Jean-Marie Leclair’s Scylla et Glaucus provides an excellent opportunity for György Vashegyi, a luxury cast and music scholars at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles to revisit the French Baroque operatic canon and emerge with a fresh new take on this established work, the violin virtuoso and composer’s single offering for the Paris Opéra.

For this recording György Vashegyi has made use of the original performing manuscript of the batteur de mesure, one consequence being that the dramatic structure of the work is tightened: here, water-god Glaucus (Cyrille Dubois) convinces the reluctant nymph, Scylla (Judith van Wanroij) of his intentions towards her, but only once he has been to visit the wicked sorceress Circé (Véronique Gens) in search of magical assistance. A bad move, which culminates in a broken Glaucus looking out over the strait of Sicily towards a newly-formed rock formation... Called Scylla. Vashegyi’s Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra, and supporting singers, are on hand to do justice to the resulting French Baroque emotional panoply of rustic and demonic dances, welcomed and spurned love arias, and choral and divine interventions.

Like all castrati, Gaetano Berenstadt's hormones had gone crazy, but Berenstadt’s were particularly strong: with a height of about 185 cm, he is said to have had 130 cm long legs, arms that were far too short, and a corpulent belly. A field day for the caricaturists. But when he stood on the opera stage and sang, he was idolised. Berenstadt, born in Florence in 1687 and lifelong loyal to his patrons, the Medici, at the same time Grand Dukes of Tuscany, experienced his artistic career in the first third of the 18th century. He sang at all the important opera houses in Italy and for some years in London.

The most famous composers of his time such as Ariosti, Bononcini, Gasparini, Hasse, Sarro and Vinci appreciated him for his vocal and acting abilities. Handel in particular was a great admirer of Berenstadt; in addition to several roles in world premieres, he even wrote new arias for him for the London revival of "Rinaldo" in 1717. Filippo Mineccia, also from Florence and one of the leading countertenors of our day, follows in the musical footsteps of his Florentine predecessor and draws an impressive portrait of Berenstadt's career on this recording.

Himmelsburg is the name of the former chapel of Wilhelmsburg Castle in Weimar; Johann Sebastian Bach's "workplace" during his time as court organist and chamber musician at the Weimar court. This chapel was irretrievably destroyed in the great castle fire of 6 May 1774.

In Bach's time; a high musical culture prevailed at the Weimar court. The young Prince Johann Ernst; himself a good violinist and harpsichordist; was enthusiastic about Italian music; and Bach was inundated with the latest concerti from Italy; especially by Vivaldi. In addition; there was close contact with the violin virtuoso Johann Georg Pisendel; so it is no exaggeration to call Weimar the concertante and violinistic cradle of Bach. On her new CD; Lina Tur Bonet interprets "all" of Bach's four concertos for solo violin. All of them probably date from his Weimar period. The two original concertos BWV 1041 and 1042 contain many stylistic references to Vivaldi. In addition; Lina Tur Bonet presents the reconstructions of the concertos BWV 1052r and 1056r; two harpsichord concertos that were almost certainly originally intended for violin.

Early in 1870; a codex containing early Spanish vocal music had been discovered in the library of the Palacio Real in Madrid. The pieces which had been copied into the manuscript – entirely unknown up to that point – included compositions from the celebrated Juan del Encina and from many other; little-known; contemporaries of his. The first modern edition of the suitably entitled “Cancionero de Palacio” was published in 1890; immediately becoming a cornerstone of Spanish historical musicology. Later editions and studies consolidated the status of the Cancionero as a landmark in Iberian music. The present recording contrasts music from this cancionero with that found in other codices containing similar or related repertory; whether it be Iberian in origin or from elsewhere in Europe. It offers a broader vision not only of the “Cancionero de Palacio” but also of the musical atmosphere of the time and of the songbook repertory as a whole.

In his younger years, Mozart was fiercely in love with the young Mannheim star singer Aloysia Weber (he was later to marry her sister Constanze). He tailored concert and interlude arias for her, which showed off the amazing qualities of her voice to best advantage. American coloratura soprano Cynthia Sieden follows in the footsteps of this 18th century prima donna, superbly accompanied by the Orchestra of the 18th Century conducted by Frans Brüggen.

