While there is no proof of any direct interaction between Handel and Caldara, it seems likely that their paths crossed in Italy between 1706 and 1710. Their careers then diverged, with Handel settling in London and Caldara becoming Vize-Hofkapellmeister to Charles VI in Vienna. One quality the two composers shared was the central role they both assigned to the bass voice, which is often employed in the 'arie di furore' so characteristic of Baroque opera. These are works designed to showcase the voice's range, agility and virtuosity. In this, his first solo recording, the Bolivian Jose Coca Loza offers a selection of arias composed by Handel for the great virtuosos of the age like Antonio Montagnana and Giuseppe Maria Boschi, and four Viennese arias written by Caldara for Christoph Praun. Also including various premiere recordings, the album offers a significant contribution to the rediscovery of the Baroque repertoire for bass. Accompanying the extraordinary Coca Loza is Andrea Marcon conducting La Cetra Basel orchestra on period instruments, a partnership whose acclaimed recording of Bach's Mass in B minor already features in the Arcana catalogue. In his first solo album, Bolivian composer Jose Coca Loza presents a selection of arias composed by Handel for great virtuosos of the time such as Antonio Montagnana and Giuseppe Maria Boschi, and four Viennese arias by Caldara for Christoph Praun. The CD, featuring several world premiere recordings, offers a significant contribution to the rediscovery of Baroque bass literature. Coca Loza will be accompanied by the La Cetra Basel ensemble directed by Andrea Marcon, who already appear in the Arcana catalogue with an acclaimed recording of Bach's Mass in B minor.

Johann Sebastian Bach's Partitas for solo violin BWV 1002, 1004, and 1006 are remarkably visionary works. Within the established framework of the dance suite, Bach pushes the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument to unprecedented heights. Few works from the period display a comparable level of compositional and instrumental complexity. The practice of adapting violin music for the viola da gamba is well documented from the rise of both instruments through the middle of the eighteenth century, making the transcription of Bach's Partitas a thoroughly natural undertaking. With it's affinity for both polyphony and the jeu d'harmonie, as well as for the dance-suite tradition itself, the viola da gamba provides these works with a new perspective. While nothing in the instrument's original repertoire matches the density of harmonic and contrapuntal writing that Bach achieves in these Partitas, the pieces take on a new dimension when heard on the viola da gamba. They are transformed without losing their identity, like a familiar landscape seen from a different vantage point: certain details appear in a new light, yet the subject remains the same.

What happens when music becomes an act of rebellion? Step into Winchester Cathedral on a February morning in 964, a day which sparked a silent coup and forever changed the sound of worship. Nexus Winchester invites you into this charged moment, when canons - men of wicked and scandalous behaviour, not celebrating mass, marrying illicitly, living in gluttony and drunkenness, even trying to poison the bishop - were expelled, monks took their place, and some of the earliest polyphony in Western music arose from the conflict. Drawn from the Winchester Troper, these sumptuous works reveal a virtuosity and refinement that feel startlingly modern. Two voices entwine in the earliest known polyphonic masterpieces, fiddle and flutes drift between ritual and imagination, stories by the poet Wulfstan surface like whispered testimony, while voices and instruments open uncanny sonic spaces. A thousand years later, Ensemble Dialogos revives this repertoire not as a relic, but as living drama - where power, silence and song collide, and the past speaks urgently to the present.

