Both of us have grown up with this music from the cradle of our earliest infancy; […] It is music that allowed us to become what we are, while at the same time encouraging us to question things constantly. […] Now, playing the music – because, as we all know, we play rather than make music – has become a part that each of us plays, played here as a double act. Each one for himself, with his instrument as a crucible, and at the same time each of us for the other, since after all we are engaged in a performance.

Hitherto we have heard Rachel Podger only in early chamber works and as Andrew Manze's partner in Bach double concertos: here now, at last, is an opportunity to hear her on her own. And you couldn't be more on your own than in Bach's mercilessly revealing Solo Sonatas and Partitas, perhaps the ultimate test of technical mastery, expressiveness, structural phrasing and deep musical perception for a violinist. Playing a Baroque instrument, Podger challenges comparison with the much praised and individual reading by Monica Huggett: she has many of the same virtues – flawless intonation, warm tone, expressive nuances, clear understanding of the proper balance of internal strands – but her approach is sometimes markedly different.

Giovanni Mazzocchin was born in Bassano del Grappa (VI) in 1994. He was admitted at the 'Pedrollo' Conservatory in Vicenza in 2007, where he studied with Marco Tezza. He graduated in five years with the highest marks, praise and special mention, playing a program which included the J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations and the Beethoven' most difficult sonata, the "Hammerklavier". In the meantime he also attended masterclasses with Carlo Grante, Filippo Gamba, Massimiliano Ferrati, Alexander Madzar and Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy, who particularly appreciated the his performance of Chopin and Liszt. Starting 2015 he recorded: Beethoven's Late Piano Sonatas, Opus 101 & 106 + Opus 109, 110, 111 (OnClassical OC145CSET), Diabelli Variations Op. 120 + Bagatelles Op. 126 (OnClassical OC17072c); J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (OnClassical OC17042b). Giovanni is currently attending the faculty of Computer Science at the University of Padova, where he completed his three-year degree.

Philippe Jaroussky brings his musical and dramatic powers to a programme of music from Italian oratorios of the baroque era, including five arias in world premiere recordings. La vanità del mondo, takes it's name from an oratorio by Pietro Torri and among the other composers are Händel, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Hasse, Fago and Caldara. "I think composers of this period often give of their best when setting the great stories of the Old Testament," says Jaroussky. "And if oratorio stories are more static than opera, they allow for deeper reflection on the place of mankind in the universe. I think that resonates with particular intensity in 2020, a year of pandemic."

Laula! is the third album by Mike Fentross and Maarten Ornstein; following our debut duo album, Oblivion Soave and having worked with Rima Khcheich on our second album Ombre de Mon Amant, we are once again collaborating with an extraordinary singer — the Estonian mezzo-soprano Kadri Tegelmann. She is not only a superb interpreter of the Baroque music, as featured here, but she also introduced us to the deep and rich tradition of Baltic vocal music with its many folksongs, hymns and chants.

Anna Lucia Richter returns to PENTATONE after her acclaimed Schubert album Heimweh with Il delirio della passione; a recording full of Monteverdi treasures, from heart-wrenching opera scenes (Lamento d’Arianna, ‘Pur ti miro’ from Poppea and the Prologue of L’orfeo) and religious music (Confitebor) to bucolic songs (Si dolce è il tormento). Richter works together with Ensemble Claudiana and Luca Pianca, one of the most eminent Monteverdi interpreters of our age.

It is now generally accepted that Vivaldi wrote ten cello sonatas – one of them now lost. Six (RV 47, 41, 43, 45, 40 and 46) of the surviving nine were published posthumously as a set, in Paris, by Charles-Nicolas Le Clerc around 1740. The other three survive in manuscript collections: RV 42 (along with RV 46) is preserved in the library at Wiesentheid Castle at Unterfranken in Germany; RV 39 and 44 (along with RV 47) are to be found in a manuscript in the Naples Conservatoire.
Geminiani’s opus 5 consists of six cello sonatas, and was first published in Paris in 1746. The twenty years either side of 1740 saw the cello rise to a very fashionable position in French musical society, largely at the expense of the bass-viol – a change of fashion which stirred such strong emotions that in 1740 Hubert Le Blanc published his fierce Defense de la basse de viole contre les entreprises du violon et les pretensions du violencel. Music such as that by Vivaldi and Geminiani which is played here by Roel Dieltiens and his colleagues must have made a powerful counter-case for the cello.

6 Concertos for Recorder adds to a series of nine previous CDs for the label Musiques à la Chabotterie, which have been acclaimed by the media including Classica Choc, Diapason Découverte, Le Monde de la Musique Choc, Goldberg 5 Étoiles, and more. A tribute to Hugo Reyne s teachers and to those whose playing have inspired him, this album features Vivaldi concertos that have carried Reyne through his life.

Sette Voce was founded in 2001 and its members are from a number of European countries. They are directed by the renowned Dutch baritone Peter Kooij and the ensemble has been invited to appear at several important national and international festivals.

A collection of the very best of Bartoli's treasured recordings of musical delights and discoveries of the 17th and 18th century. Featuring two previously unreleased world premiere recordings of forgotten jewels by Leonardo Vinci and Agostino Steffani. With guest appearances from Philippe Jaroussky, June Anderson, Franco Fagioli and Sol Gabetta.

Between 1680 and 1728, Marin Marais brought the pièce de viole to the peak of perfection. An ‘unremitting’ teacher, he was also the publisher of his own music and invented special signs to notate certain ornaments for the viol. In the course of his research at the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Italian gambist Vittorio Ghielmi studied these manuscript codes, in the hand of Marais himself or his direct students. ‘This led me to a new vision of French Baroque music, which applies not only to the viola da gamba, but also to vocal and orchestral music. These signs reveal the technique of playing in action.

The Monteverdi contemporary Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) is now unfortunately almost exclusively seen as an important and influential composer of works for keyboard instruments, but he also composed both sacred and secular vocal music throughout his entire creative period.

Anthony Camden, for years principal oboe of the LSO, here makes a very welcome solo appearance on disc, playing with typical point and style, using his attractively reedy tone. The regular oboe concertos are well supplemented by the Suite in G minor as edited by Camden, where he is joined by the prize-winning Julia Girdwood on the second oboe. The Otho Overture too features prominent roles for oboes in duet. Ward and the City of London Sinfonia are sympathetic accompanists using modern instruments. First-rate sound from All Saints, East Finchley.

The present recording constitutes more than just a new version of the Vespers. It is the first recording of the Vespers in the alternative version proposed by the composer, without concertato instruments. It reveals the underlying matrix of the work we all know, the ‘original version’ to which Monteverdi added concertato instruments for use in large-scale performances. Respecting the structure of the Office of Vespers, Ludus Modalis has chosen to frame the psalms with the antiphons corresponding to a Marian ceremony.

Das erstklassige Solistenensemble, der RIAS-Kammerchor und die Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin und nicht zuletzt Jacobs selbst sind Garanten für lebendige historische Aufführungspraxis, so dass diese Interpretation der h-Moll Messe von der Fachpresse entsprechend enthusiastisch aufgenommen und den wenigen Referenzeinspielungen an die Seite gestellt wurde.