With her soulful timbre, the Catalan singer Nuria Rial (born 1975) always appears intimate and authentic in the most natural way. Rial received her training at the conservatory of her hometown Barcelona and at the Musikhochschule Basel. She won an ECHO-Klassik award at a young age. Nuria Rial has a remarkable discography ranging from early music to classical modern. In her early years, the beginning of the 2000s, her artistic focus was mainly on Spanish early music. This compilation on GLOSSA puts her incomparable voice at the service of Spanish music from the 16th to the 18th centuries and demonstrates its unique richness.

Captain Tobias Hume was not only a military man, but also an accomplished musician and composer. Emma Kirkby and Paolo Pandolfo prove that in former times active military personnel were also capable of outstanding artistic achievements."Emma Kirkby at the zenith of her artistic abilities, literature that seems tailor-made for her, and an unleashed instrumental ensemble under Paolo Pandolfo - this interpretation is simply exorbitantly good" (Toccata).

When people spoke of the "great Bach" during the 18th century, they were not referring to Johann Sebastian but to his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel. He was one of the main representatives of the Empfindsamer Stil (Sensitive Style) and was in the service of Frederick the Great as a harpsichordist and chamber musician for over 30 years before his appointment as municipal director of music in Hamburg. Contemporaries regarded Bach as a "genius of originality": his tendency to find unusual solutions and surprising turns of phrase made his music a genuine roller-coaster of moods and effects. He combines intellect with passion, popular writing techniques with a sovereign mastery of form.

Leila Schayegh and Jörg Halubek, two first-class interpreters, have embarked here upon a voyage of discovery through C. P. E. Bach's works for violin and keyboard instruments. The Swiss baroque violinist is distinguished by her blossoming, singing tone of a great and powerful radiance, and her technique seems boundless. She has been a professor at the famous Schola Cantorum Basiliensis since 2010. Jörg Halubek reveals himself to be a highly sensitive accompanist and musical partner on an equal footing at the harpsichord and the tangent piano. As a special rarity, they have recorded two sonatas in the continuo realisation by Johannes Brahms!

Gaetano Nasillo is one of the most renowned baroque cellist. He regularly collaborates as a soloist with the most prestigious European ensembles on historic instruments, among them Ensemble 415, Concerto Vocale, Zefiro, Le Concert des Nations, Ensemble Aurora, Gli Angeli, and performing with them in Europe, the USA, South America, Japan and Australia. On the current recording, Nasillo plays ten cello sonatas by Luigi Boccherini dating from his early period which were specifically created to showcase the composer's virtuoso performances on concert tours.

Although Bach obviously felt at home composing for the recorder and used it in important works such as the Brandenburg Concertos and several cantatas, he never composed a concerto for solo recorder - in fact, he only wrote original solo concertos for harpsichord and violin. The lack of solo concertos for the recorder can be remedied, however: it is precisely his concertos for harpsichord that Bach demonstrably transcribed himself, although it is not always clear for which of the missing originals they were intended. Even f in some cases other instruments are more likely, it is at least not objectionable to play some of these concertos with recorder. The ensemble Cantica Symphonia has chosen Bach's concertos BWV 1053 in D major, BWV 1055 in A major for its recorder player Lorenzo Cavasanti, while violinist Liana Mosca plays the concerto BWV 1056 in G minor. Both together play the Concerto BWV 1060 in C minor, originally for two harpsichords.

The David harp is a type of harp from the German Baroque period. The figure of King David is usually depicted on the head of the harp column. The strings are fitted with brays, which gives this instrument a typical buzzing sound. In addition to the David harp, however, a number of other types of harp were used in baroque Germany, such as the single-row hooked harp, on which the pitch could be altered with hooks on the strings, or double-row chromatic harps. Mara Galassi and her colleague Flora Papadopoulos present a hitherto unknown German repertoire with their harp duets, which they interpret on five different harp types of this period. The works come from various German collections, such as the Dresden "Musikalische Rüstkammer", the collection of the Silesian Dominican monk Father Pius Hancke, but also works by Silvius Leopold Weiss, whose lute duets were transcribed for two harps. The CD ends with a transcription of Bach's famous "Concerto nach Italienischen Gusto", which the two harpists arranged for themselves in the style of the above-mentioned harp manuscripts and lute duets.

