Before Handel's celebrated Giulio Cesare captivated audiences across Europe, Antonio Sartorio had already created his own magnificent setting of this timeless libretto. Now, 350 years after it's Venetian premiere, experience this extraordinary work as it was meant to be heard-performed on period instruments in it's first modern staging. Conducted by Attilio Cremonesi, this live recording from the Innsbrucker Festwochen reveals a composer of remarkable invention: fifty-five exquisite arias and duets that showcase the birth of the high Baroque vocal tradition. With a sumptuous continuo section and richly orchestrated accompaniment, Sartorio's Giulio Cesare in Egitto stands as a vital link between Renaissance vocal art and the operatic masterworks to come. A triumph of musical archaeology and performance excellence!

Live recording of a concert from St. Georgen am Längsee Abbey in Carinthia on June 28, 2003: La Festa presents virtuoso Italian Baroque music with works by Monteverdi and Caccini, combined with traditional tarantellas. Passionate and extraordinarily lively, the Accordone ensemble, led by singer Marco Beasley and harpsichordist Guido Morini, conjures up the spirit of a 17th-century festival. A rousing recording full of improvisational flashes of genius!

This recording is a live recording of Niccolo Jommelli's one-act opera La Critica from the Order Hall of Ludwigsburg Palace on November 20, 2016. The Austrian ensemble Concerto Stella Matutina, conducted by Thomas Platzgummer, presents the rediscovery of this brilliantly triumphant parody of opera seria with a cast of outstanding singers in fine form, including tenor Jan Petryka and soprano Marie-Sophie Pollak. It is a real pleasure to listen to them!

The manuscript MS 73 Klagenfurt was found by baroque-violinist Veronika Skulpik and is a little treasure of baroque violin music. Almost all of the manuscript pieces are for a violin in scordatura tuning, although this is not always indicated. With some degree of certainty, the above-mentioned manuscripts can prove that the anonymous authors moved in the circle of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer.

After his studies at the Conservatorio C. Pollini in Padua, Francesco Galligioni specialized in playing the baroque cello and the viola da gamba. He is one of the founding members of the Venice Baroque Orchestra, with which he has toured and recorded numerous times. He has worked with conductors and soloists such as John Eliot Gardiner, Andrea Marcon, Gustav Leonhardt, Sara Mingardo, Christopher Hogwood and Magdalena Kozena. With the ensemble gambe di legno, Galligioni dedicates himself to previously undiscovered works from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. More recently, Francesco Galligioni has devoted himself increasingly to the baroque solo repertoire for violoncello. His great passion is the suites of Johann Sebastian Bach. After studying these mythical gems for a long time, Francesco will perform these works for the first time in concert over the next three years and he also record them for this album.

This album emerged from the idea of bringing together some very different works by Kapsberger for solo theorbo in order to present a more diverse overview of the German-Italian virtuoso performer and composer. The pieces of music are taken from Books I, III and IV d’intavolatura di chitarrone, currently the only printed sources of theorbo music by Kapsberger available to us. Book I was printed in Venice in 1604, Books III and IV in 1626 and 1640 respectively. - Fra Bernardo

It was clearly of great importance at the start of the 18th century, both to the free imperial city of Mühlhausen in Thuringia and to distant Vienna, metropolis of the Holy Roman Empire, to be recognized and to record signs of both independence and affiliation to the empire and it's ruler. Two musical documents have survived in testimony. One owes it's prominence to the composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, the other, preserved in Mühlhausen's municipal archives and revived in performance today after more than three hundred years, is from the hand of Philipp Heinrich Erlebach.

Fabio Missaggia founded the period instrument ensemble I Musicali Affetti in 1997, and the group has since been performing in numerous concerts and festivals both in Italy and abroad. Giovanni Lorenzo Lulier's 1700 composition La Gloria, Roma e Valore is a solemn cantata composed for the inauguration of the new Venetian ambassador in Rome. Commissions for such occasions were often viewed as special opportunities for a composer to showcase their abilities as the audience often contained many musical experts, and Lullier's composition, as well as it's current performance by I Musicali Affetti does not disappoint.

Carlo Gesualdo’s music is characterized by extravagant harmonies, chromatic modulations, wide intervallic leaps and sometimes hardly catchy melodies, which not only reflect the drama of the text or the mannerism of his time, but also the emotional disorder of his creator. The LuciSerene ensemble and the equally distinguished Mauro Borgioni counter the long-established traditions, characterized by their homogeneity and beauty of sound, with a welcome freshness. In honor of the 450th anniversary of the composer, the ensemble has chosen the music of Carlo Gesualdo.

