The concertos of Francesco Mancini (1672-1737) recorded here all come from a 1725 manuscript collection now in the Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica di Napoli…The collection is entitled "Concerti di Flauto, Violino, Violetta e Basso di Diversi Autori". Interestingly enough, in the individual part-books, the pieces are all called "sonatas". This discrepancy of nomenclature reflects the general fluidity of form throughout the Baroque era. The forms of pieces called "concerto", "quartet", "sonata", "canzona", and "fantasia" were not standardized, and the terms were frequently used interchangeably.

The Kölner Akademie under its proven conductor Michael Willens now presents more atmospheric Christmas compositions by Francesco Durante, one of the greatest Neapolitan church composers of the first half of the eighteenth century. Durante continued the Neapolitan tradition of composing Christmas cantatas or motets, with a series of vocal works that he assigned to the category of the ‘Pastorale’ in order to indicate their relation to the Feast of Christmas and to the shepherds in the field.

Francesco Durante was one of the great Neapolitan church composers and teachers during the first half of the eighteenth century in Naples. He chose to focus on sacred music and his Magnificat in B flat major is doubtless the best known, most beloved, most performed, and most recorded work by him among the Neapolitan Christmas compositions on volume 1.

The debut album from countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński – born in Warsaw, trained at New York’s Juilliard School, and 2016 winner of the Metropolitan Opera's prestigious National Council Auditions – Anima sacra features what are believed to be world premiere recordings of eight Baroque arias, notably by composers of the Neapolitan school. Orliński is partnered by Il pomo d’oro conducted by Maxim Emelyanychev.

A beautifully-packaged 50-disc box set, released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, one of the most important and adventurous early music labels. The set contains 50 classic recordings of baroque and ancient music, chosen to represent the breadth of this huge and varied catalogue and each disc is slip-cased with artwork replicating the original CD or LP artwork.

This disc brings together two composers from Naples, albeit from different generations. They are also different in that Scarlatti was an important contributor to the genre of opera, whereas Durante never composed anything for the theatre. They have also something in common: both were considered rather conservative - Scarlatti in particular towards the end of his career - and in the oeuvre of both the traditional counterpoint plays an important role.