Of the works by Handel presented here, three are cantatas devoted to the Patron Saint of music, St. Cecilia, another is an Italian cantata that was probably presented for a private patron in Rome while the remaining two works are drawn from Handel’s unique set of ‘Neun Deutsche Arien’ (Nos. 4 & 6 in the […]
Raymond Leppard’s second and more renowned contribution to the modern revival of Cavalli: a classic among Baroque opera recordings which won the coveted Rosette award from the Penguin Record Guide. In 1651, seven years after ‘Ormindo’ (also reissued by Eloquence in Leppard’s recording, 482 9382), Cavalli and his librettist Faustini scored another hit with the […]
A landmark in Baroque opera recordings, newly remastered. This ‘royal entertainment in music’ was fashioned by Cavalli to a libretto by Giovanni Faustini for performance in Venice in 1644, two years after ‘L’incoronazione di Poppaea’ saw the light of day. Through the course of ‘Ormindo’ we follow the adventures of two pairs of lovers as […]
There were many worlds in George Malcolm’s (1917–1997) universe – organist, harpsichordist, pianist, composer, choral director and conductor – and this one demonstrates his unique skill as a solo performer who, throughout his career, more than any other individual defined the harpsichord’s identity in England. After World War II, Malcolm became the most famous English […]
Shakespeare’s plays and their incidental lyrics have always been popular with composers from Thomas Morley to Benjamin Britten. There must be many hundreds of Shakespearean settings, ranging from simple songs to full-length operas. One of the most fruitful periods for such settings was the eighteenth century when there were frequent reveals of the plays themselves […]
These delightful Cantatas have very familiar tunes that Handel was later to reuse in other works, so many of them are instantly recognisable. They also elicit some of the most visceral singing imaginable from Helen Watts.
Janet Baker started her singing studies with Helen Isepp in 1953. She won second prize in the Kathleen Ferrier awards only three years later making her debut in the same year. She quickly established herself as a regular of the Glyndebourne Festival and a member of Benjamin Britten’s English Opera Group also making her mark […]
Collectors’ ears will prick-up at the inclusion of the Bavarian Radio/Sir Colin Davis recording of a chorus from ‘Messiah’, otherwise unavailable.
A simply gorgeous recording of the most popular Violin romances. The recording had long been deleted from the catalogue and is now reissued with the added ‘bonus’ of the Schubert Rondo.
Overshadowed by his father, Michael Haydn penned some delectable music and here are father and son on a single disc of Violin Concertos, completed with two Mozart ‘movements’.
One of Couperin’s most important, varied and profound compositions, ‘Apothéose de Lully’ is cast in a programmatic form. Each movement tells a section of the story of the acceptance of Lully into Parnassus, his meeting there with Corelli (the founding fathers of the rival French and Italian styles) and Apollo’s persuading of them to bring […]
A generous disc (nearly 80 minutes) of some of Raymond Leppard’s pioneering L’Oiseau-Lyre recordings of French Baroque music with the English Chamber Orchestra. The brilliant realisations of Rameau’s ‘Temple de la Gloire’ suites have seldom been more strikingly realised. ‘Le Temple de la Gloire’ was a theatrical entertainment to a text by Voltaire, written to […]
