Opera Prima’s second album with soprano Amanda Forsythe features two early works by a young Handel—Armida abbandonata (1707) and Agrippina condotta a morire (1708)—as well as a trio sonata, sinfonia, and selections from his oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno. Highly sought-after for her interpretations of Handel, Forsythe is acclaimed for her agile coloratura, exquisite breath control, and …

UnderStories is a Baroque ensemble consisting of only bass instruments inspired by the botanical term “understory,” referring to the layer of plants that grow in the shade of the canopy of a forest. Founded in 2018, the group focuses on exploring the rise of the cello as a solo instrument, and especially the repertoire for two concertante cellos in the …

Francesco Tristano’s two-disc set follows the pianist’s chart-topping album Bach: The 6 Partitas and marks the next chapter in Tristano’s “great life project” to record J.S. Bach’s complete repertoire. The project will continue with the releases of Bach’s 7 Toccatas in the fall of 2025 and the 6 French Suites in 2026. According to J.S. Bach’s first biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, …

The Berlin Academy for Ancient Music presents a recording of the first six Concerti grossi, Op. 6 by the composer, ensemble leader and violin virtuoso Arcangelo Corelli, who received the almost cult-like reverence during his lifetime. The composer had been experimenting with this one of the most distinctive forms of instrumental music of the Baroque era since the late 1670s, …

This new album featuring two rising star countertenors Carlo Vistoli and Hugh Cutting. Accompanied by Les Arts Florissants, conducted by William Christie, the program centers Baroque arias and duets for two altos by composers such as Monteverdi, Caldara, Bononcini, and Vivaldi. The album’s release marks a significant milestone in Cutting’s career, following his recognition as the first countertenor to win …

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein releases her first album with the string ensemble she founded and directs, Baroklyn (a portmanteau of Baroque and Brooklyn), and featuring the music of J.S. Bach and Philip Lasser. The program features new arrangements of chorale settings for piano and strings, the Keyboard Concerto in E major, BWV 1053, and Cantata 170, Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust with …

Quartetto Vanvitelli is an Italian ensemble (violinist Gian Andrea Guerra, lutenist Mauro Pinciaroli, cellist Nicola Brovelli, and keyboardist Luigi Accardo) specializing in baroque repertoire with a particular focus on Handel’s works. In Se in fiorito ameno prato, the period instrument ensemble explores Handel’s violin sonatas, connecting them to other pieces, including misattributions, opera excerpts, and keyboard pieces. The program invites …

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 …

James Ehnes debuted with Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra in 1993 when he was 17 and has since shared the stage with the ensemble countless times. He was the Orchestra’s first-ever Artist in Residence from 2021 to 2024 and a featured artist on several national and international tours. Ehnes reunites with the musicians of the NAC Orchestra to perform Bach’s …

Raphaël Pichon and his ensemble Pygmalion mark their 20th anniversary with a new recording of Bach’s Mass in B minor, a work that has been central to the group’s repertoire. Having first performed the piece in 2013 and revisited it regularly since, Pichon now presents a recording shaped by over a decade of performance experience with a close-knit group of …

After being the king of court instruments in the seventeenth century, a symbol of refined entertainment, the lute was gradually abandoned in the following century. A small group of virtuosos and composers nevertheless refused to accept this predicted decline: these musicians moved the epicenter of its influence to the courts of Vienna, Bayreuth and Dresden, adapting the codes and forms …

Oboist Debra Nagy, founder and artistic director of the Cleveland-based period instrument ensemble Les Délices, presents an album on the eponymous label with her longtime collaborator, harpsichordist Mark Edwards. The program features François Couperin’s 1er Concert in G major from Concert Royaux and J.S. Bach’s Oboe Sonata in G minor, BWV1030b (better known as Flute Sonata in B minor, BWV …

Beatrice Rana performs four of Bach’s keyboard concertos (BWV 1052 in D minor, 1053 in E, 1054 in D, and 1056 in F minor) in a new recording with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. The internationally acclaimed Italian pianist describes Bach as “an important figure in my life … My piano studies began when I was very young, and Bach was there …

