Alessandro Piccinini, a contemporary of Monteverdi and Frescobaldi, hailed from a Bolognese family of lutenists that made its mark on Italian musical life for over one and a half centuries. Piccinini's two books of lute works are primarily influenced by the emergent Italian instrumental music, but French and Spanish influences can also be clearly heard. On the present recording, Monica Pustilnik performs selections from both books.

While today it is easy to listen to almost any piece at any time and in almost any place, before the invention of the record it was quite complicated: you had to go to a concert or to the opera or you played yourself... In the emerging bourgeoisie, arrangements of the most popular works in instrumentations suitable for chamber music were popular and, of course, Mozart's famous operas were at the top of the popularity scale. In many places, publishers set about transcribing Mozart's works for small and very small ensembles. The two violinists Florian Deuter and Mónica Waisman have found a whole series of such contemporary arrangements of Mozart's operas and piano sonatas in "pocket format" for violin duo, which bring the well-known melodies into the new form with much wit and finesse. In the process, the listener can grin and observe the reduction of the full sound and delve into delightful details of house music around 1800.

It is the opera that launched the International Handel Festival in Göttingen in 1920: "Rodelinda" by George Frideric Handel. With its performance, festival founder Oskar Hagen initiated the Handel renaissance in Göttingen. After the festival had to be cancelled for its 100th anniversary in 2020 due to corona, "Rodelinda" came to the stage of the Deutsches Theater on 9 September 2021. Love and passion, jealousy and intrigue - Handel's "Rodelinda" has all the ingredients that Handel needs as a basis for varied, emotionally charged music. And he really went all out: at last, in the 1720s in London, he had access to outstanding singers and an excellent international orchestra. The roles are correspondingly demanding. With this "Rodelinda", the Handel Festival once again proves that historically informed performance practice can make a deep impression even without world stars. And Laurence Cummings - in his last year as artistic director of the Festival - once again underlines his exceptional position as one of the leading Handel conductors of our day.

Domenico Mazzocchi's life and career are a prime example of the wealthy and sophisticated status of a highly educated musician in 17th century Rome. Protection by the Aldrobrandini, Barberini, Pamphilij and Borghese families gave him the reputation of a dilettante musician, self-taught or amateur, but his status without financial worries allowed him to compose freely without artistic constraints. The quality of his art is shown by the fact that his brother, who was the chapel master at St. Peter's and St. John Lateran, regularly asked him for musical help. Mazzocchi's main works are three volumes of madrigals, printed in Rome in 1638 and composed for five voices, the supreme discipline in madrigal composition. On the threshold of the traditional strictly polyphonic madrigal to the highly emotional style of a Monteverdi, Mazzocchi perfectly reflects the richness of the Roman culture of his time. The ensemble Les Traversées Baroques presents a selection of his madrigals in a wide variety of settings, from five singers a cappella to colorfully orchestrated movements with large continuo instrumentation.

Christoph Graupner was one of the most important composers in Germany during his lifetime. In the competition for the position of Leipzig's Thomaskantor, he was second only to Telemann and ahead of Bach. However, his employer, Landgrave Ernst Ludwig, did not let him go. So he remained as court kapellmeister in Darmstadt and in the end held the position for over 50 years! Time enough to create an enormous oeuvre, at the center of which are over 1400 cantatas. Countertenor Franz Vitzthum and tenor Georg Poplutz have selected solo arias and duets for their voices from this fund, focusing on cantatas for Easter and the Easter season. These cantatas radiate great confidence and hope, which Graupner's translates into his very modern and forward-looking galant style. The Main Baroque Orchestra complements the vocal program with an overture in C minor and a concerto for two violins.

Under the reign of Frederic II, Berlin developed into one of the most important centres of the European music scene. He brought the most important composers and musicians to his court.BR Klassik respectfully called Xenia Löffler "the queen of Baroque oboe". She presents on her new album a fine selection of oboe sonatas from the Berlin repertoire with works by two Bach sons, Schaffrath, Janitsch, and Matthes. Her fellow musicians include Michael Bosch, and Györgyi Farkas, among others. As a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician, Xenia Löffler has gained an outstanding reputation as a baroque oboist over the past several years. Working with ensembles such as the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, where she has been active as a member and soloist since 2001, she has toured throughout the world and has performed at some of the most important music festivals and concert halls.

