The Bouts Ensemble is a chamber music ensemble devoted to the repertoire of the "high" baroque and pre-classical periods - ca. 1725-1775. Through performance of works by both famous and unjustly neglected composers, the group aims to contribute to a greater appreciation and understanding of music from this endlessly fascinating period. The members of this young group use their extensive experience in historical performance practice on period instruments to bring to this repertoire the virtuosity, vitality and intelligence that it demands.

There has been a resurgence of interest in Handel's Italian-language cantatas as recordings have begun to reflect the vast totality of his output rather than a selection of big hits ideologically bound up with British nationhood. The works on this disc date from early in Handel's career, while he was working in Italy; this Italian recording accurately uses the German spelling of the composer's name, Händel, which he would still have been employing at the time. They are youthful works in the best sense of the word: they break formal boundaries, give full voice to passions, and feel gloriously free to push performers to the edge.

Handel, Scarlatti, Corelli, Stradella, Muffat … From 1650 to the beginning of the eighteenth century, Rome exercised an immense power in attracting composers from all over Europe and experienced an intense moment of musical activity, because of - or in spite of - the papal administration. It was a prosperous period with a melting pot of influences. The programme devised here by the Roman conductor, Rinaldo Alessandrini, offers a complete and personal vision of the time, passionate and secular, lyrical (made sublime by Sandrine Piau) and orchestral, romantic in every way. Rinaldo Alessandrini is one of the leading figures in the international early music scene.

This 2-CD set with The Purcell Quartet and a distinguished group of soloists is the third in a series devoted to Bach’s early cantatas and the second focussing on the Weimar period. On an earlier release, International Record Review wrote, ‘The Purcell Quartet and guests are most welcome: even the most distinguished of period performers with larger ensembles can’t achieve the intimacy that the forces here have at their disposal’.

When recording Bach's 199 sacred cantatas, various strategies have been employed to impose meaningful order on them. There's the "everything from BWV 1 to BWV 199" approach, the "everything in the church year" approach, and the less frequently employed "everything in chronological order" approach, adopted here by the Purcell Quartet. In this the second volume in the series, the four works come from Bach's Weimar period, specifically from 1714 and 1715: Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, BWV 12 (Weeping, sighing, sorrowing, crying); Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fällt, BWV 18 (For as the rain and snow fall down from heaven); Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61 (Now come, the heathen's Savior); and Komm, du süsse Todesstunde, BWV 161 (Come, sweet hour of my death).

Lean and austere, yet deeply felt and profoundly spiritual, the first volume in Chandos' series of recordings of Bach's early Cantatas is a complete success. With one player and one singer per part, these are chamber music-scaled performances: it is quite lean and very austere. But that's fine: the musicians are all superb and the music benefits from their individual attention. Indeed, it gains immensely in intensity when a single musician is responsible for each part. Better yet, the music gains enormously in lyricism when those musicians are of the caliber performing here. The Purcell Quartet is arguably the best Baroque chamber ensemble in England and it is augmented here with equally fine additional players.

Marcello Di Lisa presents three cantate con stromenti that explore the anguish of abandoned lovers; his erudite booklet-note discusses the literary tradition behind the stories of the shepherd Aminta (a stock Arcadian character with roots in Hellenistic poetry), Ariadne abandoned by Theseus on Naxos, and the forsaken Olimpia (heroine of cantos 9-11 of Ariosto’s Orlando furioso), and also provides a penetrating commentary on the musical content of Scarlatti’s cantatas.

Nicola Porpora’s Op 1 set of Italian chamber cantatas receive a new and striking reading directed by Stefano Aresi, a leading interpreter of the Late Baroque composer. Neapolitan-born Porpora brought his nuove musiche with him in the early 1730s when he had set out for London (with his pupil Farinelli) to take advantage of the perceived wavering of Handel’s operatic fame there. Porpora, espying an opportunity there just as Handel himself had done before, quickly ingratiated himself with the nobility in Britain and his 12 cantatas, though probably written in Naples, were published under the patronage of Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales of Great Britain. They enjoyed substantial success at the time, and reflecting the primacy of Italian music across Europe, not least through Porpora’s masterly settings of Pietro Metastasio’s texts extolling Arcadian tastes and ideals.