Frank and Francesco. It all began with a misunderstanding. In the early 1980s Frank Zappa came across an entry on "Zappa" in the New Grove Dictionary, only to discover it concerned an obscure 18th-century Milanese composer of almost the same name. Convinced he had found an ancestor, Frank investigated Francesco Zappa and in 1984 devoted an entire album to him (his 42nd) - saving him from oblivion and, as he proudly noted, producing his first recording in over 200 years. Some forty years later, that misunderstanding inspired this Il Pomo d'Oro project: a recording adventure bringing together Francesco's galant music, Frank's 'contemporary' works for string quintet, and some original compositions, where all hierarchies are abandoned. Giovanni Sollima, a native of Palermo like Frank's family, brings his own sound world in dialogue with both Zappas. Vanni Moretto, a Milanese like Francesco and a leading expert on 18th-century Milanese music, imagines a posthumous revenge: what if Francesco had rewritten Frank's music? He does precisely that, composing a sinfonia concertante to match Francesco's own. On Wild Love the two friends serve Francesco entirely - Giovanni Sollima as cellist, Vanni Moretto as music director - ensuring that Francesco Zappa is at last rediscovered, restored, and no longer anyone's phantom.

Folias y Glosas', the new recording project of the ensemble Concerto Scirocco, is a musical journey into the Spain of the late 16th/early 17th century, taking in a repertoire rich in colours, rhythm and influences that weaves together folk memory and sophisticated artistry. The title alludes to two key elements of early performance practice: the folias, an ostinato of folk origin with a cyclic structure, and the glosas, a term synonymous with ornament and embellishment. Alongside the names of great Iberian composers such as Antonio de Cabezon and Diego Ortiz and pieces from the Cancionero de Palacio, the programme also investigates the ramifications of Spanish influence in Europe, with music by Michael Praetorius, Bartolome de Selma y Salaverde, Andrea Falconieri and Johannes Ghiselin. The cultural links between Spain, Italy and the northern countries, which testify to the circulation of styles and ideas between the courts and cities of Baroque Europe, are here revealed in a refined, yet spirited, musical overview. With Folias y Glosas, Concerto Scirocco brings to listeners the richness of expression and variety of timbre of a repertoire that still sounds surprisingly modern.

Spanning 1816 to 1827, Schubert's works for violin and piano trace a remarkable evolution in his musical voice, though their reception has often obscured their true significance. Revisiting them today reveals a composer whose imagination for the violin was far richer than assumed, from the Classical elegance of the early sonatas to the expansive virtuosity of the Fantasy. Formed in 2022 at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, the duo of Ilya Gringolts and Anton Gerzenberg stands out for the ease with which they approach both the classical and romantic repertoire on period instruments, through a historically informed approach, and twentieth-century and contemporary music, without stylistic preclusions. This recording, Ilya Gringolts's second album for Arcana, immediately stands out for the exceptional quality of the instruments used - Gringolts's precious 'ex-Prove' Stradivarius violin, strung with gut strings and a McNulty copy of a Conrad Graf fortepiano (Vienna, c. 1819) - as well as the extensive use of ornamentation and improvisation in the reprises: a bold and unusual choice that the two musicians apply not only to the early Sonatas but also to the later Fantasy.

Venite alla danza! Is the project with which La Reverdie intends to celebrate it's 40th anniversary. Since 1986, the ensemble has explored a wide range of vocal and instrumental repertoires from the 13th to the 15th century but has never attempted a program entirely dedicated to dance. It's time to do it! The project is entirely dedicated to the different forms of medieval dances, in which the role of voice and instruments is paradoxically interchangeable. The theme of dance allows us to cross the Middle Ages far and wide, entering monasteries, the world of popular devotion, the courts, and public entertainments. Dances celebrated the joy of life and were present in the various manifestations of daily life, always as a form of social sharing. The repertoire is extremely varied: from the 13th- to the 15th-century dances to Italian laude and pilgrimage dances, from Italian ballate to French ballade, virelai, and rondeaux, together with French and Italian instrumental dances that bring the listener into the middle of the 15th century. A program that dispels the idea that dance music was only instrumental music!

