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.
Profile: Harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper
August 5, 2026, 10:00 pm
Honoring the late keyboardist Kenneth Cooper, best known for his improvisational skills, his spontaneity, and his rediscovery of 18th-century works, as well as performances of modern works written for the harpsichord.
Profile: Mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza
August 12, 2026, 10:00 pm
We celebrate the artistic legacy of Spanish mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza, who died May 13, 2022 at the age of 89.
Music of the Angels
August 20, 2025
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 ...
La Follia with Ensemble 1700
August 6, 2025
More than 150 composers have incorporated the La Follia theme into their own works. On this edition of Baroque&Before, Soprano Núria Rial joins Ensemble 1700, under the direction of recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger, to bring us a program of 16th to 18th-century German, Italian, and French composers inspired by La Follia. Tonight’s program was recorded live in concert in Mozart ...
Jordi Savall: El Llibre Vermell de Montserrat
July 30, 2025
El Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, or the Red Book of Montserrat, is a 14th-century collection of devotional texts and music.
Codex Las Huelgas with Psallentes Ensemble
July 16, 2025
Mothers and wives are the roles traditionally assigned to women. For centuries, however, a large number of well-educated and privileged women — empresses, queens, nuns, aristocrats, and businesswomen — have played a fundamental role in the history of music as promoters and interpreters of new repertory, as collectors, heads of institutions, and artist patrons. As queen consort, Leonor Plantagenet (Leonor ...
Jordi Savall: Works by Diego Ortiz & Joan Cererols
July 9, 2025
Works by two composers from Spain with a Neapolitan connection: Toledo-born composer and music theorist Diego Ortiz, and Catalan musician and Benedictine monk Joan Cererols.
Lutenist & Guitarist Julian Bream
July 2, 2025
Along with Andrés Segovia, Bream is regarded as the most charismatic and influential classical guitarist of the 20th century.
A Frescobaldi Musical Flower
June 25, 2025
A child prodigy born into a wealthy Ferraresi family, Girolamo Frescobaldi published his Fiori musicali in 1635. Close to 60 years old, these musical flowers are his only compositions devoted to church music. The flower we’ll hear tonight is the Missa della Madonna, the last of the three masses comprising Fiori musicali. The eight male voices of the Canticum ensemble, ...
Arte dei Suonatori
June 11, 2025
Harpsichordist Marcin Świątkiewicz and Ensemble Arte dei Suonatori lead us on a fascinating journey through the diversity of the Baroque era, exploring Polish influences in works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, and Georg Philipp Telemann. Tonight’s program was recorded live in concert June 7, 2024 as part of the Stockholm Early Music Festival. Thanks to WFMT’s association with ...
The Five Kingdoms of Mediæval Spain
May 21, 2025
Roman, Germanic, Byzantine, French, Arabic, and Jewish cultures all contributed to Spanish music.
Stabat Mater for Holy Week
April 16, 2025
As Good Friday and Easter draw near, Baroque&Before offers two settings of the medieval Latin hymn on the suffering of Mary at the Crucifixion.
Songs & Laments of the Sephardim
April 9, 2025
Baroque&Before celebrates the deliverance of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt with a program of sacred, paraliturgical, celebratory, and secular music of the Jews of the Mediterranean.
O Vos Omnes Ensemble: Lamentatio
March 12, 2025
Ensemble O Vos Omnes contrasts two works on the same theme: the prophet Jeremiah’s Book of Lamentations from the Hebrew Bible, very probably compiled in the 6th century BCE. The book’s mournful laments, relating the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people, have been set to music in different adaptations throughout Europe’s history. O vos Omes brings ...
Sacred Music of Ukraine, Italy & Malta
March 5, 2025
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 ...
Baroque Treasures of Ukraine
February 26, 2025
Seventeenth-century Ukraine was witness to the start of a cultural revolution, with the Ukrainian Eastern Orthodox Church playing an important role.
Jordi Savall: Tears & Fire of the Muses
February 19, 2025
Works by Scheidt, Dowland, and Holborne complement madrigals of Monteverdi, including his Lamento d'Arianna.
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.
