The most beautiful arias from the Vivaldi Edition: Orlando Furioso, Atenaide, Farnace, Teuzzone, Armida, La Fida Ninfa, Orlando 1714, Griselda, Ottone in villa and much more. The album includes outstanding singers and arias that were sensational discoveries when first introduced in this series.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - The Symphonic Testament: Following a long maturation process, Jordi Savall presents his interpretation of Mozart’s Last Three Symphonies. He has chosen - on this double album - to repeat the Symphony No. 40 twice, in order to underline the continuity existing from one work to the other (this is an important dimension of this milestone of the orchestral music in the XVIIIth Century).

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.

Jordi Savall's exemplary performance of Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks is among the finest available on disc: refined and precise, but very big, with blood-stirring grandeur. This is just the kind of extroverted, rousing presentation that best highlights the music's open-air ceremonial function. Savall's Le Concert des Nations is essentially a chamber orchestra with double or triple winds, but the sound he elicits from the group is majestic and surprisingly powerful. The playing is crisp and the rhythmic articulation bracing, but the sound is never brash. In fact, more often than not it is seductively sensual, a heady integration of precision and supple, shapely phrasing. Handel left no authoritative edition of the score of Water Music and it has traditionally been divided into three suites, but Savall reorders the material into two suites, a decision that makes more sense in terms of key relationships and that sounds entirely satisfying.

Johann Sebastian Bach composed six cantatas for the Christmas holidays in 1734, to have one performed for each particular holiday during services in the main churches of Leipzig, St. Thomas and St. Nicholas. Both the narrative march of the Gospel and the tonality in which the musical framework was composed, give the cantatas a character of an autonomous cycle that Jordi Savall and his groups face for the first time.

This disc of Iberian and Latin American Renaissance music is a reissue cleverly disguised as a new release. It compiles music from several recordings by Catalonian visionary Jordi Savall, his luminous-voiced collaborator Montserrat Figueras, and his Hesperion XXI and Capella Reial de Catalunya ensembles, dressing them up with a new set of rather philosophical booklet notes on themes of change, of intercultural tolerance, and of the evolving nature of Christianity in the Iberian realm and in New Spain. Some might call this a cynical ploy, but actually Savall has always been moving in a circle, so to speak, spiraling inward toward a deeper musical understanding of the historical themes touched on here: the lingering effects of the legacy of medieval Iberia and its "mestissage" or mixture of cultures, the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charles (Carlos) V (did you know that he was both the first monarch to be called "His Majesty" and the first to be honored with the claim that the "sun never set" on his empire?), and the relationships between cultivated and popular styles, both in Iberia and the New World.

English composer and violinist William Brade was a significant transitional figure in instrumental music between the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Brade is credited with transplanting English musical practices most readily associated with William Byrd, Peter Philips, and John Dowland to North German and Scandinavian soil, and in aiding the transformation from the Renaissance notion of the English consort to the more continental Baroque idea of a string orchestra.

Vocal music is a reflection of its time, crossing the centuries to reveal emotion, particularly its religious side in which it forms an obvious prayer. Thus, on this recording which begins with Alfonso X. El Sabio all the way to Mozart and Haydn, the Vox Aeterna (Eternal voice) speaks to us, moves us, making itself the intermediary of our own feelings.

Although Lawes died relatively young–43–he achieved a mature compositional stature, evidenced in every one of the "sets" on display here. He's particularly good at taking a melody and subjecting it to all manner of variation and imitative treatment, often developing wonderfully complex textures that somehow always maintain an ingratiating tunefulness. The Pavans are especially touching–notably the five-part C minor, inspired by Dowland's famous Lachrimae. The influence of the madrigalian Monteverdi is noticeable everywhere, in dancing rhythms and vividly expressive effects of bow articulation and colorful, sometimes unexpected harmonies. This is an exceptional collection–in rich, full-bodied, perfectly balanced sound that gives realistic presence to the instruments while allowing plenty of breathing room for strings and wood to properly resonate.

Mr Demachy's 'Pieces de violle' of 1685 are for viole solo, scored without basso continuo. Demachy represents the previous generation to Marais and Forqueray le pere, whose works included a separate bass voice in addition to the viole.

Tobias Hume (c.1570-1645) was a professional soldier and a ‘gentleman’ (read amateur) composer, and virtuoso of the bass viol. His Musicall Humors (1605), a large collection of solo pieces, is the first publication devoted to the lyra viol, a style of playing that treated the instrument polyphonically, like a lute. Hume reveals himself as a distinct, even eccentric, personality, and an inventive composer, expanding the viol’s normal range with such unusual devices as col legno (‘Drum this with the backe of your Bow’). Jordi Savall’s cultivated, elegant style is very appropriate for much of the music; occasionally he adopts a more earthy manner to great effect – for example in A Souldiers Resolution, with its trumpet and drum imitations.

This live recording made on January 31, 2002 at the Liceu Theater in Barcelona is already a cornerstone of any Monteverdi discography. Previously only available on DVD from Opus Arte, this multi-channel SACD version reveals the full scale of Jordi Savall's inspiration. Beautifully executed by La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Le Concert des Nations, and a cast of soloists that includes Furio Zanasi, Sara Mingardo, and the late Montserrat Figueras, this is a release to treasure.