The works of the early Baroque Italian composers featured on this CD all make some kind of use of the new virtuoso violin technique. Thus they enable us to understand how, as a result of untold experiments, a technique that was specifically suited to the violin gradually began to emerge.

Collection The Heritage of Monteverdi Whether they played violin, cornet, harpsichord or theorbo, Italian musicians of great renown called Buonamente, Castello, Pesenti and Ferro crossed the Alps to take up much-coveted posts at the courts of Emperors Ferdinand I and II. Their splendid music surged forth, blending the blaze of the brass with the sweetness of the strings in an unceasing tourney of virtuosity and emotions depicted in sound. A major rediscovery of this music as an instrumental prelude to the first madrigal of Monteverdis 8th Book, which ends this new recording of La Fenice.

Although the first violin virtuosos came mainly from Cremona, Brescia or Mantua, it was Venice that swiftly emerged as the principal centre for the development of instrumental music. Moreover, it was there that most collections of this music were printed all through the seventeenth century. It is curious to note that all these virtuosos obviously enjoyed sharing their success with their colleagues: for, alongside works for one or two violins and continuo, almost all the composer-violinists gathered together on this disc conceived sonate, canzone or sinfonie for ensembles of three or four violins. In addition, these compositions often make use of bichoral or echo effects.

The cornett was considered the instrument of kings and was one of the defining instruments until the 18th century, when it fell victim to the orchestral innovations of the classical period and went out of fashion. To this day, however, its sound continues to fascinate. To help listeners experience the magic of his instrument, William Dongois has teamed up with Le Concert Brisé to put together three sparkling programmes tracing the history of the zinc in the Baroque era, available together for the first time.

Italian Baroque Virtuoso Instrumental Music Maurice Steger, Continuo Consort, Naoki Kitaya The recorder (that is, the family of instruments in various sizes and ranges) was perhaps the most popular instrument among amateur musicians during the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as the instrument championed by a select group of renowned virtuosos. Who composed music for this sweet-sounding wind instrument in Italy during this period? Were arrangements from other genres popular at the time? How did the substantial changes in construction, intonation and sonority that the recorder underwent during influence musical style? Recorder virtuoso Maurice Steger and his continuo consort under the direction of Naoki Kitaya provide vivid and beautiful answers to such questions with this, their third recording for Claves Records.

Luigi Zenobi, a virtuoso cornetist known as Luigi del cornetto, was born in Ancona in the mid-sixteenth century. He later moved to Vienna, where he entered the service of the Emperor Maximilian II. His reputation grew and he subsequently worked for the Este family in Ferrara, where he was the most respected and best-paid musician at court up to that time, so sought-after were his talents. Luigi was also a painter, poet, miniaturist and music scholar. An eyewitness recalled the delicacy of his playing: softer than the harpsichord when its lid is closed. Giovanni Sansoni, a composer and cornetist probably originally from Venice, was born around 1593. He was engaged by Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in Graz in 1613 and followed him to Vienna when he became Emperor in 1619.

The new recording by recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger with violinist and countertenor Dmitry Sinkovsky shows the musical turn of time from the Renaissance to the Baroque in a kaleidoscope of newly conceived, experimental declamatory music by Italian masters, who for the first time expressed passions such as love and hate, grief and joy, astonishment and longing in music to the fullest.

This disc is a real plucker’s delight featuring not only the skills of three leading mandolinists – Juan Carlos Muñoz, Mari Fe Pavón and Alla Tolkacheva – but also a continuo section consisting of baroque guitar, harpsichord and (anachronistically) Renaissance lute; even the violone and gamba are usually played pizzicato. Together they romp through a programme of concerti and sonatas by Dall’Abaco, Arrigoni, Matteis, Domenico Scarlatti, Johann Sigismund Weiss (rather than his more famous brother Sylvius Leopold), Fasch and of course Vivaldi; with a doffof their tricorns in the direction of earlier baroque composers Castello and Uccellini. This is joyous, glorious music-making.

