The late-Renaissance keyboard music of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck is virtuosic to a high degree, reflecting both his exceptional skills as an improviser and the secular role organ music was assigned in Reformed Amsterdam. Without a liturgical function to constrain his imagination or shape his music – Calvinist services had no place for it – Sweelinck was free to provide fanciful showpieces for his daily recitals in the Oude Kerk. Examples of his improvisational style can be found in the quasi-fugal Hexachord Fantasia, the witty Echo Fantasia, and the flamboyant Toccatas, of which three are included here. Yet Sweelinck's music is also rigorously logical and full of ingenious contrapuntal devices. These are readily found in his fantasias, but are prominently featured in his numerous sets of variations. His elaborate settings of the chorales Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr and Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott, and his variations on popular melodies, such as the famous Mein junges Leben hat ein End, display his invention and thorough manipulation of his subjects in all registers. Perhaps better known as a harpsichordist, Robert Woolley is also a fine organist. Woolley has selected representative works from each of Sweelinck's favored genres and given them exceptional performances on the Van Hagerbeer organ of the Pieterskerk, Leiden.

This disc is intended to introduce a collection of keyboard instruments in Edinburgh, Scotland, but actually it accomplishes much more. The instruments featured here were built all over Europe, with the majority from the British Isles or France. They date from between 1586 and 1810, with the first example being an Italian virginal and the final one a fortepiano. Along the way come harpsichords of various kinds, a clavichord, and a small organ. Brief but relevant and engaging histories are given for each instrument.

Cambridges renowned Trinity College Choir, conducted by Richard Marlow, is heard in a 6-CD compilation of acclaimed Renaissance and early Baroque recordings. In the compositions by Lassus, Victoria, Praetorius, Sweelinck, Monteverdi and Schutz heard here, Gramophone has praised the choirs superb discipline fresh and natural voices as well as Marlows astute and imaginative direction His sensitivity and responsiveness are tireless.

A printed version of the Motets for 2 or 3 voices Op. 4 was published in Bologna in 1715. Although Caldara was at this time still in the services of Marquis Ruspoli, he dedicated this collection to Cardinal Ottoboni who had gained a wide-ranging reputation as a patron of music during the previous decades. Caldara was appointed as imperial assistant music director in Vienna in 1716. As the favourite composer of Charles VI, Caldara was entrusted with the regular production of music for representative events at the imperial court for the remainder of his life.

Antwerp, around the middle of the 17th century. Music issues from an imposing house on the Meir. Inside the house, paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, Brueghel, Vermeer and Tintoretto hang everywhere. A small but international group seated close to the fireplace is listening to a concert arranged especially for them. Francisca Duarte (1619-1678), who lives in the house, plays one of the many Ruckers-Couchet harpsichords and virginals owned by the Duarte family. She has chosen the music carefully: there are works from old collections of manuscripts compiled for and by the Duarte family, including music by John Bull and arrangements of dances and songs, as well as new repertoire by harpsichord virtuosos such as Jacques Champion de Chambonnières and Johann Jakob Froberger who have shared their recent compositions with the family.

Melancholy Grace is a poetic collection of keyboard music from the 16th and 17th centuries by composers from Italy, the Netherlands, England and Germany, including Frescobaldi, Luigi Rossi, Picchi, Luzzaschi, Sweelinck, Dowland, Bull and Gibbons. The French harpsichordist Jean Rondeau has conceived the album as a sombre, but eloquent dialogue between two contrasting voices: melancholy conveyed through chromaticism and melancholy conveyed through the musical expression of tears and weeping. Each voice finds expression through a different instrument: a 16th century Italian virginal (a compact harpsichord) for the ‘tears’ and a modern replica of an 18th century harpsichord for the ‘chromatic’ pieces.

The Swedish trumpet-player Niklas Eklund, born in Göteborg (Gothenburg) in 1969, trained at the School of Music and Musicology of Göteborg University. Further studies took place under the tutelage of Edward H. Tarr at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. After five years as solo trumpet with the Basle Radio Symphony Orchestra, he left the orchestra in the autumn of 1996 to further his career as a soloist. Since then he has appeared with leading ensembles and conductors such as Zubin Metha, John Eliot Gardiner, Heinz Holliger, András Schiff, Robert King, Eric Ericson, Reinhard Goebel, Gustav Leonhardt, the London Baroque, the Bach Ensemble (New York), the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble and the English Baroque Soloists.

The richest transmission of printed wedding compositions comes from the prosperous Hanseatic cities. From this rich trove we have recorded for the first time a marvelous selection of interpretations by Manfred Cordes and his WESER RENAISSANCE ensemble: motets, sacred concertos, and ensemble songs, true to the motto: 'The wedded state originated in an ancient land; it was instituted in Paradise by Gods command'.