The instrumental ensemble Opera Quinta, directed by Fabrizio Longo, violin soloist of the team, adds an important element to the inexhaustible rediscovery of the eighteenth- century Italian heritage. The sonatas op. 1 by Angelo Michele Besseghi - composer of which, unfortunately, only few biographical information has reached us - were published in 1710, openly paying homage to the edition of his much more famous countryman who ten years earlier would have marked the course of European violin history: the Opera 5 by Arcangelo Corelli. Period ensemble Opera Quinta is violinist Fabrizio Longo, gambist Rosita Ippolito, lutenist Fabiano Merlante, and keyboardist Valeria Montanari.

Dutch flautist Frans Bruggen (1934-2014) was one of the main discoverers and champions of the recorder during the twentieth century, and is considered to be one of the artists that made this instrument popular and accessible to young people. His virtuosity and technique were unique, and made his performances of music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries unforgettable, showing his audiences that the recorder could be an expressive and evocative instrument. This IDIS release collects a series of very rare recordings of this great artist taken from his archives- none of these recordings have ever been released on modern mediums. This album features the first recording of the Giuseppe Sammartini Concert in F major- a masterpiece of the recorder literature- that was recorded by Bruggen with the Amsterdam Chamber Orchestra when he was only twenty-eight years old.

The son of a Weimar-based organist, Johann Krebs (1713-1780) entered the Thomasschule in Leipzig under the tutelage of Capellmeister Bach at the age of 12 in 1726. There he remained for the best part of a decade, and a glowing testimonial from Bach commended his talents on the clavier, violin and lute, as well as in composition. Krebs never attained the Leipzig post which his instrumental talents deserved, but he served as an organist in several churches south of Leipzig through the course of a long and distinguished professional life which reached fruition as organist at the court of Prince Friedrich of Gotha-Altenburg from 1755 onwards. The inveterate traveler and commentator Charles Burney reported that ‘M. Krebs of Altenburg, scholar of Sebastian Bach, has been much admired for his full and masterly manner of playing the organ.’ The style of Krebs’s own music reflects the transitional period in which he lived. The hand of the master lightly guides the cosmopolitan elegance of the three partitas on album 1 of this collection. Krebs compiled a Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Practice) of his own in 1744, from which Michele Benuzzi performs a C major suite and, six lively Italianate sonatas. A volume of six suites from 1746 shows the influence of the galant style which was coming into fashion at the time, embodied by the output of Bach’s most accomplished son, Carl Philipp Emanuel. Several more suites here are sophisticated examples of Krebs’s mastery in the ‘French and Italian taste’ as well as demonstrating the fluency of his keyboard writing and the craftsmanship of his counterpoint.

This important collection joins several other albums of little-known keyboard music from the period, recorded for Brilliant Classics by Michele Benuzzi. A student of Ottavio Dantone, he has performed the complete sonatas of Scarlatti and given recitals at major festivals in Europe and Asia.

Franois Couperin’s Concerts Royaux (1722) and Les Nations (1726) use open scoring, indicating that they could be performed by whatever instruments were at hand. + He later confessed that he himself preferred to perform them on two harpsichords. + This suggestion had to wait for these two CDs to be taken up in a recording (the second CD is being readied for future release). + Also presented are a number of his Pices de clavecin, also in rarely heard realizations for two harpsichords.

This delightful new release from Stradivarius features keyboard works from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the most virtuosic composers for keyboard that has ever lived. In many of Mozart’s first editions, the titles bear the French indication Sonatas pour le Clavecin ou Forte-piani. That is, the works were to be performed on either the harpsichord or the fortepiano. For this release, the rarer option has been chosen: the harpsichord. Basilio Timpanaro and Rossella Policardo make up The Harpsichord Duo. The duo has been engaged in the Italian concert scene for many years, earning public and critical notoriety.