Some of the connections with Venice may be a little tenuous, and this particular Winged Lion even circles over Spain clutching a Venetian guitar. The Palladian Ensemble's debut disc was called An Excess of Pleasure; the sequal offers nothing less! From two gutsy Vivaldi concertos via the dashing caprice of Santiago de Murcia's La Jota to a canzon by Cavalli which discharges itself in a haunting echo of Monteverdi's Lamento della Ninfa, the programme continually surprises and enchants. The playing too.

New release Canta la Serenissima includes the most divine music from the Republic of Venice, the Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta, La Serenissima. Saint Mark’s Cathedral was one of the main employers of Venetian musicians and also a place of musical reforms in the 16th and 17th centuries. Composers featured on the disc include Claudio Monteverdi, the most famous maestro di cappella of all times at Saint Mark’s, Alessandro Grandi (1586–1630), who was a master of sacred monody, Dario Castello (c. 1590–c. 1658), who was a leader of a wind ensemble from 1621 at Saint Mark’s and Biagio Marini (1594–1663), who was a violinist from 1615 at Saint Mark’s. CD includes also works composed for the city of Venice’s patron saint Virgin Mary. Vocal works are performed skillfully by soprano Kajsa Dahlbäck.

Following the international success of their first album on Resonus, Venice 1629, Jamie Savan with his acclaimed period group The Gonzaga Band continue their exploration of lesser-known music in the Baroque Venetian orbit. Here they uncover the Vespers (1616), a forgotten masterpiece by Amadio Freddi, maestro di cappella of Treviso Cathedral during Monteverdi’s tenure at St Mark’s in Venice.

Die Blockflötistin und ECHO Klassik-Preisträgerin Dorothee Oberlinger ist mittlerweile weit über die Alte Musik- und die Klassik-Szene hinaus bekannt. Erst Ende vorigen Jahres widmete die Vogue ihr einen Artikel und in der Talkshow »3nach9« begeisterte sie die Zuschauer, auch durch ihr Duett mit Klaus Doldinger. Auf ihrer neuen CD »Flauto Veneziano« widmet sich Dorothee Oberlinger ganz der Flötenkunst Venedigs von der Renaissance bis zum Spätbarock. Die Blockflöte, im Italienischen bis zum Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts schlicht »flauto«, war in Venedig bis zur Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts ein sehr beliebtes und verbreitetes Instrument.

Everybody will know by now that Elizabeth Wallfisch has a special interest, affection and regard for the 17th- and 18th-century Italian violin schools. She has already recorded much music by the likes of Tartini, Corelli, Locatelli and others with her group, The Locatelli Trio, and also with The Raglan Baroque Players under Nicholas Kraemer. Here is a varied and fascinating collection of pieces by some of the lesser-known composers from a generation or two earlier than those composers.

For fans of Il Giardino Armonico's flamboyant flourishes and exuberant expressiveness, it's like having all your birthdays at once, being presented with this great Warner Classics 11 CD set. My own feeling is that this "free" approach to Baroque music is at its best when applied to the theatrical music of disc 8 or the seventeenth century Italian music on disc 1. The showmanship and playfulness is an absolute joy in many of those pieces. I'm less satisfied with the interpretations of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, (on discs 10 and 11), which require a different approach, I feel. I like my Bach to be a little more measured and subtle, I suppose. It has no need of the Il Giardino Armonico treatment. On the whole, though, I do love this set and wouldn't be without it.

The German soprano Anna Prohaska joins Alpha Classics for several recording projects. Her first recital brings together two superb African queens – Dido and Cleopatra – and follows them all over Europe during the first century of opera, from the 1640s to 1740. A firework display of arias, virtuosic and tragic by turns, written by the leading personalities of Baroque music (Cavalli, Handel, Purcell, Hasse) and composers still awaiting rediscovery suchas Sartorio, Graupner and the Venetian Castrovillari./quote]