The present recording constitutes more than just a new version of the Vespers. It is the first recording of the Vespers in the alternative version proposed by the composer, without concertato instruments. It reveals the underlying matrix of the work we all know, the ‘original version’ to which Monteverdi added concertato instruments for use in large-scale performances. Respecting the structure of the Office of Vespers, Ludus Modalis has chosen to frame the psalms with the antiphons corresponding to a Marian ceremony.

A hymn to nature envisioned by the unparalleled Christina Pluhar, featuring the extraordinary Swedish mezzo-soprano Malena Ernman, in a program that embraces the four winds! This is a unique blend that L'Arpeggiata, under Pluhar's direction, masterfully creates—drawing from the rumblings of the sea, sunny canarios, cuckoos and nightingales, whispers and tempests. With a fusion of baroque repertoire, traditional music, and improvisations, it promises a vibrant celebration of vocal and instrumental artistry, all under the banner of the nourishing earth.

The abundant legacy of Gustav Leonhardt’s recordings for Telefunken’s Das Alte Werk series invites us to follow his trajectory as a performer from the early 1960’s onwards, a time when the new codes of early music had yet to be invented, when their success depended above all on the strength of conviction of the performer. Leonhardt’s was strengthened by dialogue: with a range of partners whose variety defies all preconceived ideas, with ancient instruments or modern copies of all types, with repertoires as diverse as Byrd, Purcell, Rameau, Johann Sebastian but also Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Not forgetting the 1970 Monteverdi LP, which has never been reissued since. The image of a pope of early music isolated in his tower and frozen in a school style does not last long after listening to this historical sum, extended here by the later series of recordings under the Virgin Veritas flag.

This is the sequel to the best selling “Bach Arias and Duets” featuring two of Australia's leading exponents of Baroque repertoire, Sara Macliver and Sally-Anne Russell. This recording is a collection of some of the most beautiful and charming works written for a soprano and alto, featuring the haunting Pergolesi Stabat Mater.

A much needed filling of a gap in the Brilliant Classics discography: the world famous Maria Vespers of Monteverdi! The Maria Vespers contain a collection of liturgical chants and psalms, for a wide variety of instruments, from the festive opening with trumpets to intimate arias for solo voice. In everything one hears the great dramatic genius of Monteverdi, the “first” opera composer in history. Excellent performance, on historical instruments, by conductor Diego Fasolis, and his “Barocchisti”, and a great line of vocal soloists, among whom are the well known Marco Beasley and Marinella Pennicchi.

The new recording by recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger with violinist and countertenor Dmitry Sinkovsky shows the musical turn of time from the Renaissance to the Baroque in a kaleidoscope of newly conceived, experimental declamatory music by Italian masters, who for the first time expressed passions such as love and hate, grief and joy, astonishment and longing in music to the fullest.

The extraordinary series of 1998-2006 recordings of the nine published books of madrigals by Monteverdi, from Claudio Cavina and the Italian ensemble La Venexiana, is now available in limited-time and limited-number boxed set form from Glossa. This multi-award-winning cycle set new standards in textual declamation, rhetorical color and harmonic refinement. Also included is the Live in Corsica album of Monteverdi madrigals (2002) and a newly-written essay by original series essayist Stefano Russomanno of which all, along with full texts and translations in PDF form, are also included.

Following on from and designed along the same lines as the Guide to Period Instruments, this boxed set includes an exhaustive introductory text as well as a great quantity of music excerpts on the set’s eight CDs. These extracts have been taken from the extensive repertoire recorded by Ricercar over many years, with excerpts from recordings kindly provided by our colleagues from Harmonia Mundi, Gimell, Accent, Alpha and Sony supplementing our programme where necessary. The Lutheran repertoire of the Renaissance has remained for all intents and purposes unrecorded up until now; the tracks illustrating this repertoire together with other excerpts have been recorded specially for this compilation by Vox Luminis.

Le Poème Harmonique, one of the most important early music ensembles in France, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. For this occasion ALPHA CLASSICS has compiled twenty CDs from the catalogue in an attractively designed box. Award-winning recordings can be heard, some of them with an unusual repertoire from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. For loyal fans and those who want to become fans!

SEON (Studio Erichson) is a period music label by the legendary producer Wolf Erichson. Erichson founded the label in 1969 as one of the first labels dedicated only to authentic music. The recordings were made with the best available recording techniques of the time and still deliver a high quality product in line with today's standards. This special boxset offers all SEON CD reissues from the late 90s on 85 CDs in a limited edition boxset.

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.

Monteverdi’s Ninth Book of Madrigals, published posthumously, and the 1632 Scherzi musicali (‘Musical Jokes’) are thematically linked by the recurring theme of war for the sake of love. Prefaced with a Sinfonia by Biagio Marini and featuring one of Monteverdi’s towering masterpieces, Zefiro torna, the Ninth Book comprises the few remaining late madrigals, a number of canzonette, as well as works with the same titles and verses from the earlier Eighth Book, here performed in completely different musical settings. Recorded complete, and in historically informed fashion, this is the final volume in this series.

There is some grand and characteristically sumptuous music on this record of motets and instrumental pieces that might have been heard during the feast of Christmas in St Mark's or one of the other great churches of Venice round about 1600 or a little later. A strong point in its favour, too, is the unhackneyed choice of programme: the instrumental Sonata pian' e forte, of course, is an old favourite, and the two earlier double-choir motets of Gabrieli, Angelus ad pastores and 0 magnum mysterium, are also relatively familiar; but the three remaining Gabrieli motets, all taken from posthumous publications and among his most elaborate polychoral pieces, are much less often tackled—not surprisingly, since they call for exceptional resources.

This is a beautiful anthology of sacred liturgical music. Chung coordinates his forces in larger choral pieces with power and vertical balance. Contributions by Cecilia Bartoli find the mezzo in top form, and Bryn Terfel brings charismatic presence to “Pie Jesu” from the Fauré Requiem. Also included are the interminable "Song for Athene" by John Taverner and a great performance by Andrea Bocelli in Eric Levi's hymn for the world, "I Believe".

Harmonies of Devotion is both an exploration of the Italian motet repertory of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and a celebration of the devotion to this sacred repertory displayed by English antiquarian collectors of the eighteenth century. Among the works recorded here for the first time are Giovanni Legrenzi’s six-voice masterpiece Intret in conspectu tuo, which survives thanks to a copy made in London by Handel, a five-voice Crucifixus by Legrenzi’s pupil Antonio Lotti, sent to London’s newly formed Academy of Ancient Music, a grand Marian motet written for the Academy by Agostino Steffani, and music by Steffani’s teacher Ercole Bernabei, again collected by members of London’s antiquarian music clubs.