Christmas celebrations are thought to go all the way back to the formidable feasting of the Vikings at midwinter, when in true Nordic fashion yuletide was toasted in. The celebration of the birth in Bethlehem is more subdued and spiritual, but it is of a far more recent date. We do not know if the Vikings celebrated yuletide with music, but music at Christmas has been a popular tradition since the Middle Ages. Today, practically all peoples around the world celebrate midwinter with special religious and cultural rituals; the precise times vary, but gifts, decorations, festivities, candles, bells and special Christmas music are apparently always part of this. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Christmas was the busiest time of the year for church composers.

Published in 1733, Pietro Locatelli’s L'Arte del violino for solo violin, strings, and basso continuo took both violin technique and the solo concerto as a genre into a whole new realm. The twelve concertos included in the collection also played a part in forming the image of the violin virtuoso, reaching its full bloom with Paganini towards the end of the century. While the unusually high technical demands of the solo part are obvious to the listener from the start, the great surprise comes at the end of the first and third movements of each of the concertos. Here Locatelli inserts Capriccios for the soloist alone of a difficulty previously unheard of, with a left hand technique making use of extensions, octaves, unprepared tenths, double and triple stopping, arpeggios and double trills.

Germany's Accent label has released a series of twin-CD sets featuring the Baroque flute recordings made by Barthold Kuijken, sometimes (as here) accompanied by his cello-playing brother Wieland. The originals date back to the late '70s, when Kuijken was one of the Dutch specialists who brought historical performance out of the too-precious phase, and they still sound good. This release pairs a 1979 set of French flute sonatas from the middle eighteenth century with a 1991 group of Italian works of the same period. The two discs, both recorded in Belgian churches, don't have exactly the same ambiance, but the pairing is an intelligent one, making this a good pick from among the various discs available.

Das Freiburger Barockorchester zählt zu den wichtigsten Kammerorchestern weltweit. Zahlreiche nationale und internationale Auszeichnungen, darunter der Grammy Award, Echo Klassik oder der Deutsche Schallplattenpreis sind Zeugnisse ihres einzigartigen Schaffens.

In the course of his illustrious career, Fabio Biondi has nurtured a remarkable empathy with Italian music from across many centuries, but strikingly so with the early Baroque violin sonata repertory, the development of which was dramatically propelled into the future by Arcangelo Corelli with his Op 5 collection. It is this empathy possessed by Biondi which has inspired the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome (from its bowed instrument collection) to make him a loan of the precious 1690 “Tuscan” violin made by Antonio Stradivari, for this Glossa recording.

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.

If you're looking for a recording of Locatelli's complete Opus 8 Violin Sonatas, look no further. These 1994 recordings by the aptly named Locatelli Trio are not only superbly played and beautifully recorded, they have the singular virtue of being the only available recordings of the works. That's alright: with violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch at the helm, they are uniformly first-rate performances. Wallfisch is herself a superior period instrument player who balances the virtuoso demands of the music with its undeniable melodic charm and harmonic invention, and she leads cellist Richard Tunnicliffe and harpsichordist Paul Nicholson in performances that amaze as well as delight the listener. Furthermore, when the trio becomes a quartet with the addition of violinist Rachel Isserlis for the final four sonatas for two violins and continuo, the best gets even better through the brilliant interplay of two skilled soloists. For lovers of virtuoso violin music of the Italian High Baroque, this is as good as it gets. Hyperion's sound is crisp but warm, detailed but deep.

Dimitry Sinkovsky is a dazzlingly multi-talented artist a brilliant violinist, countertenor, conductor, and founder in 2011 of the ensemble La Voce Strumentale. In Virtuosissimo, his fifth venture with Naïve, he has teamed up again with the ensemble Il Pomo dOro, his partners in numerous recordings and concerts, to cast more light on Pisendel, a celebrated violinist and composer who led the prestigious Dresden Court Orchestra, and a Vivaldi devotee who copied out several of the Venetian masters concertos for performance in Dresden.

Het ensemble Europe Galante, onder leiding van Fabio Biondi, is sinds zijn oprichting in 1989 uitgegroeid tot één van de belangrijkste muziekgroepen op het gebied van de zeventiende- en achttiende-eeuwse Italiaanse barokmuziek. Op het programma staan dan ook verschillende Italiaanse componisten uit die tijd. Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762) en Pietro Locatelli (1695-1764) waren in hun tijd beroemd om hun virtuoos vioolspel. Hun muziek is tegelijk vurig en virtuoos, maar blijft steeds elegant en hoogst melodieus.

As the rather extensive booklet notes by countertenor Flavio Ferri-Benedetti state, the Italian secular cantata was a byproduct of the so-called focus of the early 18th-century intellectual circles on good poetry based generally on classical themes. The result was a veritable torrent of smaller chamber works meant to highlight this literary genre, which had the effect of establishing it as one of the preferred vocal formats of the period. The settings were generally for voice and continuo, but here one finds a selection of works that include a full four-part accompaniment of strings. This allows for a fuller texture, making them more akin to brief opera scenes.

Tafelmusik, Canada's orchestra on period instruments, was founded in 1979. Since the arrival of its Music Director and concertmaster Jeanne Lamon in 1981, Tafelmusik has achieved international recognition for its concerts and recordings. The ensemble has eighteen core members and is expanded as the need arises. All members of the orchestra are specialists in historical performance practice and perform on original instruments or modern replicas faithful in design and construction to the originals. Tafelmusik's success has taken it around the world, with regular tours across North America, Europe, and Asia. Tafelmusik presents an annual 50-concert season at Trinity-St. Paul's Centre, an historic church in downtown Toronto.

One tends to associate the virtuoso violin repertoire with the 19th century, but in their own way these five sonatas, written between 1714 and 1743, offer an equally dazzling display of speed, facility, bow control and tonal variety. No wonder: the composers were among the foremost violin virtuosos of their time, as well as tireless innovators of technique and style; several even wrote treatises on violin playing. The earliest, and least familiar, is Michele Mascitti, a Neapolitan who moved to Paris when he was 30. His "Psyché," the program's only piece in a major key, is a divertissement in ten short "tableaux" on the theme of Cupid and Psyche, with the violin and continuo as the two protagonists. Refined and elegant, varied in texture, expression and character, it ranges from tender love songs to slow and fast dances, including a wild Badinage.

Locatelli’s set of Opus 1 Concerti grossi, although indebted to Corelli (with the Eighth of the set ending with a Christmas Pastorale), similarly has a style and personality all its own. The invention is vigorous, the expressive range appealing. The Capella Istropolitana play with crisp attack, plenty of sparkle and resilient rhythms, while slow movements reveal a keen identity with the lessons of period performance, even though modern instruments are used. The Naxos recording is admirable.

–Penguin Guide