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.
Listen to the past two weeks of Baroque&Before.
Les chemins hébraïques du baroque
December 1, 2021
Passionate about Hebraic spiritual traditions, Benedetto Marcello was inspired by the extraordinary faith he encountered in the synagogues of early 18th-century Venice. Selections from Marcello’s settings of poetic paraphrases of the Psalms of David with Hebraic intonations are presented by Ensemble XVIII-21 Le Baroque Nomade, founded in 1995 by Jean-Christope Frisch as XVIII-21 Musique de Lumières. A world premiere, recorded ...
Codex Calixtinus: Vespers of Saint James
February 3, 2021
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. What has achieved less attention is the music originally sung during the services in honor of the saint. Marcel Pérès’s in-depth study of the Codex Calixtinus, preserved at the Cathedral of Santiago, has led ...
Roderick Williams: Telemann, Bach, Handel
January 20, 2021
Baritone Roderick Williams is featured as soloist and as director of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in sacred cantatas by Bach and Telemann. Soprano Rowan Pierce joins Mr. Williams and the OAE for the secular cantata Apollo e Dafne, Handel’s poignant and seductive setting of passion and desire followed by regret and penitence from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Tonight’s program ...
Ave Atque Vale: Hail & Farewell
December 30, 2020
As 2020 draws to a close, we remember the life and work of five classical artists who died this past year, each, in his or her own way, dedicated to the performance and diffusion of early music: violinist Jaap Schröder, pianist Peter Serkin, harpsichordist Kenneth Gilbert, guitarist Julian Bream, and soprano Erin Wall. We laud them tonight and say Ave ...
Bach’s Christmas Oratorio
December 23, 2020
Baroque&Before’s special extended Christmas edition presents Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, written for the Christmas season of 1734-1735. La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Le Concert des Nations, and soloists, under the direction of Jordi Savall, present a new recording of the Christmas Oratorio, recorded live in concert December 18 and 29, 2019 in Barcelona’s Palau de la Música. Tonight’s program ...
A Sephardic Hanukkah
December 9, 2020
Baroque&Before marks Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, with a program of sacred, paraliturgical, celebratory, and secular music of the Jews of the Mediterranean: Spain, Greece, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire. Tonight’s program will be available on demand for two weeks following the broadcast. Please visit wfmt.com/listen.
Masses by Joan Cererols with Jordi Savall
November 25, 2020
Born in 1618, Joan Cererols was the first great composer of the Catalan Baroque. Jordi Savall leads the Jove Capella Reial de Catalunya in two works that have brought Cererols world renown: Missa pro defunctis and Missa de batalla. Recorded live in concert April 4, 2018 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the birth of Joan Cererols, in Barcelona’s L’Auditori, as part ...
Vox Luminis: Buxtehude’s Abendmusik
November 18, 2020
During the latter third of the 17th century, St. Mary’s Church in the city of Lübeck had, as its organist, the best in the world: Dietrich Buxtehude. His peers, Handel and Bach, traveled to this ‘free’ city in northern Germany to admire Buxtehude’s skills with the instrument. Buxtehude had succeeded Franz Tunder, who had established some evening concerts outside the ...
Profile: Jaap Schröder
November 4, 2020
On this week’s edition of Baroque&Before, we celebrate violinist Jaap Schröder, one of the first pioneers to present performances of baroque, and later, classical works, on period instruments. Recordings for this week’s program come from WFMT’s Richard and Mary L Gray Library.
Organist Jean Guillou: An Appreciation
October 21, 2020
French organist, composer, pedagogue and organ builder Jean Guillou died January 26, 2019 at the age of 88. This week we offer an appreciation of Jean Guillou, titular organist at L’Église St. Eustache in Paris for 52 years. We’ll explore his contribution to 17th- and 18th-century organ performance practice through his interpretations of Vivaldi, Bach, and more. Recordings used in ...
17th-century English Songs
October 7, 2020
Music has always been played and heard everywhere: in the street, at home, in religious settings, and in the theater. Soprano Carolyn Sampson and lutenist Matthew Wadsworth present a program of some of their favorite 17th-century English songs, touching all corners of society, from plaintive folks songs and ballads to the genius and depths of Dowland, Johnson, and Purcell. Recorded ...