According to his first biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Bach possessed an extraordinary ability to combine organ stops in a wholly unusual manner, astonishing the organists and organ builders of his time. However, very few accounts survive of how he actually made these timbral choices. A valuable source of information is the Harmonische Seelenlust by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann (1733-36), a large collection of chorale preludes that displays striking points of contact with the third part of the Clavier-ubung (1739) - to the point of appearing almost as a model for it - and includes registrations so original and bold as to recall the style described by Forkel. Having already distinguished himself with the award-winning Bach Mirrored (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik), organist Maurizio Croci draws on the timbral resources of the historic Treutmann organ at Grauhof (1737) to offer us a fresh reading of Bach's masterpiece which, taking inspiration from Kauffmann's registrations, places registration at the centre of expressive interpretation and proposes a renewed listening perspective.

More than 60 composers have set Metastasio's libretto to music, including Caldara, Vivaldi, Hasse, Leo, Scarlatti, Piccinni, Paisiello, Cherubini and, of course, Pergolesi, who presented his Olimpiade at the Teatro Tordinona in Rome for the Carnival season of 1735. It was to be his last opera seria, as the composer died the very next year, just after he turned twenty-six. His version is considered by many to be the most inspired of all, characterised by a musical originality as ingenious as it is refined, brimming with joyful freshness. Following the rediscovery of the previously unpublished Mass in D major, Giulio Prandi and his Orchestra Ghislieri return to Pergolesi with a recording of his operatic masterpiece made in the 18th-century theatre of Jesi, his hometown: an initiative of the Pergolesi Spontini Foundation, which has been promoting the composer's legacy for many years.

Ask 100 people and you'll know 100 things. Talking about numbers in Vivaldi's work is mind-boggling! 96 operas, dozens of cantatas and sacred pieces, over 600 instrumental pieces, including 230 violin concertos. One movement per day over a 40-year career... With this recording, Giuliano Carmignola reaches the milestone of 100 violin concertos for the first time in the history of recordings! 13 new compositions reveal the Treviso virtuoso's incomparable affinity with this repertoire of inexhaustible charm.

In 1927, at the time of the first Beethoven centenary, the celebrated French musicologist Saint-Foix drew attention to an anonymous manuscript collection of six quartets that once belonged to the publisher Domenico (III) Artaria and is today preserved at the Berlin State Library. He conjectured that these pieces could be the very first experiments of a young Beethoven, then still an adolescent, in a genre that he would properly inaugurate when he published his op. 18 set in his early thirties. On the strength of this theory, the collection was included in the Beethoven catalogue, though listed among the works of doubtful attribution, where it has remained awaiting further musicological research. With the world premiere recording of the Six Quartets Anh. 2, the Alla Maniera Italiana Quartet brings back to light a precious collection of chamber music that is still enveloped in mystery, in a historically informed performance based on a close study of the Berlin parts, thereby offering an original contribution to the forthcoming Beethoven bicentenary.

After the success of Mandolin on Stage, dedicated to the most emblematic 18th-century concertos for mandolin and recorded with Il Pomo d'Oro directed by Francesco Corti, Raffaele La Ragione returns with his third album for Arcana. This time he recounts a fascinating chapter in French musical history, joined by pianist Francois Dumont (who has chosen an exceptional 1896 Pleyel for the occasion) and special guest, soprano Sandrine Piau. In the 1880s and 1890s Paris discovered a deep passion for the mandolin: a fondness fuelled by the concerts held at the Trocadero during the Universal Exhibition of 1878. In the drawing rooms of high society the Neapolitan instrument became a supreme symbol of elegance and exoticism, conjuring up the atmosphere of southern Italy and immediately winning over poets and composers. The recording, created in collaboration with the Palazzetto Bru Zane, brings together original pieces, contemporary arrangements from French operas and operettas, and vocal works dedicated to the mandolin, thereby effectively recreating the soundscape and distinct allure of a fin-de-siecle salon.

