Whilst Alessandro Scarlatti was largely responsible for the early development of Neapolitan opera, his son Domenico is most famous for his extensive series of keyboard sonatas, of which some 555 survive. His employment at the Spanish court in Madrid led to a series of works largely designed for the Infanta, Maria Barbara, later to become queen. These sonatas are amongst the most significant of all 18th-century keyboard works.

ANTONIO VIVALDI: "I Solisti Veneti"/Claudio Scimone; Wiener Singakademie Choir; Adriana Damato, soprano; Laur Brioli, mezzo. ANTONIO VIVALDI - GLORIA AND OTHER SACRED WORKS: Gloria RV 589; Concerto in D major RV581; Falve Regina RV 616: Ad Te suspiramus;Sonata Al Santo Sepolcro RV 130; Stabat Mater RV 621: Stabat Mater, O quam tristis, Fac ut ardeat cor meum, Amen; Dal Gloria RV 588: Qui sedes ad desteram; Concerto in D major RV 562: Allegro.

Four cantatas written for services during April 1725 make up the programme on this disc. Just before Easter that same year, Bach had put an end to his projected chorale cantata cycle, originally planned to span the entire church year. These particular cantatas did hot have a direct association with the gospel passage for the days in question; instead they used specific hymns as their starting point. All four cantatas on the present disc deal with the interplay between the resurrected Christ and his disciples. Among the soloists, Yukari Nonshita and Robin Blaze are well-known to the followers of this series, while James Gilchrist and Domink Wörner both appear in it for the second time. For this particular disc, Bach Collegium Japan are visited by Dan Laurin, who performs the virtuosic flauto piccolo part in BWV 103, and Dmitry Badiarov, who plays his own, unique reconstruction of a violoncello piccolo in BWV6.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion is, along with the St. Matthew Passion, without doubt one of the most important works he ever composed. It established a new tradition for Good Friday vespers in Leipzig, and with sublime skill Bach managed to retain a spirit of church worship while creating an almost operatic narrative that movingly depicts Christ’s trial, death, and ultimate apotheosis. Bach’s numerous revisions always demand a certain amount of scholarly decision-making, and this recording of the St. John Passion uses the final 1749 version that not only draws on and reinforces the best of Bach’s original concept, but incorporates the additional movements of the 1725 version.