Bach’s Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 form the final part of his monumental ClavierÜbung (Keyboard Practices) series and appeared in print in 1741. The work exploits the full technical and musical resources of the two-manual harpsichord and its player. Within the framework of its thirty elaborate variations on a 32-bar ground bass, the work presents a dazzling compendium of keyboard styles, from learned counterpoint through to the most audacious and modern abstract writing for an instrument with two independent keyboards. The present recording is one the final volumes of Peter Watchorn’s complete survey of Bach’s entire harpsichord output.

The Lenten season of 1679 was a cold, rainy, and dreary affair. The new Pope, Innocent XI, was no supporter of the increasingly permissive nature of Roman aristocracy, and he took measures to enforce edicts prohibiting staged performances before a paying public, as well as a general ban on the appearance of women on the stage. Reluctantly granted, however, was permission for private performances, and this concession led to the fortuitous circumstances that made the premiere of Scarlatti’s first opera possible—the ingenuity of the Bernini brothers who produced the work; a liberal interpretation of “private performance”; the support and attendance of Queen Christina of Sweden; and, certainly not least, the fact that Pope Innocent had left the city during the carnival, leaving the enforcement of his conservatism to some of the very cardinals who most enjoyed and supported public theatre! Founded in 2008 and led by tenor Bud Roach, the vocal quartet Capella Intima presents unique programming of mainly seventeenth-century repertoire, serving as the ensemble in residence for the HAMMER BAROQUE concert series in Hamilton, Ontario. Programmes such as The Poor Man’s Vespers(a hypothetical collection of small-scale psalm settings for churches of modest means), The Paradise of Travellers (Italian repertoire interspersed with the recollections of English travelers on the Grand Tour), and concert performances of Marco Da Gagliano’s La Dafne, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Scarlatti’s youthful masterpiece presented here, have established the ensemble as a driving force on the Canadian early music scene.

A revolution in art and literature swept through Europe and by the early 1800s Romanticism dominated the musical landscape. Such figures as Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Brahms exemplified the ideals yet maintained highly individual approaches. Now, our finest historically-informed musicians and scholars present this incomparable repertoire in a series destined by become an essential part of every serious music lover’s collection. Robert Schumann, the “herald of a new poetic age”, in the words of his biographer, John Daverio, carved out a unique position for himself in the world of German Romanticism, especially in the creation of a new genre of solo piano music, which consisted of a cycle of miniatures, often provided with evocatively poetic titles. The present recording features Schumann’s three-movement Fantasie in C major, Op. 17 and the playfully mysterious and kaleidoscopic Carnaval, Op. 9, a series of miniature character portraits with a wide range of moods and textures. Chi-Chen Wu performs these works on a copy of a 19thcentury Viennese fortepiano by Rodney Regier.

In the latest volume of the complete works for harpsichord, the seven Toccatas (BWV 910-916) and teh large Fantasias, Preludes and Fugues (BWV 903-904, 894, 944) are presented as the culmination of the 17th century Stylus Phantasticus tradition. In this installment the pedal harpsichord is explored as a rich medium for Bach's harpsichord and organ works, its clarity and power bridging the gap between the two instruments. With its rich bass sonority and clarity, the pedal harpsichord comes into its own as an ideal performance medium for many of Bach's greatest works for keyboard. This album marks the first performance of all these works on a pedal harpsichord in over 60 years.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was famous from an early age as a pianist, utilizing the sophisticated Viennese instruments that were developed from the 1770's by builders such as Anton Walter and Andreas Stein. On this companion album to MO0409, distinguished fortepianist, Trudelies Leonhardt, presents another programme of Mozart's solo sonatas from Salzburg, Mannheim and Vienna, as well as the Rondo in D major, K. 485 and the sublime Adagio in B minor, K. 540. Leonhardt performs ona fortepiano built by Paul McNulty, a replica of an instrument by Mozart's favorite maker, Anton Walter.

Franz Schubert was described by his contemporaries as a thoughtful, sensitive and highly competent pianist, if not a virtuoso, like Mozart and Beethoven. The distinguished fortepianist, Trudelies Leonhardt, presents here a miscellany of shorter piano works, both sonata and dance movements, mainly from the years 1815-1818, along with the mysterious and beautiful Hungarian Melody, from 1824. She performs on an exactly contemporaneous fortepiano by Benignus Seidner, Vienna, c. 1815. Trudelies Leonhardt is a member of one of Europe's most famous musical families, she's a leading exponent of the fortepiano and has a wide international following.

This is the première recording of Alessandro Grandi’s complete arias for solo voice from his third volume of 1626, performed here by tenor Bud Roach as they would have been commonly heard at the time of their publication: with the singer accompanying himself on the baroque guitar. A contemporary of Claudio Monteverdi, Grandi found his greatest success with cantatas and arias for solo voice. These secular songs were among the most popular in Venice throughout the third decade of the 17th century, and are considered to represent the apogee of the genre. Like many of the song collections published by Vincenti, this volume includes “alfabeto” notation for the strummed Spanish guitar. - Musica Omnia