Deux oeuvres mineures de Scarlatti composent cet enregistrement, deux sérénades galantes mettant en scène l’une le triomphe de l’honnêteté sur Cupidon, l’autre Vénus et son fils l’Amour vantant ses victoires. Ersatz d’opéras, interdits par le pape À Rome lorsque Scarlatti est au service d’Ottoboni, mais sans vrai schéma dramatique, exportées sans grand succès à Naples comme Venere e Amore, ces compositions pour le plein air ou le théâtre privé sont charmantes mais d’un intérêt secondaire. Reste la curiosité au disque d’un volet du travail de Scarlatti peu connu.

Das Orchester "La Petite Bande" wurde 1972 von Sigiswald Kuijken gegründet. Ursprünglich war der Anlass der Gründung lediglich eine Tonaufnahme von Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme von Lully. Der Erfolg dieser und der der nachfolgenden Aufnahmen war jedoch so überwältigend, dass "La Petite Bande" sich als ständiges Orchester etablierte und seitdem regelmäßig Konzerte gegeben hat. Diese Box beinhaltet eine Auswahl von hervorragenden 10 CDs aus der umfangreichen Diskographie dieses Orchesters.

A historic version of the patriotic October cantata by Prokofiev plus only the second public performance of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony on December 20, 1962, using the original text by Yevtushenko, which pays tribute to murdered Jews in the Ukrainian ravine of Babi Yar.

Yet another fine early music ensemble pops up for the holiday season, courtesy of Analekta. Masques has assembled a charming program of Christmas music from the Baroque period, which of course basically sounds like any other kind of Baroque music, but it's pleasing and spunky nevertheless. The highlights are the two sets of instrumental Noëls by Charpentier and Delalande, which present a festive garland of Christmas tunes in colorful instrumental garb, recorders well to the fore. They are delightful. Schiassi's Concerto for Strings ends with one of those wonderful pastoral numbers, thus establishing its seasonal credentials in the Corellian tradition.

It was a good idea to assemble three pieces associated with Bach’s first Christmas at Leipzig. The Cantata No. 63 and the earlier E flat version of the Magnificat were both performed at Leipzig on Christmas Day, 1723, and it may well be that the D major Sanctus was also sung at the same services. Not all of the music, though, was newly written for the 1723 Festival. The Cantata was already in existence perhaps as much as ten years earlier when Bach may have performed it at Halle as his trial piece for the post of organist of the Liebfrauenkirche in which he was interested. There are notable differences between the E flat version of the celebrated Magnificat and the later, more frequently performed version in D major.

Georg Böhm is one of those German Protestant composers who has had the misfortune to have his name inextricably linked with that of J. S. Bach. In the case of Böhm, the link with Bach is especially potent, since there is the liklihood that the two became acquainted during the period Bach attended the Michaelisschule in Lüneburg (1700?c. 1703). More importantly, Böhm has long been acknowledged as an influence on Bach?s organ and keyboard music.

Verses in praise of music for St Cecilia's Day were fashionable in the seventeenth century but in poetic inspiration none equalled Dryden's two poems in which he attempts to imitate the effects of music in language. He wrote this one, his Song for St Cecilia's Day, in 1687; it was set to music during the poet's lifetime but not, of course, by Handel whose setting dates from 1739… The highlight of Handel's score for me is, without question, his hauntingly beautiful setting of Dryden's second stanza, ''What Passion cannot Musick raise and quell!''. Here, especially, Handel matches a text which Dr Johnson regarded as exhibiting the highest flights of fancy with a tenderly expressive cello obbligato.