In their newest release, mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre and Jupiter, the ensemble led by lutenist Thomas Dunford, present a collection of vocal and instrumental music by John Dowland and Henry Purcell. Repertoire includes Dowland’s Lachrimae and vocal works from his First and Second Book of Ayres, as well as selections from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and The Fairy Queen. Baritone Huw …

Dido’s famous lament, “When I am laid in earth,” has long featured in Joyce DiDonato’s repertoire – and she has triumphed as the tragic Queen of Carthage in Berlioz’s Les Troyens – but it was in early 2024 that she first performed Purcell’s opera in its entirety. “DiDonato was, as one might expect, magnificent in a role that suits her …

French gambist Mathilde Vialle leads an ensemble featuring early plucked instrument specialist Thibaut Roussel. It was love at first sight when Vialle and Roussel first encountered the English bass viol and Venetian archlute preserved at the Museum of Music at the Philharmonie de Paris which inspried this program of English music from the second half of the seventeenth century, much …

Founder and artistic director of the pioneering Les Arts Florissants, American conductor William Christie is an icon of historically informed performance practice, a flamboyantly skilled harpsichordist, and one the critical figures in reviving 17th and 18th century French repertoire. This album gathers a host of young artists who are dear to him (gambist Myriam Rignol, harpsichordist Justin Taylor, lutenist Thomas …