Biber was one of the most talented and fascinating composers of the 17th century. He spent his life working between Czechoslovakia and Austria, attaining a considerable amount of fame and even earning a patent of nobility (he was permitted later in life to refer to himself as "von" Biber). His instrumental music is the most fanciful and entertaining of the period, partly due to his use of scordatura, or mistuning. This technique requires a different violin-string tuning for each of the seven partitas in this collection, which gives each a particular instrumental color. A partita, by the way, is the same thing as a suite–a selection of dances collected together to make a contrasting set.

The Six Brandenburg Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) are considered by musicians, critics and audiences alike among the finest musical compositions of the baroque era. Bach presented the concertos to the Margrave of Brandenburg, Christian Ludwig, in Berlin, March 24, 1721, with the hopes some patronage would come his way. The music was preserved in the Brandenburg archives, and when rediscovered in the 19th century became some of the most beloved music of all time. Beloved is the operative word in this re-release of the masterpieces in the hands of Jeanne Lamon and the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.

The well-known painting of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach reproduced on the cover of this CD must be one of the most immediately attractive composer portraits ever made. The wide-brimmed hat, the fur-lined coat, the wisp of steely hair and, above all, the reddened but unmistakably genial face (displaying, if I’m not mistaken, his father’s nose) suggest a man one would want to accompany straightaway to the nearest coffee-house. But Friedemann was actually a little more complex than that, both as a person who could be lazy and argumentative and as a talented musician torn between the styles of the late baroque and early classical periods, so it is perhaps no surprise to find that there is considerable variety in the music on this disc.

The performances are scintillating, dynamic, articulate, and vibrant, the virtuoso violin solos by Elizabeth Wallfisch occupying a playfully precarious edge between daring excitement and temporal excess–a stance joined in equal measure by her fellow soloists and her very fine orchestral partners. This is Vivaldi performance uninhibited by self-conscious stylistic gestures or distracting "period" mannerisms–it's just informed, virtuosic ensemble playing.

Since it's founding in Freiburg in 1958, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi has been one of the most important and ambitious labels for period performances. Over decades, globally-acclaimed recordings were created with outstanding musicians. The limited edition "Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 100 Great Recordings" contains 100 outstanding DHM recordings with some of the most important and best artists in their field: Nuria Rial, Dorothee Mields, Al Ayre Espanol, Hille Perl, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Skip Sempé, Capriccio Stravagante, La Petite Bande, Gustav Leonhardt, Andrew Lawrence-King, Frieder Bernius, the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Thomas Hengelbrock and many others.

Though born in Italy, Luigi Boccherini was based for most of his life in Madrid, where he played the cello and wrote more than a hundred string quintets. They’re perfectly formed from the simplest chords, and not without their touches of profundity. The cello sonatas sound at times too much like performers’ music. The explanation lies in changing styles of string technique and the rise of the piano, though Anner Bylsma’s playing gives them a new lease of life.

Quebec contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux scored a top rating on her earlier Analekta disc of Handel Italian cantatas, and in that review I expressed a desire for more recordings from this sensational young singer. If you enjoyed the Handel program (and if you don't have it, get it), you'll be just as happy with this new disc that combines two famous Baroque solo-vocal works with some engaging, relentlessly upbeat orchestral selections from the same period. Lemieux continues to impress with her warm, true-contralto tone, fluid legatos, canny phrasing, and total command of the technical aspects of these justifiably popular yet challenging works.

VIVARTE is the legendary Sony Classical period music label known for producing outstanding recordings on period instruments. The recordings by legendary producer Wolf Erichson are made with the best recording technologies available and by one of the best production teams in the world (Tritonus Music Production, Stuttgart). The collection contains a perfect overview of VIVARTE's legendary catalogue ranging from Vivaldi to Brahms including recordings with specialists in historically informed performance practice such as Anner Bylsma, Gustav Leonhardt, Tafelmusik, Huelgas Ensemble, L'Archibudelli among others. Many of the recordings received critical acclaim all over the world and won prestigious awards. This box set includes CDs presented in paper sleeves with the original artwork, a 250 page booklet with track listings and the original liner notes for each recording.

As the predecessors of Sony Classical, CBS Masterworks had not a catalogue of ""authenticity-minded"" recordings (the pioneering efforts of Raymond Leppard and Jean-Claude Malgoire notwithstanding), Sony made a distinctive new start and engaged indubitably one of the most experienced producers in the field of early music, Wolf Erichson. If the successes secured by such musicians as Gustav Leonhardt, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Frans Brüggen in the 1960s were the most visible signs to a wider audience of thorough-going change in the interpretation of music from medieval to baroque times, there was no doubt in assigning a part of the general success to the work of the production teams behind the recordings.

Handel was first and foremost a composer of opera. It was his passion for opera which first led him away from his homeland to Italy. Handel soon became the darling of Italian opera lovers, and ended his three-year sojourn with a triumphant production of his opera Agrippina in Venice in 1709. It ran for an unprecedented 27 nights.