In this new recording, Scherzi Musicali explores the fascinating world of Alessandro Scarlatti's Arcadian cantatas: the six mostly unpublished cantatas selected here sublimate the affects of nymphs and shepherds far from their beloved. Both the arias and the recitatives are exceptionally beautiful, varied and colorful: the accomplished theatrical sense of these cantatas has stimulated the soprano Deborah Cachet, the baritone Nicolas Achten and the abundant instrumental forces that provide a setting for their voices to a passionate and captivating realization, in which poetry, rhetoric, inventive ornamentation and opulence of sound reign supreme. In about 10 years, Scherzi Musicali has become one of the brightest stars in the early music cosmos, and is renowned for it's dynamic interpretations of seventeenth and eighteenth century repertoire which it's musicians explore with insatiable appetite and zeal. Whether uncovering lost gems of a forgotten musical heritage or revisiting staples of the baroque repertoire, the musicians of Scherzi Musicali apply the same exacting approach to all of the works they interpret, using philological research and reflection to guide them in their never-ending quest for the most accurate and historical performance style.

Although Girolamo Frescobaldi's organ works draw on the polyphonic tradition of the Renaissance, few virtuosos of the early 17th century tackled with as much originality the expressive movement that opened the way for what we consider 'Baroque music'. He transposed for the keyboard this sense of the affect and virtuosity that, in the sphere of opera, overturned all the conventions of vocal music. He recommended flexible playing, freed of any overly strict constraints, insisting on the fact that the musician must play 'con affetti cantabili' (with the affects of singing). Belgian organist, composer, conductor, and opera director Bernard Foccroulle performs these works beautifully. He is currently the director of the Theatre royal de la Monnaie.

Compiled from pieces that were clearly composed much earlier as well as from more recent works, the Deuxième Livre pays homage to its two masters and calls for tonalities that it had not yet employed; it evokes the past and the great lutenists of that time with the Pavane and yet also contains important innovations. It is truly a transitional work: published at the very dawn of the century, it opened the doors to the important stylistic changes that French music would undergo during the Age of Enlightenment. After studying the recorder, piano and double bass, François Joubert-Caillet studied the viola da gamba with Paolo Pandolfo at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where he equally studied baroque improvisation with Rudolf Lutz. He was awarded First Prize as well as the Public's Award at the Bruges International Chamber Music competition. François Joubert-Caillet has played with numerous formations with whom he has recorded for the labels Ricercar, Harmonia Mundi, Ambronay, K617, ZigZag Territoires, Arcana, Winter&Winter, Aparté, Glossa, Sony, Naïve, etc. François Joubert-Caillet leads L'Acheron with which he performs in several formations, in particular the viol consort.

Prague has always been regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The name 'Cor Europae' (Heart of Europe) probably dates from the country's early history, in the thirteenth century, when the Kingdom of Bohemia stretched from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. This was a period of great prosperity, especially under King Wenceslaus II Premyslid, and culminated with the reign of Charles IV, who was both King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor. Despite the fact that Bohemia was the centre of Europe and benefited from the presence of many scholars (more especially after the foundation of the university in 1348), the local culture also preserved an older tradition there. This can be seen in the beautiful repertory for the Advent and Christmas period that have survived in the sources of Prague Cathedral and the Benedictine abbey of Prague Castle. These sources make it possible to reconstruct the liturgy of the Feast of the Nativity as it was celebrated there, with organa and tropes in the tradition of twelfth-century music, at a time when the new Ars Nova style was flourishing elsewhere in Europe. It is this music that the wonderful voices of the Tiburtina Ensemble bring to life for us.

Giovanni Battista Colonna spent most of his career in Bologna as maestro di cappella of the basilica of San Petronio. Since he had at his disposal this imposing building with it's two choir organs, well known to lovers of the instrument, and it's very generous acoustics, Colonna wrote a large number of sacred compositions for imposing vocal and instrumental forces. But, in a more intimate vein, he also devoted two collections to the repertory of 'small motets.' The pieces recorded here come from the 1681 set of Motetti a due e tre voci. They display a wide variety of formulas, combining traditional elements and innovative aspects that were to be further developed in the following generations. These gems are highly representative of the style of small motets that heralds the stile concertante. They are characterized by various combinations of voices (from a solo recitative to a mixture of vocal duets or trios in different scorings) and a broad range of formal structures bound up with the very nature of the texts.

