Rodelinda was the first of Handel's operas to be revived in modern times (at Gottingen, in 1920) and the first to be performed in the USA (at Smith College, Northampton. Massachusetts, in 1931), and this summer it adds to its laurels the distinction of being the first Handel opera (as opposed to oratorio) to be staged at Glyndebourne. Composed just after Giulio Cesare and Tamerlano, it must, I think, rank in many people's top half-dozen of the Handel operas, with its complex plot of dynastic intrigue revolving around the powerful, steadfast love of Bertarido (the ousted king of Milan) and his queen Rodelinda: just the kind that unfailingly drew strong music from Handel.

Alessandro Scarlatti's celebrated Stabat mater was commissioned by a confraternity of aristocrats, the Cavalieri della Vergine dei Dolori, for its annual Lenten service at the Franciscan church of San Luigi in Naples. It remained in use until the confraternity commissioned Pergolesi to compose his famous setting to supplant Scarlatti's old-fashioned music. Both Pergolesi and Scarlatti composed for limited resources, each using two solo voices, two violins and basso continuo. Scarlatti's setting is by no means inferior to Pergolesi's but remains much less familiar, despite several excellent recordings.

Daniel Taylor is a Canadian countertenor, one of a group that has come on the scene in recent years and given promise that soon the countertenor voice will be considered less an exotic specialty and more a generally cultivated voice type. Taylor, perhaps more than other countertenors active today, sounds as though he is engaging in a natural kind of voice production rather than channeling his voice into circuitous channels. His sound is quite awesomely smooth, little touched by vibrato or strong passion, restrained, extremely elegant, and modest in dimension – perfect, in short, for the Dowland songs and mostly smaller Purcell airs that make up the bulk of this two-CD compilation, drawn from a pair of earlier releases.

First released in the spring of 2002, Lamento was awarded Quebec’s Opus Prize for Record of the Year in the Baroque Music category. Hear the acclaimed countertenor Daniel Taylor and his ensemble Theatre of Early Music in this telling combination of sacred German vocal solos and fine instrumental works.

The award-winning Theatre of Early Music with Daniel Taylor and friends is back in this new recording of poignant funeral cantatas by Bach and Telemann. Death was a beloved theme for both composers, who understood its agony as a prelude to the soul’s joining with God and sought to justify its hour through their transcendent musical language.