The Habsburg Imperial Court was a melting pot of many different cultures in which the zest for living of southerners, the Slav melancholy, French formalism, Spanish courtliness and the original German-speaking Alpine cultural region intermingled. Together with his Ars Antiqua Austria ensemble, Gunar Letzbor occupied himself over a ten year period to produce this 10CD "Klang der Kulturen" box, a musical tour of the individual countries that formed the roots of and influences on the music of baroque Vienna, documenting them in live recordings, with each CD representing one country.

Elizabeth Wallfisch has recorded many critically acclaimed CDs for Hyperion, both as a chamber musician and as a soloist. As with her previous disc on Hyperion of unaccompanied music (Bach Sonatas and Partitas, CDD22009) this disc gives the listener the opportunity to appreciate every nuance, every flourish, every virtuosic display, every inflection of tone and colour that Ms Wallfisch exudes so exquisitely and effortlessly from her instrument.

The Sablé festival, held annually in Sablé-sur-Sarthe in France, has its own recording concern that it uses primarily to expose young early music artists and to support the most interesting of their projects; the Zig-Zag Territoires label provides an outlet for this endeavor. Here is a wholly worthy enterprise: the group Gli Incogniti – led by the fabulous young violinist Amandine Beyer – in a program drawn from various works of mysterious late seventeenth-century violinist Nicola Matteis, its title, False Consonances of Melancholy, fashioned after one of his publications, but not limited to its contents. As Matteis is not a household name, some summary of his place in the scheme of things is not out of order here: born in Naples, possibly contemporary to Heinrich von Biber, Matteis was an itinerant musician in Germany before making his way to London about 1670.

Eighteenth-century European courts collected ‘economy packages’ of selections from the operas staged in the great centres such as Naples, Rome, Venice. Four cantatas and a few single arias are programmed here to create a make-believe evening’s entertainment at the German court of Sondershausen. The composers are mostly little-known, (Magini defeats New Grove II completely), but this selection of their music stands comparison with the best: a ‘rejected lover’ aria by Sarri with powerful unisons and purposeful melodic line; a poignant aria by Conti of a heart lost in love, the slow line unwinding over a decorative cello obbligato; an aria, by Fedeli, of hopeful longing, double-bass pizzicato marking the resolute harmony.

This CD by The Counterpoints, entitled Italophilia: Discovering the Italian style in Handel’s London, investigates the Italian musical influences on English baroque music in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Already in 1683, Henry Purcell (1659-1695) had written in the foreword of his Sonatas of three Parts that he had ‘faithfully endeavour’d a just imitation of the most fam’d Italian Masters’. In later years, the impact of these Italian Masters would only increase, reaching its apogee in the work of George Frideric Handel (1685-1759). This CD contextualizes Handel’s work with composers he influenced and was influenced by, both in England and Italy.

The virtuoso, sometimes eccentric violin music of the Neapolitan-born and English-by-choice Nicola Matteis (ca. 1650 - ca. 1714) is the focus of the recording of the renowned baroque violinist Veronika Skuplik and the lutenist Andreas Arend with FRA BERNARDO. They trace the baroque, virtuoso gesture of the music and transform it into a kind of travelogue from Naples to London to Norfolk.

This disc is a real plucker’s delight featuring not only the skills of three leading mandolinists – Juan Carlos Muñoz, Mari Fe Pavón and Alla Tolkacheva – but also a continuo section consisting of baroque guitar, harpsichord and (anachronistically) Renaissance lute; even the violone and gamba are usually played pizzicato. Together they romp through a programme of concerti and sonatas by Dall’Abaco, Arrigoni, Matteis, Domenico Scarlatti, Johann Sigismund Weiss (rather than his more famous brother Sylvius Leopold), Fasch and of course Vivaldi; with a doffof their tricorns in the direction of earlier baroque composers Castello and Uccellini. This is joyous, glorious music-making.