The arpeggione, invented in 1823 by the Viennese luthier Johann Georg Stauffer, had a curious destiny. As it's alternative names 'guitar violoncello' and 'guitare d'amour' suggest, it is in fact a guitar fitted with a bridge, held between the knees like a cello and played with a bow. The instrument enjoyed some success for around a decade, but, oddly enough, almost nothing has survived from it's specific repertory except one supreme masterpiece: the sonata Franz Schubert wrote for it in 1824. The guitar was very popular in Vienna at that time, and Schubert was also fond of it; the original version of Die sch�ne M�llerin was published with guitar accompaniment! Guido Balestracci and the musicians of L'Amoroso have built a delightful Schubertiad around this famous sonata, combining the arpeggione and the piano with voice and guitars to appropriate a rich selection of the Viennese composer's lieder.

For this first recording, Andrea Buccarella explores the history of the most emblematic form of Baroque music, from it's appearance in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century right up to it's apotheosis in Johann Sebastian Bach: the toccata. With it's inventiveness, it's formal freedom, it's contrasting effects of virtuosity and emotion, the Italian toccata - whose name probably comes from the verb toccare (to touch/play) - opened the way for the stylus fantasticus that was to dominate Germany in the late seventeenth century. In order to give each period it's optimal sound, Buccarella plays copies of four different harpsichords - two Italian, one Flemish and one German - which, in their dates and types of construction, illustrate the principal stages of Baroque instrument making.

‘Dinner being over, His Majesty spoke to Mlle de la Guerre in a most gracious manner; after having praised her sonatas extensively, he said to her that they could not be compared to any other such works. Mlle de la Guerre could not have received higher praise, for these words revealed that the King had not only found her music to be most fine, but also to be original — a quality that today is extremely rare’ (Le Mercure galant, 1707). This new release presents the violin sonatas by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre.

Under the title Occitan Nights, a few troubadour songs have been collected here. Those poet-musicians celebrated the beauty of women, praised the courage of men and evoked the parting of lovers at daybreak. The Céladon Ensemble offers us a poetic, inspired vision of these lovely melodies. Taking its name from the hero of Honoré d’Urfé’s Astrée, the Céladon ensemble explores the early music repertoire with charm and fantasy, striving to reinvent the form of its concerts at each appearance. Led by countertenor Paulin Bündgen, Céladon seeks to avoid the beaten tracks and enjoys surveying the repertoire linked with the countertenor timbre, between mediaeval, renaissance and baroque music. The ensemble is a regular guest of festivals and concert seasons, recognized for the quality of its interpretations and profoundly human relations with the audience

Andreas Hammerschmidt is undoubtedly the most unjustly neglected composer of seventeenth-century Lutheran Germany. Very few recordings have been devoted to him, even though his music was widely published during his lifetime. The fifteen or so published collections offer a great variety of works, which, like those of his famous contemporary Heinrich Schutz, illustrate the fusion between the Lutheran polyphonic tradition and the various stylistic influences of the Italian Baroque. For this musical portrait of Hammerschmidt, Vox Luminis has drawn on several of these collections in order to offer as rounded a picture as possible of the variety of the composer’s styles. The entire programme is structured around texts for Passiontide and Easter, introduced by an intensely moving madrigalian motet on the death of Christ, Ach Jesus stirbt.

Johann Paul von Westhoff (1656-1705) was one of the most brilliant members of the significant school of violinists that flourished in seventeenth-century Dresden. This impressive virtuoso, who was even applauded by Louis XIV at Versailles, wrote the very first compositions for unaccompanied violin, which of course foreshadow the later masterpieces of Johann Sebastian Bach. The programme recorded here includes some suites from his collection published in Dresden in 1696, as well as the suite that was printed in the Mercure galant of Paris in 1683, following his visit to Versailles. Plamena Nikitassova was born in Varna (Bulgaria). At sixteen years old, she won a music scholarship that she spent in Switzerland. She then studied classical violin with M. Karafilova Piguet at the music high school of Geneva and with Prof. M. Frischenschlager at the music high school of Vienna. She obtained her teaching and soloist diploma in 1999 in Geneva, with distinction, and then played in concerts within the romantic repertoire. She performed as a soloist and chamber musician at festivals in Leipzig, Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam, Innsbruck and Paris.

‘Fear not...’ The Angel’s words to the shepherds suggest the daring premise of this recording, which, for Ricercar’s fortieth anniversary, enriches in highly original fashion the series dedicated to the discovery of early instruments and their repertory. The cover illustration, depicting two angels playing the bass shawm and the bassoon, perfectly portrays the subject of this album devoted to the original repertories written for the two instruments in seventeenth-century Germany, whether it be the ceremonial music of the Stadtpfeifer (town musicians), chamber music or even sacred compositions.

Du Mont: Motets à voix seule - Hayne: Requiem pour Marie de

Les flûtes d'Angleterre: The Delightfull Companion

Gossec: Symphonies, Op. 12, Nos. 1, 3 and 5 / Stamitz: Clari