The first edition of The Creation by Joseph Haydn from 1803 is not composed with the German version of the world premiere in 1797, but the English version of the text which served Baron Gottfried van Swieten as a master copy. The release features a concert by Musica Saeculorum under the direction of Philipp von Steinaecker in the Cathedral of Brixen who used this English version of The Creation.

Nicolas Gombert’s compositions, all vocal, are for ensembles of up to twelve parts. • His contrapuntal language is based on that of Josquin, but increasingly complex. • Imitation is used even more consistently than did Josquin, and Gombert’s vocal textures are often densely packed, with individual lines characterized by an avoidance of rests. • A substantial number of his compositions survive, including ten masses, over 160 motets, 60 secular chansons, and a set of eight Magnificats (one in each mode). • The motets on this recording, for 4–6 voices, offer fine representations of Gombert’s musical style.

Virtuosity was as intricate issue in the late Baroque period. On one hand, the public attending the concert demanded to be overwhelmed by the performers' technique. On the other hand, virtuosity provided imitation and often revelaed composers' command over their craft. Composers were expected to supply a piece that showcased an artists entire "bag of tricks" including special effects and specific skills. Handel and Vivaldi did not allow the circumstances of the day to hinder their inspiration. The ensemble Barrocade, along with Claire Meghnagi and Shai Kribus showcase Handel and Vivaldi's virtuosic works of their day.

For the 30th anniversary of the Brunnenthaler summer concerts, ensemble director Francesco Cera with the cornettist William Dongois performed music from the 17th century. The repertoire ranges from instrumental motets and virtuoso sonatas to toccatas whose origins lie in Italy.

Before the early 20th century, any list of significant Western composers would have included Benedetto Marcello. Through his advocacy of a return to the proportional values and simplicity of ancient Roman civilization, he helped set the stage for the Classical era in Western music, soon to unseat the aesthetic norms of the Baroque in which he lived.

CARON Masses and Chansons • The Sound and the Fury • FRA BERNARDO 1207302 (3 CDs: 190:22)


Next to nothing is known of more than a few composers from the early Renaissance. Who is “Hyett,” that survives in a single work found in the Gyffard Partbooks? Who was the Trecento composer known only as “Maestro Piero,” of whom eight works (six madrigals, two examples of caccia ) remain?


It’s fairly safe to single out Firminus (in the Latin; or Fermin, or Fremin—popular names in Amiens at the time) Caron from that ghostly lot as the most illustrious in his day. Compère, no minor judge in matters musical, referred to Busnois, Dussart, and Caron as magister cantilenarum . Tinctorus wrote of Ockeghem, Busnois, Regis, and Caron as composing the most outstanding music he’d ever heard. (He also named Caron among several composers that were reported to him as poorly educated, as Tinctorus like his contemporaries set great store by a completed university education. But this was probably out of date when it was written, since in that same year, 1473, Caron is mentioned in a legal document as maistre , or Master of Arts.) Others among his contemporaries, as well as scholars of succeeding generations, continued to place Caron among the leading musicians of his time. The manuscript trading trails across Europe (their time’s equivalent of our group emails) that constituted the surest way of circulating sacred and secular music saw Caron’s works turning up repeatedly in Italy. He was popular, and a good thing, too, since although new and doctored texts by unknown hands not infrequently were added to extant works in transmission—editor Jaap van Benthem’s liner notes suggest this occurred to more than half Caron’s chansons—it helped save a good many of his compositions when the French Revolution went on a rampage through the cathedrals of France.


Yet little enough is known today of Caron’s life. Thanks to recently discovered source documents, a possible birth date has been suggested in the late 1430s, in Amiens. He may have come from a well-to-do middle class background, judging from a loan he regularly received payment on later in life, and the registered sale of a house with attachments owned by the man who was probably his deceased father: a well-to-do shoemaker with apprentices and servants. Beyond this lies that shadowy land named vague conjecture. He may have been trained at Cambrai, or in Amiens; may have worked in proximity to Busnois (“Accueilly m’a la belle” suggests the strong influence of the latter), and possibly known Dufay; may have served Charles the Bold in Burgundy—or at least, spent some time in some form of musical service there, accounting for his poor showing in the chansonniers compiled around 1470 in Loire Valley, part of the kingdom of France. His music begins turning up in fewer manuscripts in the mid-1470s, suggesting a possible terminus, but it’s more accurate to simply state that sources for any music he may have written at that time or later, assuming he lived that long, had dried up. Compared to the larger-than-life Busnois, Caron’s personality remains that of a shade.


