Slowik, ter Linden, and Junghänel bring a fresh quality of robustness to the music and cleave together, even breathing as one, in a remarkable display of ensemble playing. They show an enviable mastery of gesture and phrase in performances of breadth and cohesion.

Recorded live at the Saarbrücken State Theatre in 2008, this spectacular new production of Handel's Agrippina has received critical recognition, with reviewer Frank Herkommer of opernnetz.de commenting: "Producer Peter Lund with his celebrated production of Agrippina demonstrates his love with detail, focused on directing the characters, with exuberant fantasy and creativity the Berlin director sparks brilliant Handel fireworks! He succeeds in unleashing an effervescent joy of playing, which puts an irresistible spell on the viewer". Featuring a cast of renowned baroque specialists under the direction of Konrad Junghänel, one of the leading conductors in the array of early music.

The successor to Music in Europe at the time of the Renaissance, this second volume in our History of Early Music is devoted to the music of the first part of the Baroque period in Italy, from the Florentine Camerata and the first operas to the heirs of Monteverdi; it was at that time that the freedom of structure characteristic of the beginning of the 17th century began to give way to the first traces of formalism. This period covers almost an entire century, beginning with the performances of La Pellegrina mounted in Florence in 1589 and ending with the final operas of Francesco Cavalli in the early 1670s. The sacred and the profane mingled and met during this period, which also saw the birth of accompanied monody, opera and oratorio, virtuoso performance and the sonata; it is precisely this same mix that we see in the Nativity by Caravaggio that appears on the cover of this set. The musical expression of this Baroque aesthetic is the subject of Jérome Lejeune’s accompanying dissertation.

This collection of five cantatas by Telemann (out of the nearly 1,500 he composed!) are all dark-hued and contemplative. They are concerned mostly with death, faith in God to the end, life's ephemeral nature, and the desire for a clean soul. But out of such somber, austere subject matter comes not only very beautiful music, but greater variety than one might suppose. In "Sei getreu bis in den tod" (Be faithful unto death), Telemann gives us four arias for separate voice types, and while the accompanying instrumentation remains sparse–organ and strings–he varies the moods by subtle shifts in tempi, the occasional use of pizzicato strings against a solo violin, and so forth. When a chorus is called for, Junghänel uses the five soloists. The effect is very intimate and just right for the meditative quality of the works.

Membra Jesu Nostri (The Limbs of our Lord Jesus) is the single largest and most compelling of the 110 or so sacred vocal works left us by Dutch-German master Dietrich Buxtehude. Buxtehude is better known for his organ music and is rightfully acknowledged as a formative influence on Johann Sebastian Bach. However, Buxtehude's vocal output is slightly larger than that for organ, and he was a key player in the refinement of the German sacred concerto into what we now call the sacred cantata, which he and his wife inherited from its creator and his predecessor, Franz Tunder, in the town of Lübeck. In the years following Buxtehude's death in 1707, German composers of all kinds were gainfully employed writing cantatas in the thousands, Georg Philipp Telemann produced nearly 2,000 of them on his own.

Pietro Antonio Cesti, byname Marc’ Antonio, (1623-1669) composer who, with Francesco Cavalli, was one of the leading Italian composers of the 17th century. Cesti studied in Rome and then moved to Venice, where his first known opera, Orontea, was produced in 1649. In 1652 he became chapelmaster to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria at Innsbruck, a post he combined for a time with membership in the papal choir. From 1666 to 1669 he was vice chapelmaster to the imperial court in Vienna.

Genius vindicated! Carissimi would seem to have been one of those composers popularly associated with sacred genres (in part because he was a Jesuit priest in the important post of Maestro de cappella at the Roman Collegio Germanico, in part because of the whims of the recording industry) to the neglect of the secular genres—especially the cantata—which he is acknowledged to have pursued with such distinction. During his lifetime Carissimi's cantatas were very much admired and with the appearance of this delightful CD the weight of his contemporary reputation will be more evenly divided.

Most modern discussions of Bach’s so-called Lutheran Masses bemoan the fact that scholars and Bach authorities have dismissed their intrinsic musical value because they are predominantly parodies–reworkings of existing music, in this case, movements from 10 different cantatas. Never mind that the “existing music” is all by Bach, and that Bach didn’t just insert new texts or change instrumentation, but he actually created virtually new works that stand firmly on their own.

Following the triumphant success of Rinaldo, Handel’s third London opera, Teseo (1713), was intended to make the still unusual genre of opera more attractive to the English public. That in fact Handel was able to latch on to the success of Rinaldo was due, likewise, to the many stage effects and a richness of musical ideas. At the same time Teseo is in many respects an exception, since the Italian libretto of Nicola Haym is based on a French model, and therefore retains the structure of five acts which was usual in France. And Handel proved that apparently he too had grappled with the Franch opera tradition. As an exception, one finds forms here which do not fit into the standard patterns of secco recitative and da capo aria.

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.

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.

The legendary label, deutsche harmonia mundi, releases a special 50 CD boxset featuring star performers such as Hille Perl, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Dorothee Oberlinger, Simone Kermes, and Nuria Rial and more! This collection displays the sheer variety available from the dhm archive. A perfect collection ranging Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic music.

A beautifully-packaged 50-disc box set, released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, one of the most important and adventurous early music labels. The set contains 50 classic recordings of baroque and ancient music, chosen to represent the breadth of this huge and varied catalogue and each disc is slip-cased with artwork replicating the original CD or LP artwork.

A beautifully-packaged 50-disc box set, released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, one of the most important and adventurous early music labels. The set contains 50 classic recordings of baroque and ancient music, chosen to represent the breadth of this huge and varied catalogue and each disc is slip-cased with artwork replicating the original CD or LP artwork.

Das Vokalensemble Cantus Cölln unter der Leitung von Konrad Junghänel gehört heute zu den renommiertesten Formationen seiner Art. Die über 30 CD-Einspielungen von Cantus Cölln wurden mit zahlreichen internationalen Preisen ausgezeichnet und umfassen musikalische Raritäten ebenso wie wegweisende Interpretationen von "Klassikern" des barocken Repertoires.