Wednesdays at 10:00 pm

A fresh feast of early music every week.
Join host Candice Agree for WFMT’s exciting weekly program of early music. Baroque&Before explores works written before 1750, featuring live concert recordings from some of the world’s most prestigious early music festivals, as well as commercially released recordings from WFMT’s vast library. From Russia to the Americas, from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean and Middle East, Candice presents internationally known artists on the early music scene, crafting a delightful mix of musicianship, music, and history.
Jordi Savall: Tears & Fire of the Muses
February 19, 2025, 10:00 pm
Works by Scheidt, Dowland, and Holborne complement madrigals of Monteverdi, including his Lamento d'Arianna.
Baroque Treasures of Ukraine
February 26, 2025, 10:00 pm
Seventeenth-century Ukraine was witness to the start of a cultural revolution, with the Ukrainian Eastern Orthodox Church playing an important role.
Ars Subtilior: Ballades, Rondeaux & Virelais
February 12, 2025
Love is complicated, but not as complicated as the music that celebrates it.
Fazil Say’s Goldberg Variations
February 5, 2025
Fazil Say interprets Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, one of the essentials of the keyboard repertoire.
Renaissance Dances with Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI
January 29, 2025
Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI members Xavier Díaz-Latorre, Andrew Lawrence-King, and David Mayoral bring us works by Luis de Milán, Dowland, Marais, and other European Renaissance composers. Tonight’s program was recorded live in concert October 28, 2023 in Japan’s Kanagawa Prefecture Music Hall. Thanks to WFMT’s Association with the European Broadcasting Union, we’re able to bring you tonight’s program as ...
A Dose of Flair with Mandolinist Avi Avital
January 22, 2025
Avi Avital and B’Rock Orchestra bring a dose of flair this week, with works for mandolin and chamber orchestra by Vivaldi, Durante, Barbella, and Locatelli. Recorded live in concert May 22, 2024 at the Schwetzingen Festival. Thanks to WFMT’s Association with the European Broadcasting Union, we’re able to bring you tonight’s program as a stream for thirty days following the ...
Soli & Tutti
January 15, 2025
Soli & Tutti is the latest project of Sempre, the baroque music ensemble. Inspired by “affetti,” Sempre takes us on a European musical journey, with sojourns in Italy, France, and England for a program full of freshness and energy. Recorded live in concert November 11, 2023 during the Bucharest Early Music Festival. Thanks to WFMT’s association with the European Broadcasting ...
Collegium Vocale 1704: Monteverdi 1610 Vespers
January 8, 2025
Václav Luks leads Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704 in Claudio Monteverdi’s masterful Vespers for the Blessed Virgin, which represents a synthesis of the best and most sophisticated that the history of music has ever produced.
In the Footsteps of Íñigo
January 1, 2025
Inspired by Ignatius of Loyola’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Jove Capella Reial de Catalunya takes us on a musical journey with works by Miguel López, Joan Cererols, and Narciso Casanovas, along with anonymous works from El Llibre Vermell de Montserrat. Tonight’s program was recorded live in concert February 12, 2023 in Manresa’s Sanctuary of the Saint Ignatius Cave to the Montserrat ...
Music of the Baroque: Bach’s Christmas Oratorio
December 25, 2024, 10:00 pm
A performance led by Dame Jane Glover with soloists Yulia Van Doren, Emily Fons, Gwilym Bowen, Michael Sumuel.
The Great Eighteen: Bach’s Leipzig Chorales
December 18, 2024
Written in the last decade of his life, Bach’s chorale preludes for organ mark the pinnacle of his sacred works for organ. Daniel Gauss, organist at the Bern Cathedral, plays the Gottlieb Leuw organ, built in 1729. Recorded live in concert June 11, 2019, as part of the series Evening Music at Bern Cathedral. Thanks to WFMT’s association with the ...
Sacred Music of Ukraine, Italy & Malta
December 4, 2024
From Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv, Liatoshynskyi Capella, the early music ensemble named for Ukrainian composer, conductor, and pedagogue Borys Liatoshynskyi, takes us to Italy, Malta, and Ukraine in a program of lamentations by composers from these three regions. Tonight’s program was recorded live in concert August 15, 2023 in the Church of the Monastery of Santa Maria de Santes ...
El Gran Teatro Del Mundo: The Lullists; German Baroque Music à la française
November 27, 2024
A program of “goût réuni,” or united taste, brings us the music of German composers inspired and influenced by the French style. Known as “Lullists” after Jean-Baptiste Lully, works Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, Georg Muffat, and Georg Philipp Telemann are featured this week, presented by El Gran Teatro Del Mundo under the direction of Julio Caballero Pérez. Tonight’s program was ...
Zelenka’s Missa Omnium Sanctorum
November 20, 2024
Jan Dismas Zelenka was one of the most important composers of the Czech baroque. His Missa Omnium Sanctorum of 1741 is a monumental work full of virtuosity, brilliance, and carefully crafted and impressive fugues.
Tempus mirabilium: Hopes & Dreams
November 13, 2024
Peace, love, hope, salvation. Soprano Hana Blažíková joins Capella de la Torre for a program of early seventeenth-century Germany and Italy celebrating an age of miracles. Recorded live in concert July 24, 2024 in the Church of St Simon and St Jude as part of Prague’s Summer Festivities of Early Music. Thanks to WFMT’s association with the European Broadcasting Union, ...
Paradisi Porte: The Music of the Angels
November 6, 2024
Inspired by Hans Memling’s altarpiece for a Spanish nunnery, and using instruments built especially for this project, historical brass ensemble Oltremontano Antwerp and the female vocal ensemble Tiburtina join forces for a program focused on fifteenth-century monophonic chant and polyphonic pieces. Recorded live in concert July 16, 2024 in The Church of Our Lady of the Slavs of the Emmaus ...
Thomas Tallis’s Motets & Lamentations of Jeremiah
October 23, 2024
The Geneva-based early music ensemble Gli Angeli Genève brings us a program of Thomas Tallis's sacred anthems and motets.
Monteverdi madrigals with I Fagiolini
October 9, 2024
Lutanist Eligio Quinteiro joins British vocal ensemble I Fagiolini for a recital exploring the full spectrum of the Renaissance lament via the madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi. Tonight’s program was recorded live in concert April 29. 2024 in London’s Wigmore Hall. Thanks to WFMT’s association with the European Broadcasting Union, we’re able to bring you I Fagiolini’s recital as a stream ...
Mahan Esfahani & The English Scarlatti
October 2, 2024
Published in London in 1739, Domenico Scarlatti’s Exercises for Harpsichord had an enormous impact on English composers, using it as a model for their own compositions. Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani brings us a selection of Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas, as well as works by Scarlatti’s English contemporaries Thomas Arne and Thomas Roseingrave. Tonight’s program was recorded live in concert October 12, 2022 ...
Handel in Rome
September 18, 2024
In July 1707, three works by Handel were performed in the Church of Santa Maria in Montesanto in Rome: Nisi Dominus and Dixit Dominus on 16 July, and Salve Regina on 19 July. The influential Colonna family sponsored the concerts. These three works are among Handel’s outstanding sacred music output while in Italy, years that proved particularly productive. In fact, ...
Profile: Jaap Schröder
August 28, 2024
We celebrate violinist Jaap Schröder, one of the first pioneers to present performances of baroque, and later, classical works, on period instruments.
Codex Calixtinus: Vespers of Saint James
August 14, 2024
Since the ninth century, the routes to Santiago de Compostela leading to the sanctuary of St. James have attracted countless pilgrims and exercised a potent mystique.