It is the chansons that history repeatedly praises to us, but only seven are included here, and they comprise just two-thirds of one of the three discs on this new recording. As if to lower our expectations of them further, The Sound and the Fury (or at least their recording company, Fra Bernardo) has left out all texts and translations. I could wish they had done otherwise, as the entire lot collectively comprises a highlight of the set. Caron was innovative for his period, as Montagna notes in his “Caron, Hayne, Compère: a Transmission Reassessment,” for his imitative entrances, though he didn’t stop there. Those imitative textures are apt to occur flexibly, within a carefully varied texture that includes homophony, free movement, staggered, irregular contrapuntal entries (“Helas m’amour”) and the interplay of voices in quick exchange or diverse groups (“Mort du mercy”). The clarity of his parts at all times must be mentioned as well, along with the naturalness with which, at least in some of the of chansons heard here, Caron’s melodic line follows the phrasing of traditional French folksong (the short but charming “Du tout ainsi”). Geneviève Thibault, in her Grove I article on Caron, is just as enthusiastic while pointing out that his superius parts “have a beautiful melodic curve” that does not end with each verse line; and that’s certainly true of “Cuidez vous” and “S’il est ainsy.”


The five Masses supplied in this set ( L’Homme arme, Jesus autem, Accueilly m’a a la belle, Sanguis sanctorum, Clemens et benigna ) are in the five standard movements for their time and place: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. They all survive only in Italian sources, with the already mentioned caveat about text substitution applying. (As well as other caveats to accurate recreation: aging, ink corrosion, editorial transmission errors, and the crude, destructive cutting out of illuminated details have all played their part in rendering the results less than fully satisfactory.) The Sound and The Fury consists of five singers—a countertenor, two tenors, and two basses, along with a lutenist for “Du tout ainsi”—so there’s no doubling. This reinforces to our ears both Caron’s almost obsessively varied textures, and his preference for fragmenting the cantus firmus . Here, too, he was ahead of his time. In turn, Alan Atlas in his Renaissance Music takes evident delight in the way Caron incorporates an Italian song (“Madonna par la torno”), a French chanson (“Hélas, mestresse, m’amie”), and Johannes Joye’s chanson “Mercy mon duiel” into the Marian Mass, Clemens et benigna , in such a way as to make both textual and musical additions function as glosses.


Contrary to the norm in such matters, The Sound and the Fury isn’t a concertizing group. Aside from the very occasional recital, they gather solely for recording purposes, though they clearly spend much time in rehearsals. (You couldn’t get through this music with any semblance of dignity if you didn’t.) The Anglo-German ensemble focuses on the Franco-Flemish school and, if comments in the liner notes are any judge, they take the “sweet” side of the debate in matters of musica ficta . Their sound is tight and disciplined, with excellent enunciation and pitch control, though there are some moments (more in the chansons than in the Masses, oddly enough) where a few notes are split for breath’s sake. The engineering is among the best I’ve heard of sacred choral music of the period, being spacious and very forward, with a slight reverberance.


The texts would definitely help with the chansons, and the photographer responsible for the box’s artwork (the upper torso of some late teen looking out sternly, trying to impress us as he makes what he apparently figures is a karate chop with one hand) needs a courteous reminder of the music’s subject. But in all other respects I’m delighted with this set.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

For this CD a chronological cross-section of Anton Bruckner's work was chosen for the recorded concert, from the very first composition of an 11 year-old, a Pange lingua, to the late Vexilla Regis. It's often hard to define Bruckner's musical roots and origins, since his first symphony already bears his unmistakable stamp, but some of these seldom performed early sacred works, still prescribing to 18th and early-19th c. Upper Austrian church tradition, can give an idea of his musical background. The chorale melodies, by Bruckner himself, display typical Alpine regional melodic attributes.

We know relatively little about Froberger. His many journeys point to a restless spirit, to boundless curiosity and a desire for personal development. At the age of 18, Johannes Maria Bogner was led to the harpsichord, where he first encountered the works of Froberger and he was captivated by them. After he changed to playing the clavichord, he came back to the composer's works. On this recording he presents them in all the intimacy and agitation that the clavichord is capable of realizing.