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.
Violin Sonatas by Corelli, Bach & Handel
September 28, 2022
Violinist Mayumi Hirasaki and harpsichordist Lorenzo Ghielmi share works by Bach, Corelli, Handel, and Telemann, as well as music that may or may not be by Bach and Handel.
Montserrat Figueras at the Montserrat Abbey
September 14, 2022
Soprano Montserrat Figueras died on November 23, 2011 at the age of 69. The cause was cancer. Her artistic and cultural legacy, especially in the realm of early music, cannot be overstated. In this tribute to Montserrat Figueras, co-founder with her husband Jordi Savall of Hespèrion XX and Le Concert des Nations, we hear a program of Canticles to the ...
Handel & Purcell with The English Concert
August 31, 2022
The English Concert, under the direction of Kristian Bezuidenhout, performs choral, instrumental and theater music by Handel and Purcell.
Monteverdi & More from Barcelona
August 24, 2022
Jove Capella Reial de Catalunya in a program of madrigals from the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras by Claudio Monteverdi, Giaches de Wert, Carlo Gesualdo, and others.
A 17th-Century Musical Travelogue
August 3, 2022
Nicholas Lanier was the first Master of the King’s Music and just possibly the greatest British composer you’ve never heard of.
Profeti della Quinta: Salamone Rossi & Claudio Monteverdi
June 29, 2022
Profeti della Quinta presents psalm settings by Claudio Monteverdi and Salamone Rossi, both employed at Mantua's Gonzaga court.
Le Consort & Leçons de ténèbres
June 22, 2022
Chamber music ensemble Le Consort, joined by theorbist Etienne Galletier and soprano Emmanuelle de Negri brings us a recital of Baroque instrumental music of rare finesse that is too little played.
Huelgas Ensemble: A Polyphonic Testament of Josquin Desprez
May 25, 2022
The Huelgas Ensemble presents a concert of motets, chansons, and mass fragments by Josquin Desprez, the French Renaissance composer who is remembered as one of the great exemplars of the Golden Age of Counterpoint.
Four Seasons & More with Musici Ireland
May 11, 2022
Tonight we hear the ensemble in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Rustic Concerto, as well as in Telemann’s Viola Concerto.
Vocal Duets & Trio Sonatas by Handel
May 4, 2022
Soprano Louise Alder and countertenor Christopher Lowrey join Ensemble Maryas for an all-Handel program of trio sonatas and vocal duets.
Telemann’s Musical Geography
March 30, 2022
It is hard to believe that there are still works by Telemann that are new to today’s music world. Klingende Geographie (Musical Geography) is one of these. Modeled on Telemann’s Sung Geography, each movement bears what Telemann hears as the characteristic melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic features of a given region or territory. Roman Válek leads Czech Ensemble Baroque in this ...
EXAUDI: Chromatic Renaissance
March 23, 2022
Founded in 2002 and based in London, EXAUDI has come to be known as one of the world’s leading vocal ensembles for new music. Exaudi is equally at home in music of the late Renaissance, as we’ll hear tonight in their program titled Chromatic Renaissance. Featured are selections from the first major work of Orlando di Lasso and some astonishing ...
Portuguese Baroque Chamber Music
March 16, 2022
Tonight’s program of chamber music by Portuguese composers and the Italian composers who influenced them is presented by Divino Sospiro, a chamber ensemble founded in Portugal in 2002, directed by the Italian-born conductor and violist Massimo Mazzeo, joined by soprano Eduarda Melo. The music we’ll hear was recorded live March 17, 2021 in the National Palace of Queluz. Due to ...
Ave Atque Vale: Hail & Farewell
January 5, 2022
As 2022 begins, we remember the life and work of three classical artists who died in the year 2021. Each, in his or her own way, was dedicated to the performance and diffusion of early music: violinist Jeanne Lamon, pianist Nelson Freire, and harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper. We laud them tonight and say Ave atque vale — hail and farewell, with ...
A Romanesque Christmas
December 15, 2021
On this first of two special Christmas editions of Baroque&Before, we are afforded the rare opportunity outside of Spain to hear the Mallorcan version of El Cant de la Sibil.la; the Song of the Sybil, as it has been re-enacted in the churches of Mallorca every Christmas Eve since the 15th century, as well as throughout Spain as early as ...
A Mass against the Black Death: Benevoli’s Missa in angustia pestilentiae
November 24, 2021
In the autumn of 1656, the Plague epidemic claimed one million lives in Italy. To combat the anguish of the soul caused by the Black Death, Orazio Benevoli composed the Missa “In angustia pestilentiae.” First performed on November 18, 1656, at the height of the plague, we hear it on this edition of Baroque&Before, along with works by Antonio Lotti ...
Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with Jordi Savall
September 22, 2021
Jordi Savall leads Le Concert des Nations, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, and soloists in Monteverdi’s five-act musical retelling of the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, the Classical myth of patience, faith, and enduring love. Featuring mezzo Luciana Mancini, baritone Marc Mauillon, contralto Sara Mingardo, and bass Silvio Vitale, tonight’s presentation was recorded live in concert June 4, 2021, at ...
Cantatio presents “Alexander’s Feast”
August 18, 2021
On this edition of Baroque&Before, Ensemble Cantatio presents an ode with a libretto in English written by the German composer who, in addition to his English oratorios, was known for his Italian operas. Tonight, Handel’s ode to Saint Cecilia, Alexander’s Feast, with Ensemble Cantatio, directed by its founder John Duxbury. Tonight’s music was recorded live in concert October 27, 2020 ...
Pallas Nordica: Music for Queen Christina
August 11, 2021
Queen Christina I of Sweden (1626-1689,) one of the most educated women of the Baroque era, gave up her royal throne at the age of 28. Known as “Pallas Nordica”, the Athena or Minerva of the North, she left her native Sweden and travelled across Europe to Rome. She corresponded with and supported Europe’s leading contemporary artists and thinkers, including ...
Baroque delights – Maurice Steger & La Cetra Basel
July 21, 2021
Recorder virtuoso Maurice Steger and La Cetra Baroque Orchestra Basel were among the guest artists at the Engadin Festival, held since 1941 in & around St Moritz in Switzerland. The program is titled Baroque Delights, and that’s exactly what we’ll hear. Tonight’s program was recorded August 6, 2020, in the Reithalle, St. Moritz, as part of the Engadin Festival’s “Concerts ...