On 3 July 1502, a remarkable letter with a bold and daring proposal went on a ship from Genoa to Istanbul, signed by one of the most brilliant minds of his time: Leonardo da Vinci. It was addressed to Sultan Bayezid II and Leonardo proposed a daring project to the Sultan: the largest bridge in the world over the Golden Horn, 23 m wide, 350 m long and 40 m high! His revolutionary design never saw the light of day; only a sketch in Leonardo's notes has survived. His revolutionary design never saw the light of day. Some 500 years after Leonardo’s death, this recording gives musical expression to his unfinished architectural project and builds the bridge he envisioned between East and West. Ottoman compositions, Persian poems and 16th century Italian frottole are heard, uniting the popular repertoire of two centres of musical culture of the time: Persia and the Ottoman Empire on the one hand, and Renaissance Italy on the other. Under the direction of Kiya Tabassian, Italian singer Marco Beasley and the musicians of Constantinople immerse us in the imaginary and audacious world of da Vinci‘s drawings.

The birth of opera began around 1600 in Florence, where this new genre was used to accompany important political events. The court conductor Marco da Gagliano, who had also become acquainted with Monteverdi's new style during his time in Mantua, created a whole series of operas for the Medici house, but only two have survived. His opera “La Flora”, to a libretto by the Florentine court poet Andrea Salvadori, was written for the wedding celebrations of Margerita de' Medici to the Duke of Parma Odoardo Farnese in 1628. The mythological material has many political references and tells of the love between the wind Zeffiro and the nymph Clori, who changes her name to “Flora” when she marries and gives birth to many kinds of flowers. Botticelli had already pictorially realised this myth 40 years earlier in his "Birth of Venus" and "La Primavera". For the present recording, more than a dozen solo singers, choristers and a large instrumental cast have come together to bring Gagliano's opera back to life almost 400 years after its premiere!

With Jean-Baptiste Stuck’s Polydore, György Vashegyi’s directing talents alight once again on a French opera from the era between Lully and Rameau. Whist Louis XIV’s reign was gradually drawing to a close, his nephew, duke Philippe d’Orléans – due to become regent for Louis XV on the death of the child’s great-grandfather, the Sun King – was greatly expanding his own court cultural activities (within which he had a pronounced predilection for Italian music).

The Tuscany-born, later-naturalized Frenchman, Giovanni Battista Stuck was a beneficiary of ducal and regental munificence and, given that taste for opera continued at full tilt in Paris after Louis XIV’s death in 1715, Stuck was well-placed to prove his worth. His most highly regarded opera is Polydore, a 1720 tragédie en musique with a libretto confected by Simon-Joseph Pellegrin: a mythological tale of Greeks, Thracians and Trojans, interweaving war, family and love, with tragedy brewing up throughout the work. Stuck’s vocal, choral and orchestral music infuses Pellegrin’s libretto with dramatic power: intense monologues, mournful laments, forceful duets, as well as sweeping choruses and stirring dance music. A splendid follow up to Vashegyi’s reading for Glossa of Gervais’ 1716 Hypermnestre (and the selection of his grands motets as well)

Paris, London, Naples, Venice … and Lisbon! The cartography of the (late) baroque music of Europe gives an ever better overview also of the musical happenings in the Portuguese capital in the 18th century. The revival of the Portuguese musical heritage is one of the main activities of the Divino Sospiro orchestra under its director Masssimo Mazzeo. A particularly worthwhile discovery is the composer Pedro Antonio Avondano (1714-1782), descended from a dynasty of musicians of Italian origin who were active in Lisbon in the 18th century. His oratorio "Morte d'Abel" (c. 1780) is based on a popular material by Pietro Metastasio, which was set to music some 40 times in the Baroque period and thereafter. Avondano's feverish drama fully explores the souls of the protagonists of the story's first murder. In doing so, he employs all the expressive possibilities of the baroque musical language, which already points to the classical period. A brilliant cast of singers rounds off this meritorious first ever recording.