A vocation for experimentation was unquestionably an essential component of Bach's mindset. It was a desire to surpass, in every possible respect, whatever had been achieved up until then in a given genre or musical form, while extending to the utmost the resources and technical capabilities of individual instruments and the human voice (and thus also of individual performers). All of this was to be accomplished in the search for a perfection that is both aesthetic and spiritual. This ceaseless aspiration-cultivated from the beginning to the very end of his life-to go beyond the limits shapes the works selected for the second solo album by harpsichordist Cristiano Gaudio, whose debut recording was awarded a Diapason d'Or and Classica's Choc de l'Année. From the dazzling virtuosity of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue to the contrapuntal complexity of the Ricercare a 6 from The Musical Offering; from the art of transcription, magnified in the arrangement of the Violin Sonata no. 2, to the "twelve-tone" last fugue of The Well-Tempered Clavier Book I, whose subject exceptionally includes all the notes of the chromatic scale-all these works embody that bold erosion of limits that Bach's music pursued as it's true mission. They give both performers and listeners, for over three centuries, the thrill of an intellectual adventure-indeed even a physical experience-that is constantly on the edge.

Composed during Antonio Vivaldi's stay in Prague in 1729-30, the Concerto for Lute RV 93 is the most celebrated example of a repertoire almost totally neglected today, but once extremely popular in the German-speaking world, particularly in the Habsburg lands of Austria and Bohemia. After offering us a reference edition of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach (2022) and a representative anthology of the output of Silvius Leopold Weiss (2024), Evangelina Mascardi concludes her 18th-century trilogy by illuminating a fundamental, yet hitherto largely sidelined, chapter in the history of the lute. Alongside the Vivaldi concerto, which guitarists have embraced since the early 1960s, making it one of his most acclaimed works, we find four genuine and practically unknown gems, such as those composed by Joachim Bernard Hagen and Karl Ignaz Augustin Kohaut, now given their first recording. Accompanied by the Estrovagante Orchestra, directed by Riccardo Doni, Mascardi ventures into the rococo idiom, the stylistic context for the final virtuosic showpieces of an instrument boasting a rich history, but destined-in the space of just a few years-to be definitively eclipsed.

For it's sixth album on the Arcana label, Voces Suaves presents a programme dedicated to one of the most influential composers of the seventeenth century, the great Giacomo Carissimi. The album features Carissimi's most famous work, the masterful oratorio Jephte, alongside two of his rarely performed virtuoso motets. It also includes the astonishingly theatrical Cristo smarrito by Domenico Mazzocchi, Carissimi's contemporary in Rome. The works on the album showcase the expressive power of Carissimi's musical language, as well as the remarkable virtuosity of the singers who originally performed his music. Instrumental interludes by Carissimi-found in the collection of his pupil Marc-Antoine Charpentier-have been interpolated into the score of Jephte, creating a unique version of the oratorio as it may have been performed in Rome during the composer's lifetime.

Two violoncellos piccoli, one with four strings, the other with five, making a total of nine strings: it is as if a new instrument were born, an organ with strings instead of pipes, to perform virtuoso polyphonic masterpieces with a larger, enriched sound palette. Taking Gustav Leonhardt's keyboard transcriptions of the Suites, Sonatas and Partitas as his point of departure, Mario Brunello adds a new sonic dimension to three of Bach's solo pieces for unaccompanied violin and cello, making the polyphony previously confined to only four strings audible. He is partnered by his longstanding friend the specialist Mauro Valli, who has already appeared on Arcana with his personal reinterpretation of the Cello Suites (Bach in Bologna A459, 2019).

In a century that saw many illustrious French and German composers write for two flutes, the six sonatas of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach stand out as the most significant, complex and technically demanding of this repertoire. Ever since they were rediscovered and published almost a century ago, they have become a stable part of the flute catalogue, appreciated and performed on both historic and modern instruments. Viewing it as the quintessential work of Friedemann's creative output, the specialist Peter Wollny even sees it as a summa of his entire production, full of quotations and reminiscences of his previous works. After the album devoted to the sonatas of C.P.E. Bach (A 537, Diapason d'or), Manuel Granatiero, accompanied by the Italo-Croatian flautist Eleonora Biscevic, now turns his attention to this masterpiece by Johann Sebastian Bach's eldest son. Arriving some thirty-five years after the first, and only, recorded version on period instruments (by Barthold Kuijken and Marc Hantai), this new recording offers a fresh perspective on music of extraordinary brilliance, passion and virtuosity.