The Schwanengesang of Heinrich Schütz
September 30, 2020
Known as the Father of German Music, Heinrich Schütz had a profound influence on generations of composers who followed. Tonight, we hear his final opus, his Schwanengesang, if you will: a monumental setting of all 176 verses of Psalm 119, plus Psalm 100, and his fourth and final setting of the Deutsches Magnificat. The RIAS Chamber Chorus, Capella de la ...
Venetian Baroque Masterpieces
September 2, 2020
Violinist Dmitry Sinkovsky, cellist Ilze Grudule, and harpsichordist Ieva Saliete present masterpieces of the Baroque of the Venetian School: works by composers who flourished in the Republic of Venice in the 17th and 18th centuries. Recorded live in concert July 10, 2019 in Riga’s Mazajā ģildē (Small Guild Hall) as part of the International Festival of Early Music. Thanks to ...
Tiana Early Music Festival: Organs tell songs; Los órganos dizen chaçones
August 5, 2020
Guillermo Pérez presents 14th-century music performed on the iconic 14th and 15th century keyboard known as the organetto. Tonight’s recital was recorded live in concert June 6, 2018, in Tiana, Barcelona’s Chapel of Our Lady of Joy, an 11th century hermitage, as the closing recital of the Tiana Early Music Festival. Thanks to WFMT’s association with the European Broadcasting Union, ...
La Stagione: Liebe, was ist schöner als die Liebe
July 1, 2020
Like many other composers of his time, Georg Philipp Telemann repeatedly addressed the theme of love in his operas and cantatas; among them, so-called wedding cantatas, commissioned by wealthy bridal couples for their wedding celebrations. One of these, Liebe, was ist schöner als die Liebe, receives its modern day premiere on this week’s program, along with two more Telemann secular ...
La petite merveille & il Arcangelo
June 10, 2020
Violinist Lina Tur-Bonet and harpsichordist Kenneth Weiss invite us on a journey through the music of Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, known as “La petite merveille” (The Little Marvel) and Il Arcangelo (Arcangelo Corelli.) Recorded live in concert February 14, 2019, in the Barcelona History Museum’s Capella de Santa Àgata (Saint Agnes Chapel) as part of Festival Llums d’Antiga (Lights ...
ORA Singers: Settings of Miserere – Songs of Hope
June 3, 2020
The ORA Singers presents a program of Settings of the Miserere from Allegri to Byrd to Tallis. Recorded live in concert June 7, 2019 in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Regensburg, as part of the Regensburg Early Music Festival. Thanks to Classical WFMT’s association with the European Broadcasting Union, we’re able to offer tonight’s program as a stream for 30 days ...
Heinrich Schütz: Musikalische Exequien
May 27, 2020
Heinrich Schütz wrote Musikalische Exequien, Op. 7, the centerpiece of tonight’s program, upon the request of German Count Heinreich II of Reuss-Gera. It includes texts taken from the Old Testament, the gospels, and Lutheran chorales. Schütz most probably wrote it when he was Italy, where he became interested in and able to compose music to capture the meanings and imagery ...
Jordi Savall: El Llibre Vermell de Montserrat
May 13, 2020
The Shrine of the Virgin of Montserrat was a major pilgrimage site in the 14th century. El Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, or the Red Book of Montserrat, is a 14th-century collection of devotional texts and music for the pilgrims to the Catalonian Montserrat Monastery. Tonight we hear selections from the 6 music folios contained in El Llibre Vermell, presented by ...
Riga Baroque Ensemble: Lamentations du Jeudi Saint
April 1, 2020
Riga Baroque Ensemble presents Flemish composer Joseph-Hector Fiocco’s masterpiece of Dutch Baroque music, written for Maundy Thursday and unique in the genre due to its instrumentation. The first of the Trauer-Ode of Rigan Baroque composer Daniel Kahde. Recorded live in concert April 14, 2019, (Palm Sunday) in Radio Latvia’s Studio 1, Riga. Thanks to WFMT’s membership in the European Broadcasting ...
Lars Vogt & Bach’s Goldberg Variations
March 18, 2020
One of the essentials from the keyboard repertoire, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations is far-reaching in the compendium of emotions and sentiments it embraces, offering endless possibilities for interpretation. The transparency, delicacy, and fantasy in the treatment of the theme and variations, not to mention perfection, puts the Goldberg Variations at the pinnacle of Bachian keyboard writing. Tonight we’ll hear ...
