When we think of London's Baker Street, we probably first think of Gerry Rafferty's famous pop song from 1978, perhaps also of the spectacular bank robbery in 1971, but certainly of the residence of private detective Sherlock Holmes. With this recording, the Austrian Baroque Company, led by recorder player Michael Oman, takes us on an alternative musical stroll through Baker Street, performing English consort music, symphonies, dances, and fantasies from the period 1580 to 1706 in almost chronological order, the recorder is often at the center of the selected pieces, and Michael Oman knows how to showcase it to it's best advantage.
Award-winning Baroque violinist Rachel Podger takes the resurgence of the Arts in England post -1660 as the compelling inspiration for her new album, The Muses Restor’d. Adopting its title as its theme, Rachel and her vivacious Brecon Baroque take the listener on a journey of captivating violinled chamber music from Jacobean to Early Georgian England. Ranging from the gentle intimacy of consort idioms to the full-blown instrumental virtuosity of the evolving Baroque period, this album uncovers little known glories of English instrumental music and its influences. This refined and intimately chiselled chamber music celebrates a rich tradition where the violin joins a plethora of keyboards, lutes, viol and continuo cello reinstating these sonatas, fantasies, suites, grounds and popular tunes to the mainstream of English cultural life of the time. Together with four musicians from Brecon Baroque, Rachel Podger performs works by Handel, Lawes, Blow, Locke, Purcell, Schop, Jenkins, Baltzar and Jones.
“This oeuvre provides a deeply satisfying kaleidoscope of musical expression over a century of British
musical life."
- Rachel Podger
York-based chamber choir, The Ebor Singers, with the director Paul Gameson, make their Resonus Classics debut with an album of works inspired by the English Civil War and, in particular, the 1644 Siege of York. Based around the ''York'' psalms of William Lawes, this fascinating recording features a programme of music that may have been performed in York's historic minster around this time of huge political, social and religious upheaval.