Barbara Strozzi, a Venetian singer and composer who lived between 1619 and 1677, stands out as a rare jewel in the musical landscape of the Italian Seicento. The adoptive (and perhaps natural) daughter of Giulio Strozzi, a man of letters belonging to the illustrious Florentine family, she rejected the alternative prospects of matrimony or life in a convent in order to devote herself entirely to her one true passion: music. Moreover, she aimed to assert herself not merely as a performer, but also as a composer, thereby transgressing the strict rules of the period. Over the course of twenty years she published over a hundred and twenty cantatas and other works for solo voice, a number unequalled by any of her contemporaries. In her most significant works she combines the absolute originality of her formal structures with extraordinarily intense and exuberant poetics of the "affects." In these respects her vocal writing is comparable only with that of the century's greatest Italian composer, Claudio Monteverdi. After five successful albums with Giuliano Carmignola and Mario Brunello, the Accademia dell'Annunciata, conducted by Riccardo Doni, offers us a portrait of this extraordinary artist, arguably the greatest Italian composer of all time. In an era when the music scene was almost exclusively male, Barbara Strozzi managed to carve out a unique place for herself, becoming one of the most fascinating personalities of 17th-century music, a figure that is today given voice by soprano Laura Catrani.

RossoPorpora made it's Arcana debut with an album dedicated to Luca Marenzio, which received widespread critical acclaim, including the German Record Critics' Award, Classic Voice's Disc of the Month, a Diapason rating of 5, and five-star reviews from Musica and Amadeus. It was described as "magnificent" by Early Music Review and hailed as "a desert island disc" by Forum Opera. Now, with it's second album, the ensemble turns to one of the cornerstones of 17th-century music: Claudio Monteverdi's Sixth Book of Madrigals. In a deeply immersive exploration of the composer's inner world during his final years in Mantua, RossoPorpora delivers a profoundly moving interpretation of the many masterpieces contained in the collection-Lamento d'Arianna, Lagrime d'Amante sul sepolcro dell'Amata, Zefiro torna, Oime 'l bel viso, Qui rise o Tirsi-which together mark one of the highest achievements in the history of the madrigal.

After releasing the complete set of Ennio Morricone's Cinema Suites for violin and orchestra on two albums (Cinema Suites, A495 and Cinema Rarities, A554), Marco Serino now presents world premiere recordings of the Maestro's own arrangements for violin and piano. Marco is joined by pianist Leandro Piccioni, who, like Marco, brings over twenty years of experience working closely with Morricone in his favoured orchestra, Roma Sinfonietta. These original arrangements, all from celebrated soundtracks, represent the point of departure for an original anthology in which the two musicians investigate the wider repertoire connected to the cinema. Cinema Memories ranges from works that have since become classics such as the Three Pieces from Schindler's List by John Williams to Bernstein's West Side Story Suite, one of the outright masterpieces of musicals on film, and Myroslav Skoryk's Melody in A minor, a jewel of a piece that has since become a sort of national anthem for the Ukrainian people. It is a programme that interweaves memory and imagination, melancholy and light, dreams and reality, making each listening experience a truly multifaceted experience.

