Rameau project with the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles. The cast of Sabine Devieilhe, Reinoud Van Mechelen, Tassis Christoyannis, Thomas Dolié, Gwendoline Blondeel, Benedikt Kristjánsson and Philippe Estèphe is joined by the Orfeo Orchestra and Purcell Choir, two ensembles founded by Vashegyi himself. Devieilhe made her Erato debut with a Rameau recital, this time she takes the central role of Alphise, Queen of Bactria, who must defy the traditions of her country if she is to marry the man she loves. The theme of freedom, ‘la liberté’, is important in the opera; conceived in 1763 to mark the end of the Seven Years’ War, it had to wait more than 200 years for its first full staging. When the performers on this recording appeared in a concert version of Les Boréades at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Concert Classique declared that “Rameau’s genius shines through at every moment.”

Die Triopartiten von Johann Joseph Fux gehören zweifellos zu den stärksten Werken des habsburgischen Hofkapellmeisters und wurden bereits zu seinen Lebzeiten weithin gerühmt. Gerade die Könnerschaft auf dem Gebiet der Triokomposition wog in der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts schwer, da – mit den Worten Johann Matthesons – „in einem Trio mehr Kunst stecke, als in vielstimmigen Sätzen“. Die Hochschätzung der Triokomposition lässt sich an der zunehmenden Zahl entsprechender Musikdrucke ablesen: Wer als Instrumentalkomponist überzeugen wollte, tat gut daran, schon als erstes Opus eigene Triowerke zu publizieren.

This recording transports us to Rome’s Chiesa Nuova, the Oratory Church where in 1600 the premiere took place of the first spiritual opera, La Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo by Cavalieri. That pioneering spirit has inspired this programme devised by InAlto. Among the manuscripts in the church’s library is an anonymous source, probably dating from the very beginning of the 17th century, containing a complete cycle of settings of those seven psalms that ever since the time of Saint Augustine have been called the ‘Penitenial Psalms’. This Roman score is absolutely unique of its kind, being monodic, and composed in the early operatic melodic narrative style of recitar cantando.

Composer and cellist Domenico Gabrielli, was born in Bologna on 15 April 1659. He only lived to be 31 and he is a composer probably only familiar to cellists, or rather Baroque cellists. His seven Ricercari for cello solo are indeed the first predecessors of Bach’s cello Suites, and his two cello sonatas and his Canon for two cellos are among the earliest examples of their genre. Much less well-known is the fact that Gabrielli was also a celebrated opera and oratorio composer and published several trio sonatas and (posthumously) a volume of secular cantatas for voice and basso continuo. The present release is completed by some works by Bartolomeo Monari (1662-1707). Emanuela Galli's ravishing voice leads us through these lesser known Baroque compositions revealing the beauty of that music.

Giovanni Benedetto Platti was born in northern Italy and spent some of his youth in Venice, where his father was a violetta player at St Mark’s, before he received his court appointment as an oboist and violinist at the court chapel of Würzburg in 1722. Two years later, the music-loving and cello- playing count of Schönborn, Rudolf Franz Erwein, had managed to secure him as a musician for his own household at his small residence in the county of Wiesentheid. Platti composed - in addition to his ordinary ouptut for worldly and spiritual occasions - for the cello, the Count’s favourite instrument: a dozen sonatas, 28 concerti, 6 duets and over 21 trio sonatas in which the two melodic instruments are not playing at the same height.

Rachmaninov’s rarely heard, and unfinished opera, Monna Vanna is recorded here in a newer edition by Gennadi Belov and led by Vladimir Ashkenazy, an iconic artist and expert in Russian music. This recording of Monna Vanna is a world première recording of the sung Russian version – the language in which Rachmaninov originally intended the opera to be performed.

The repertory of the Spanish vihuela from the 16th century remains little investigated, partly because few original instruments exist; when vihuela works appear on recordings they are often played on the lute or guitar. This is a shame, for the instrument has its own sound and a repertory (albeit one that often claimed playability on various instruments) that exploited that sound. The vihuela is large, with six pairs of strings running up a large body and long neck, and the music on this album exploits the instrument's rich sonority and capability for ornamentation rather than the rapid runs, called redobles in Spanish, that are characteristic of music for other plucked stringed instruments.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Sonatas with Varied Reprises (comp. 1758–9, publ. 1760) constituted a bold experiment. Spelling out every repeat, Bach applies to each the art of variation. Starting off as a service (“play this and you’ll sound as if you’re improvising”), the opus ends up a masterclass in variation. Tom Beghin, playing his own beloved clavichord, enacts the role of the keyboardist- composer who repeats himself, while never saying the same thing twice.

Under Mahan Esfahani’s hands—and occasionally fists—the harpsichord is transmogrified into an elemental force, by turns supported or menaced by an astonishing arsenal of electronics. Concerned listeners please note: no harpsichords were harmed in the making of this album.

Regarded in his day as equal to Handel and Telemann, Reinhard Keiser composed more than one hundred operas, of which Fredegund , set partly in German and partly in Italian, was one of the most popular. It explores the politically volatile relationships between the sixth century Frankish king, Chilperich, whose ambitious mistress Fredegunda is prepared to use magic to become his queen, although Chilperich is betrothed to Princess Galsuinde and Fredegunda also has a secret relationship with Langerich. This important and entertaining German Baroque opera abounds in melodious, often ravishingly orchestrated, music.

The new recording by recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger with violinist and countertenor Dmitry Sinkovsky shows the musical turn of time from the Renaissance to the Baroque in a kaleidoscope of newly conceived, experimental declamatory music by Italian masters, who for the first time expressed passions such as love and hate, grief and joy, astonishment and longing in music to the fullest.

Over 40 years of collaboration between Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra is among the most dazzling and longest connections in the history of classical music. In this unique edition, all mono recordings from the period from 1944 to 1958 appear on 120 CDs for the Columbia label. They also reflect an important section of record history in the changing cover design. Ormandy, a master of orchestral brilliance and timbres and also appreciated as an excellent companion, created the famous "Philadelphia Sound" with his orchestra.