Georg Philipp Telemann was—to characterize him in contemporary terms—a workaholic, thanks to which we have, amongst his 3,000-plus works, his two sets of marvelously rich Paris Quartets. The first set of quartets, or quadri, was published in Hamburg and such was their popularity that they were republished in Paris by Le Clerc in 1736 without Telemann’s permission. This prompted Telemann …

A genuine masterpiece inspires musicians to adopt, adapt, or transcribe it without losing any of its greatness. Period-instrument ensemble Nevermind (Anna Besson, flute; Louis Creac’h, violin; Robin Pharo, viola da gamba; and Jean Rondeau, harpsichord and organ) has taken a creative look at Bach’s famous Goldberg Variations and made their own stylishly insightful “variations” on the work. As they themselves …

Their names were Laura, Livia, and Anna. Together, they were known in the late 1500s as the Tre Donne di Ferrara – the three ladies of Ferrara. Their ensemble was praised by contemporary poets and won highest renown throughout Italy and Germany. However, women were not supposed to become famous for their professional achievements. And so, one of them was …

The world music-leaning period instrument band L’Arpeggiata, led by theorbo player Christina Pluhar, celebrates nature in a mostly Baroque program (Monteverdi, Bononcini, Biber and Handel) coupled with traditional songs and ballads including eden ahbez’s “Nature Boy.” In Terra Mater (meaning Mother Nature), Pluhar writes, “You will hear the chirping of the nightingales, sweet birds, cuckoos, frogs and chicken, the whispers of the winds, …

Francesco Corti leads the prolific period-instrument orchestra from the harpsichord in a program centering composers belonging to the generation of the Empfindsamer Stil or “Sentimental Style.” Following the High Baroque style of JS Bach and Handel, the composers of the next generation explored contrast and extreme juxtapositions in their music. This avant-garde style remained in fashion for only a short …

Théotime Langlois de Swarte has quickly become one of today’s most sought-after violin soloists. His almost super-human dexterity on both the baroque and modern instrument has mesmerized critics, while his passion and conviction has made him a star with audiences everywhere. In a recent review, Gramophone wrote, “I’m running out of ways to recount Théotime’s brilliance….Most of all, I’m in …

Al-Bunduqiyya is the Arabic name for Venice and The Lost Concerto is a work composed in 2021 by the charismatic cellist Giovanni Sollima. It germinated from the only extant fragment – the orchestral viola part, now preserved at the Venice Conservatory – of a Vivaldi cello concerto in E minor. Among the other items are complete concertos by Vivaldi, solo …

A former member of Le Jardin des Voix, the apprenticeship program for William Christie‘s seminal ensemble Les Arts Florissants, Carlo Vistoli has risen to the top of the field of baroque specialists. Chicago audiences were introduced to the Italian countertenor in 2017 when he sang the role of Ottone in The Coronation of Poppea with the Monteverdi 450 tour in …

The music of Bach is a major cornerstone for Michael Houstoun, who has recorded the 96 pieces that comprise Bach’s Preludes and Fugues Books 1 & 2 on a four-CD set. As Houstoun says, “For a pianist like myself, someone for whom music virtually begins with Johann Sebastian Bach, he provides a series of bottom lines of incalculable value everywhere …

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 …

Led by bass and recorder player Lionel Meunier, Vox Luminis is an early music ensemble based in Belgium which specializes in English, Italian, and especially German 17th- and 18th- century repertoire. The ensemble is comprised of some of the most sought-after European vocal soloists, and is supplemented, depending on the repertoire, with an extensive continuo, solo instruments, or a complete …

The Windsbacher Boys’ Choir is considered one of the best ensembles of its kind. Since its founding in 1946, it has stood for the synthesis of musicality, versatility, precision and purity of sound. Ludwig Böhme has been the new artistic director of the Windsbacher since 2022. The new Christmas album, for which they joined forces with the Berlin-based period instrument …