In the heart of Baroque Rome, the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is the principal Marian sanctuary of the Eternal City. For centuries it has guarded not only the relics of Jesus's cradle and swaddling-clothes, but also the celebrated marble Nativity Scene by Arnolfo di Cambio (1291), the first of it's kind in the history of art, thus earning it the title of "Bethlehem of the West". Here, in 1707, Alessandro Scarlatti was employed as maestro di cappella. Though a brief appointment - it lasted little more than a year - it was long enough to leave a deep impression, above all on the repertoire for Christmas, which was celebrated in the basilica with particular solemnity. For the 300th anniversary of the composer's death, Giulio Prandi and Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri dedicate their fifth album for Arcana to Scarlatti's unique, splendid music for a Roman Christmas.

Johann Sebastian Bach, though largely unaffected by the trends of his time, reimagined many older forms with striking originality, shaping the course of Western music. Among his innovations is the sonata for a melodic instrument (such as the viola da gamba) and obbligato harpsichord, where both parts engage in equal dialogue-a model later expanded by his sons and composers like Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Following their acclaimed first album dedicated to Corelli's Sonatas Op. 5, Teodoro Bau and Andrea Buccarella now present their second duo recording: the Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord by J.S. Bach, each revealing a unique stylistic approach within a unified form.

On one side, Francesco Corti, one of the most internationally acclaimed harpsichordists and protagonist of five acclaimed albums released by the Arcana label. On the other, Ilya Gringolts, making his debut for the same label: a violinist of extraordinary versatility, committed to contemporary music but also animated by a deep passion for the Baroque repertoire and historically informed performance. Proof of this is his recording of Locatelli's Il labirinto armonico (2021), which was awarded the Diapason d'Or and selected as Editor's Choice by Gramophone. Two artistically different but complementary personalities, united for years in a successful partnership, tackle a milestone of chamber music: the first great example of concertante sonatas for keyboard and melodic instrument. Completing the programme is Tertia deficiens, a piece by contemporary composer and Baroque violinist Andrew McIntosh (Grammy nominee), commissioned specifically for this project with the aim of creating an evocative bridge between past and present.

This anthology of sacred works - all of which could be used in the liturgies of the Christmas festivities - features some of the leading musicians active in Venice in the 16th and 17th centuries. They range from the earliest, Andrea Gabrieli, who died in 1585, to the most recent, Francesco Cavalli, who died almost a century later, in 1676. At the centre of this broad chronological span we encounter not only veritable giants like Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi, but also prominent musicians connected to them, such as the Saxon composer Heinrich Schu¨tz, Giovanni Bassano and Alessandro Grandi. After three successful albums on Arcana, Natale veneziano inaugurates a new series by Il Pomo d'Oro. This recording shines a spotlight on the choir of Il Pomo d'Oro, which has accompanied the orchestra's activities under the direction of specialist Giuseppe Maletto since 2021.

In London in 1736, the Baroque genius Handel celebrated the power of music with his oratorio about Alexander the Great, one of the greatest successes of his life. Covent Garden was never so full as on the evening of the premiere. For this original English version, Alfredo Bernardini unites the fantastic voices of the Arnold Schoenberg Choir with his lively Zefiro Baroque Orchestra. The three soloists Miriam Kutrowatz, Daniel Johannsen and Damien Gastl tell the ancient story of how the singer Timotheus was once able to change the mood of the great Alexander, evoking a whirlwind of diverse emotions, highlighting the power of music over politics and war.

The aim of this musical tour - an expedition that travels backwards, from today to the Renaissance - is to reconstruct the overarching strands that comprise and unite five centuries of music of a "Roman school" famed for it's contrapuntal rigour, melodic flair and popular roots. The label "romano", which many a musician of bygone eras proudly displayed after their name, is a sure sign of belonging to a school, to a special style. The backdrop for this excursion back in time is Rome, which in this same Jubilee Year of 2025 is the destination for millions of pilgrims on the march from every part of the world, each with their own history and culture. And the various stops on the journey present the music of the eternal city, a music that - no matter whether sacred or secular or whatever the type of work - is as capable today as then of moving, delighting and nourishing the soul of any human being. After exploring the personality of Giovanni Zamboni (L'ultimo romano, 2016) and the refinements of the French repertoire (Meditation, 2022), in this, his third solo album for Arcana, Simone Vallerotonda engages with contemporary and ancient music, broadening the horizons of the lute with a confidence and sense of novelty that fascinate and surprise