Born as Charles-Antoine Campion in the Lorraine region of France, Carlo Antonio Campioni (1720-1788) made the decisive move to Florence as a 17-year-old violinist, probably studying with Giuseppe Tartini in his famous ‘school of nations’ in Padova. By 1752 he had become an experienced music director as well as composer, appointed as maestro di capella at the cathedral in Livorno. Around a decade later he moved back to France for a temporary stay in Paris but in 1763 he took up the prestigious post of maestro di capella for the Grand Duke of Florence. In this capacity Campioni travelled widely and his own music became known through its publication in Amsterdam, Paris and London. One eager consumer of his music through the London editions was the young amateur violinist (and future US president) Thomas Jefferson, who made a thematic catalogue of the seven collections he then owned, and this catalogue still serves as an aid to sorting out the bewildering confusion of Campioni's printed works. By 1789, when he left Paris, Jefferson owned nearly all of Campioni’s music for strings. Campioni amassed an impressive music library of his own, which attracted the attention of the traveller and writer Charles Burney. Campioni was also an accomplished harpsichordist, as this collection of sonatas amply demonstrates. Full of elegant writing, graceful melodies and graceful ornamentation, the six sonatas fuse Classical-era and Baroque forms: sonata-form movements with dances such as gigues and minuets, and arpeggiated preludes such as one finds in the dance suites of Bach and Couperin. These bold and venturesome works should delight all lovers of Baroque rarities, winningly performed as they are here by Simone Stella.

Telemann published the Kleine Kammermusik in 1716 in Frankfurt: his second published collection, intended for performance equally with violin or flute. His preface indicates that these pieces share a light and cantabile style particularly tailored to amateur performers on their respective instruments, with relatively narrow intervals in the solo part. Nonetheless, their unfailingly stylish melodies invite performance by professionals such as this trio of Italian musicians, experienced in period-instrument performance and with a catalogue of distinguished albums on Brilliant Classics to their credit. The dance movements in each of the six Partitas are quintessential Telemann: brief, unaffected by false intensity even in the three minor-key works, always infused with a lively appreciation of harmony, beautifully proportioned structures and voice-leading that enables each voice of the counterpoint to be heard at any point. Telemann himself advertised the lack of chromaticism with charming candor: ‘I also cultivated the brevity of the Arias, partly to preserve the energy of the performer and partly to avoid boring the listener's ears due to the length… Finally, I have tried to present something that could meet everyone's taste.’ In this it can be conclusively said that he succeeded. The most recent collaboration of these fine musicians was a Brilliant Classics album of recorder sonatas by Marcello, Vivaldi and Bellinzani (96052) which attracted critical praise both for the rarity of the repertoire and the idiomatic finesse of the performances.

As the forerunner of the piano and violin concertos, the concerto grosso is all about give and take. Not only one against many but also one, two or three musicians conversing with each other and with a larger ensemble in a genre that celebrates intimacy, diversity and virtuosity. The form inspired collections of instrumental masterpieces by the greatest names of the Baroque era, and it’s an ideal environment for the relaxed mastery of Seldom Sene. Ever since the ensemble’s debut release in 2014 (Taracea, 94871), it has continued to fulfill imaginative recording projects with the same ‘commitment, technical versatility, unanimity of ensemble and near-immaculate tuning on display’ (Gramophone) in that first album. In their booklet notes, Stephanie Brandt of Seldom Sene and Matthias Havinga explain that the challenge of arranging this repertoire was to create a wide variety of sound colors through the intelligent use of different types of recorders and the stops of harpsichord and organ. The Sixth Brandenburg Concerto of Bach is an obvious candidate for Seldom Sene’s performance, having originally been written for a similarly homogeneous ensemble of lower strings. In Handel’s lovely Organ Concerto Op.4 No.1 Havinga retains the solo part while the recorder quintet plays the role of orchestra and basso continuo. The roles are reversed in Vivaldi’s Concerto Grosso Op.3 No.10, where the harpsichord accompanies the recorders’ flights of fancy. There is also an originally scored rarity: the Sonata for five winds and organ by the Italian-born Viennese court composer Antonio Bertali.