The "Esterházy Music Collection" series with the Orfeo Orchestra conducted by György Vashegyi on the Accent label is dedicated to presenting musical treasures of the Esterházy family, many of which have been largely forgotten over the centuries. The recordings usually take place in the Apollo Hall of the Esterházy Palace in Fertod-Eszterháza, whose acoustics are among the best in the world. The present production is the third volume and offers a selection of earlier symphonies by Joseph Haydn. In addition to Symphonies Nos. 24, 42 and 43 from the years 1764 to 1771, No. 30, which already bore the epithet "Alleluja" on contemporary copies from 1765, is also heard. This is based on the use of the Gregorian Alleluia of the Easter liturgy in the main theme of the first movement. The symphony may have been composed for ecclesiastical use; a possible performance took place on Easter Sunday 1765.

The Mediterranean Sea has been the hub of resettlement and migration for centuries. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the people who settled in those areas that were depopulated by years of war, expulsion and flight. And in 1492, the Spanish Reconquista led to the expulsion of the Sephardic Jews, who brought their culture to many countries around the Mediterranean. Even today, the Mediterranean again plays an inglorious role in flight and expulsion. The German gambist Friederike Heumann has taken this as an opportunity to present, together with the Turkish singer Nihan Devecioglu and the Spanish guitarist Xavier Díaz-Latorre, the many ancient cultures around the Mediterranean: the tradition of the Sephardic people, songs from Lebanon, Turkey, Armenia and Greece, art music from Venice to Fado in Spain and Portugal, whose influences reach as far as South America.

Around 1490, the painter Hans Memling created his "Concert of Angels". It consists of three paintings for the outside of an altar and shows God the Father surrounded by angels singing and playing instruments. What might the music have sounded like that inspired Memling to this painting? Very precisely, the painter depicted the instruments of his time, grouped into the "alta" and "bassa capella" typical of the period - the loud and the quiet instruments. Together with the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp, where Memling's paintings hang today, Wim Beku initiated an interdisciplinary project in which the depicted instruments were recreated in detail by specialists in instrument making and research was carried out to find thematically appropriate music. The central theme of the original altar, of which only the Angel Concerto remains, was the Assumption of Mary, and so "Paradisi porte" – the door to paradise – also determines the music of this album. Gregorian music from liturgical books and polyphonic compositions from the time around 1500 in Bruges are heard, truly heavenly music played by Wim Becus "Otremontano Antwerpen" together with the singers of the "Tiburtina Ensemble".

Arthur Schoonderwoerd, one of today's most sought-after interpreters on the fortepiano, presents the sixth part of his complete recording of Mozart's piano concertos on the ACCENT label with this release of three early Piano Concertos, no. 9, 11 and 12. As they have already done on their previous issues, the aim of Schoonderwoerd and his ensemble Cristofori here is to liberate Mozart's works from traditional nineteenth-century sound concepts. Each string part in the orchestra is played by just one performer; the result is a very slender, transparent sound that supports the solo instrument without ever covering it up.

Although the titles “Le Matin”, “Le Midi” and “Le Soir” have favored the popularity of the three works in our days, they served Haydn merely as an inspiring impulse to compose. Haydn’s Symphonies Nos. 6-8 are programmatic music only to a limited extent: they were rather an ideal basis for the strong desire to experiment of the new, imaginative vice-kapellmeister of the virtuoso Eszterházy court orchestra. These compositions, whose form tends more towards the Baroque concerto than the classical symphony, suggest that Haydn wanted to show his employer the individual virtuosity of each of his musicians. The three symphonies are characterized by their varied arrangement, themes and orchestration, which show Haydn to be an extremely imaginative composer who skillfully put his court orchestra in the “right light”. This production is the first installment of the new series “Esterházy Music Collection” with the Orfeo Orchestra conducted by György Vashegyi on the Accent label. It will be dedicated to the presentation of musical treasures of the Esterházy family, many of which had been largely neglected over the centuries. The recording of these Haydn symphonies took place in the Apollo Hall of the Esterházy Castle Fertod-Eszterháza, with its fine historical acoustics that are among the best in the world.