To arouse wonder: this was the mission the Baroque bequeathed to the Galant style. The celebrated opera composer and keyboard virtuoso Baldassare Galuppi achieved this by applying tools from the visual arts to music, playing with light, colour, and perspective. The trendsetting fire of his imagination and the sweetness of his cantabiles captured the spirit of the city of Venice with the whimsy and drama of it's new Goldonian theatre, earning him renown throughout Europe. Wonder in Venice is a selection of solo sonatas and concertos for harpsichord and strings that showcase the eclecticism of Galuppi's music, which combines the brilliance of the Venetian Galant style with tempestuous Sturm und Drang outbursts. The young Italian harpsichordist Arianna Radaelli, a brilliant soloist who performs with Il Pomo d'Oro, Zefiro and Jordi Savall, gives Galuppi's keyboard works a new reading which is faithful to historical performance practice, yet also dynamic and audacious. Flanked by the excellent string ensemble La Filarete, she successfully explores the expressivity of this repertoire, which is ripe for rediscovery.

Handel's violin sonatas composed in London stretch from the heyday of the Royal Academy of Music's Italian opera productions to his last English oratorios. The original purposes, contexts and performers of the sonatas are unknown: only a few survive in autograph manuscripts, and the authorship and instrumentation of pieces preserved in unreliable early printed sources are a confusing mess. Quartetto Vanvitelli invent a narrative that explores the possibilities of emotions, sonorities and connecting tonalities that are offered by several authentic violin sonatas, a few spurious misattributions, quotations from Giulio Cesare in Egitto (1724) and arrangements from several keyboard pieces - a creative vision designed to refract light through the prism of Handel's music.

Though naturally closely associated with the organ and harpsichord, Bach had a special relationship with the violin, his father's instrument, throughout his life. Moreover, we know that he was a highly skilled player, performing regularly at the court of Weimar, and probably also at Kothen and Leipzig. He wrote and transcribed concertos and sonatas for violin, but above all created the unprecedented collection of Sonatas and Partitas for solo instrument. And it is precisely for this vehicle of pure virtuosity that Marco Serino's new project offers four masterpieces, only one of which - the Partita No. 2, the most ambitious work in the group - has survived in a version for violin. Both the first two Suites for cello and the Toccata and Fugue BWV 565, however, already boast an important tradition of violin transcriptions. Pervaded by the virtual polyphony so characteristic of the celebrated Sei solo, these extraordinary pieces, which are presented from a different perspective than usual, celebrate this art of transformation pursued by the artists of the Baroque as an ideal of continuous and fruitful metamorphosis.

Alongside the renowned female composers of the 17th century, such as Francesca Caccini and Barbara Strozzi, and the leading singers (the prime donne) that dominated the stages of opera houses, such as Anna Renzi and Giulia Masotti, we should also appreciate the considerable number of excellent - yet largely unknown - "virtuose". Though customarily concealed amidst the ranks of a court, serving as maids of honour to a queen, princess or noblewoman, these were extremely accomplished musicians who often provided vital inspiration for the celebrated composers of the day. This recording, which stemmed from a research project dedicated to the virtuose working in 17th-century Rome, presents a selection of compositions that may well have formed part of their repertoire. The famous Lamento d'Arianna stands out among these pieces, in a version that was preserved in a contemporary Roman manuscript that Monteverdi very likely brought with him during his visit to the papal city in the autumn of 1610. In this album, which marks her solo debut, Carlotta Colombo, one of the most highly esteemed singers in today's Italian Baroque scene, pays tribute to the creativity of these extraordinary women, thereby reinstating them to the centre of their artistic environment and restoring to them the recognition that was often denied to them during their lifetime.