How it was possible, without today's means of communication, for the reputation of a musician, who was also in the service of a single place of education and devotion, to spread throughout Europe is something that modern man will find difficult to comprehend. The fact is, however, that the Roman composer and bandmaster Giacomo Carissimi received visitors from all over the world around the middle of the 17th century because of his incomparable ability to express every emotion and every word in tones and harmonies.

The only surviving version of Carlo Gesualdo’s First Book of Madrigals was printed in Spring 1594 by the typographer Vincenzo Baldini. At the time, the composer was twenty-eight years old and had just left behind the murder of his wife, in 1590. In this first publication Gesualdo probably collected pieces composed earlier than 1591. The music is written by a young author, far away from the better-known experimental composer of later years, yet is clear and faultless, and often very effective.

La Compagnia del Madrigale releases another imaginative album on Glossa, turning to a late composition by Orazio Vecchi, Le veglie di Siena from 1604.

In Monteverdi’s Lament, the Erik Westberg Vocal Ensemble presents two contemporary works that reimagine poetry and music connected to the legacy of Claudio Monteverdi. Drawing on 17th-century sources, these compositions set historical and contemporary choir music in dialogue with interactive technologies and the hyperorgan—an instrument enhanced with digital control functions that allow performance beyond the traditional keyboard. The result is an exploration of the creative tension between past and present, echoing the spirit of innovation that shaped Monteverdi’s music in the early 1600s. Carl Unander-Scharin’s Lamento è più takes inspiration from Ottavio Rinuccini’s libretto for the lost opera Arianna, originally set by Monteverdi in 1607. Created in collaboration with choreographer Åsa Unander-Scharin, this 2023 work expands the expressive potential of the 17th-century text through a dynamic interplay of choreography, choir, and hyperorgan.

Gino Paoli was an Italian singer-songwriter. He wrote a number of songs widely regarded as classics in Italian popular music, including "Il cielo in una stanza", "Che cosa c'è", "Senza fine", "Quattro amici" and "Sapore di sale".

After lengthy and thorough research, backed by forty years of studying Vivaldi’s sources and curating his immense catalogue (RV), Federico Maria Sardelli has managed to trace, reconstruct and restore no fewer than 18 arias from La Costanza Trionfante, RV 706-A, a lost work that bears witness to the Red Priest’s most flourishing creative period, namely his full maturity. It is a substantial fragment which, quantitatively, represents about a half of the opera and offers a concrete and surprising idea of its great quality. At the head of the modo antiquo baroque orchestra and with a cast of great value, Federico Maria Sardelli offers the public the first performance in modern times of this substantial fragment woven with unpublished arias: a unique opportunity to enjoy a title that is today completely new and absent from the repertoire. A window onto a chapter of Vivaldi’s work rich in extraordinary beauty.

For the first time in his career, Mario Biondi, in the twentieth anniversary year of "This Is What You Are" and "Handful of Soul," releases a project entirely in Italian. A work that sees him as the undisputed protagonist not only as a performer, but also as a writer and composer, in addition to his responsibilities as arranger and producer. Twenty tracks to celebrate the anniversary of an extraordinary artistic journey.

Marie Laforêt chante en Italien is a compilation album that brings together the Italian-language versions of many of the French singer's most famous hits. While she originally released several of these tracks as EPs and singles during the 1960s, a comprehensive 24-track digital version was released in 2020.

The myth of Orlando Furioso, conceived by Ludovico Ariosto in the 16th century, is one of the most fertile for dramatic and musical imagination. Between chivalrous heroism, romantic torment and psychological turmoil, it explores the limits of passion and the fractures of the human soul, offering Baroque composers an ideal terrain for expressing the tension between reason and madness, order and chaos. This programme bears witness to this, traversing the many faces of Orlando through excerpts from operas by Vivaldi, Handel, Steffani, Fux and Porpora, where recitatives, arias and instrumental movements mirror his inner world.

A recital by Juan Diego Flórez, the Peruvian tenor, follows a pattern. With Vincenzo Scalera at the piano, the program begins with songs by bel canto composers—Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini.

This recording features the Petit Ensemble Vocal (Le Petit Ensemble Vocal de Montréal), conducted by George Little, performing vocal works by Claudio Monteverdi. Originally recorded and released in 1963 on the Vox label (Catalogue No. DL 910).

L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love) is a melodramma giocoso (comic melodrama, opera buffa) in two acts by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto, after Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's Le philtre (1831). The opera premiered on 12 May 1832 at the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan and has remained continually in the international opera repertory.

The Cappella musicale di Santa Maria in Campitelli, conducted by Maestro Vincenzo Di Betta, who has already been responsible for significant recording revivals such as Orazio Benevoli’s “Missa in angustia pestilentiæ” (TC600201), Bonaventura Rubino's “Messa de’ Morti” (TC601803), and Francesco Giovannini’s “Messa à Quattro” (TC700703), is now engaged in this new and notably interesting musical production. This rediscovery focuses on two sacred oratorios from the seventeenth century by two authors active in the Neapolitan orbit: Francesco Nicolò de Rossi, a priest of Apulian origin, and Cristoforo Caresana, of Venetian origin and formerly the organist of St. Mark’s Basilica. The two works – performed with the ensemble's customary expertise – are interspersed with an instrumental battle piece by Andrea Falconieri, composed in the spirit of that Baroque theatricality which is the main ingredient of these works and of the sacred musical masterpieces of the seventeenth century.

This refers to a notable 1960s recording of Claudio Monteverdi's works performed by the Mainz Chamber Orchestra (Mainzer Kammerorchester) under the direction of Günter Kehr. The recording is primarily known for featuring the dramatic madrigal "Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda" (from Book VIII) and the solo madrigal "Tempro la cetra" (from Book VII).

Il mio canto libero (My Free Singing) is an album by the Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Battisti. It was released in November 1972 by Numero Uno. The album was Italy's best-selling album in 1973.