Some of the connections with Venice may be a little tenuous, and this particular Winged Lion even circles over Spain clutching a Venetian guitar. The Palladian Ensemble's debut disc was called An Excess of Pleasure; the sequal offers nothing less! From two gutsy Vivaldi concertos via the dashing caprice of Santiago de Murcia's La Jota to a canzon by Cavalli which discharges itself in a haunting echo of Monteverdi's Lamento della Ninfa, the programme continually surprises and enchants. The playing too.

A passionate soprano and a dynamic continuo are the irresistible elements of Capriola Di Gioia, the Belgian ensemble around Amaryllis Dieltiens and Bart Naessens. AEOLUS listeners already know them from their collaboration with the Flanders Recorder Quartet. The young musicians are already firmly established in the Belgian and Dutch music scene.

In the second half of the seventeenth century, London experienced an artistic golden age, with the arrival of many foreign musicians and the proliferation of theatres and concert halls where audiences came to listen to the stars of the moment. One of these musicians was the Italian Nicola Matteis, who arrived around 1660 and became the sensation of the London music scene. Purcell was only a child at the time and there is no record of their meeting, but it is very likely that he was familiar with Matteis’s works, including his Ayres, recorded here for the first time in a version for four-part consort.

From Biber’s famous ‘Guardian Angel’ Passacaglia to Guillemain’s ‘Amusements’ and sonatas and fantasias by Matteis (father and son), Pisendel and Vilsmayr, Isabelle Faust offers us a panorama of European music for unaccompanied violin from the second half of the Baroque era. Dreamy or virtuosic, these pieces bear witness to the diversity of inspirations from Italy, France, England and the German-speaking countries - and to their marvellous intermingling echoes.

This double album offers a portrait of the violinist Amandine Beyer drawn from the recordings she has made for ZZT. The first CD selects highlights from her chamber repertoire, including works by Jean-Féry Rebel, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Nicola Matteis, and Robert de Visée. The second is devoted to the concerto, with compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and Arcangelo Corelli. This programme is an ideal introduction to the multiple facets of Amandine Beyer’s talent and to the grace and joie de vivre of her music-making. It also provides an opportunity to discover one of Corelli’s Concerti Grossi op.6, a preview of the complete set to be released on ZZT in the autumn of 2013.

"The Passion of Musick" heißt eine Fantasie des schottischen Soldaten und Komponisten Tobias Hume, die der neuesten CD der Blockflötistin und mehrfachen Echo Klassik-Preisträgerin Dorothee Oberlinger ihren Namen gab. Mit ihrem Ensemble 1700, dem Ausnahmegambisten Vittorio Ghielmi und seinem Gambenquartett »Il Suonar Parlante« gewährt Oberlinger Einblicke in die vielfältige »Private musick«, die in den unruhigen Zeiten im England des 17. Jahrhundert in eleganten Salons, aber auch in Pubs und Gasthäusern erblühte. Auf der Suche nach dem vielfältigen und farbenreichen kammermusikalischen Repertoire dieser Zeit folgen die Musiker dabei auch der Fährte, die die traditionelle, keltisch geprägte Musik im barocken Kunststil Englands, Schottlands und Irlands hinterlassen hat und zeichnen ein vielfältiges Bild der Musizierpraxis der Zeit mit Werken von unter anderem Tobias Hume, Henry Purcell, Nicola Matteis, Orlando Gibbons und Matthew Locke.

The Palladian Ensemble's very first recording featured a number of pieces by Nicola Matteis…and for a while they used one of them almost as a signature tune. Now they have drawn more items from his huge ragbag of short pieces for two melody instruments and continuo - Ayres with a whole range of titles from Adagio to Jigg to Aria Burlesca con molto bizzarie and Giga Al Genio Turchescho - and made them the main subject of their latest disc, borrowing its title from Roger North's description of Matteis's playing: flaming as I have seen him, in a good humour he hath held the company by the ears…for more than an hour together.