The Thomaskantor position in Leipzig was one of the most important jobs for musicians in Germany in the 18th century. Several important musicians applied to succeed Johann Kuhnau after his death in 1722. In the recruitment process, the Leipzig city council was able to choose from the most famous personalities of the time: The first choice was Georg Philipp Telemann, who declined, however, after he had obtained a decent salary increase at his Hamburg post. The next two candidates were Johann Friedrich Fasch and Christoph Graupner - Fasch, knowing about Telemann's application, had accepted another position and Graupner would have become Thomaskantor, but his employer in Darmstadt would not let him go. Only the third choice, as is generally known, fell on Johann Sebastian Bach ... In his program "Leipzig 1723", Stefan Temmingh recalls this major moment in music history and presents recorder concertos by all four competitors. Excellently accompanied by the Capricornus Consort Basel, he thus creates a panopticon of recorder concertos by the greatest German masters of the time.

This 6-album set presents the complete recordings with flute music by Joseph Haydn made by Barthold Kuijken on the Accent label. Always playing historically accurate transverse flutes, on these albums (which contain trios and quartets in various combinations), he teams up with his brothers Sigiswald and Wieland, his nephew Piet Kuijken and other fine early music specialists. The recordings were made between 1978 and 2014 and are presented together here for the first time. This is an opportunity not to be missed of listening to the legendary Kuijken family in this delicate late 18th-century repertoire. He studied the modern flute at the Bruges Conservatory and the Royal Conservatories of Brussels and The Hague. For playing early music he originally turned to the recorder. Research on authentic instruments, frequent collaboration with various flute and recorder makers, and assiduous study of sources of the 17th and 18th centuries helped him to specialize in the performance on original instruments. For many years he played in the baroque orchestras Collegium Aureum and La Petite Bande. He plays chamber music concerts all over the world, extending his repertoire to early 19th-century music and has recorded extensively.

‘Hermann of the Cherusci’ and the Varus Battle found their way into the German founding myth a long time ago. Arminius, whose Teutons roundly defeated three of Varus’ legions, was already described as the ‘Liberator of Germania’ by Tacitus. In Handel’s Arminio, the liberation battle is only the background against which the characters come to terms with themes like honor, duty, obedience, love, and freedom. Arminio premiered in the Covent Garden Theatre on January 12, 1737 but disappeared from the London stage after only six performances. Almost 200 years later, it was revived in Leipzig as Hermann und Thusnelda. After performances in Halle (2014) and Karlsruhe (2015), this late work of Handel has been recorded at the Handel Festival in Gottingen 2018 and is now presented on this release.

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Christopher Lowrey's singing and expressive range in the title role are both excellent, and Sophie Junker is a delightful Sigismondo. The orchestra produces an exquisite sound; its playing delicate and precise.

– The Opera Critic

Countertenor Christophe Dumaux is one of the most important countertenors of our days. He is invited to the world’s most prestigious opera houses and festivals including the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Paris Opera, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Staatsoper Berlin, La Scala Milan, the Proms London and the Salzburg Festival. Dumaux was the soloist of the 2019 gala concert at the Göttingen International Handel Festival where he sung a program with arias from Handel's operas such as "Orlando", "Rinaldo", "Giulio Cesare" and "Ariodante". “Christophe Dumaux’s appearance at this recital in the 2019 Göttingen Handel Festival was electrifying, dazzling, completely stunning, showing a mature singer at the top of his game with great technique and depth of interpretation not to mention golden tone.” (bachtrack.com) On this release he showcases his talent with a programme of Handel arias.