Mields is splendid. Her poise, luminous vocalism and animated dialogue with the band show why she’s an Early Music legend. Her command of the recording’s three languages allows her to relish words as well as music, whether goofing around – as in ‘Bacchus’ HWV228 – or lamenting. Her consistently intelligent musicianship is apparent above all when she improvises according to period and location.

While Herreweghe’s choir employs women for the treble parts, the ensemble is so expertly trained that their sound comes very close to the characteristic English choir of men and boys. Only a small number of instruments and voices is used, and this, in conjunction with a sensitive approach to style, produces performances of superior beauty and taste. Extensive care has been lavished on both clarity and precision of English diction, and outstanding choral intonation makes the clash of Purcell’s cross-relations and his dissonant chromaticism singularly effective. The singing by the soloists is consistently beautiful.

Having been relegated to a moral space of exclusion and fear in the Middle Ages, madness subsequently became a major social phenomenon. Brought under control and personified as 'Folly' in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it provided scope for social and moral criticism, leading composers and librettists to give it a prominent place on the operatic stage. Here Stphanie d'Oustrac and the Amarillis ensemble present its multiple facets, from seduction to passionate love, from despair to joy, revealing the underlying truths of humanity in the Baroque era.

Fabio Bonizzoni, one of Baroque music performance leading conductors of our time, and his group La Risonanza make their debut on Challenge Classics with Dido and Aeneas, Purcell's operatic masterpiece. It is coupled with The Love of Mars and Venus by John Eccles and Gottfried Finger, Purcell's near contemporaries. Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, composed in the 1680s, is arguably the most beloved and best-known opera in English. Bonizzoni says: "The charm of this opera is in that it contains everything, like Cervantes' Don Quixote: any life experience is within it. Love, hate, death, dream, despair, the innocent and the wicked play.

It is an important moment in the life of a singer when she is able to confront the standard repertory. After years spent studying theatre and music in Shakespeare’s England under the guidance of musicologist Philip Brett, Jill Feldman recorded two programmes of Henry Purcell’s music in 1992, reissued here as a double CD.

Chandos’ featured release is a new recording of the first English operatic masterpiece, Purcell’s tragedy Dido and Aeneas. Starring Sarah Connolly, Gerald Finley, with the Orchestra and Choir of the Age of Enlightenment, it is released to commemorate the 350th anniversary of Purcell’s birth.

Balsom explains in her booklet note that EMI gave her considerable freedom in choosing her programme for the disc and thereby lays my only real reservation. The objective (a daunting one as Balsom readily admits) was to seek out new material although what we get is a slightly uncomfortable blend of one vast original composition in the Eben, that whilst well coupled with the shorter Tomasi work seems rather ill at ease with the likes of Shenandoah and George Thalben-Ball’s well-known organ Elegy. It may be that Balsom was conscious of not duplicating works with Håkan Hardenberger’s release of music for the same combination that appeared on BIS earlier this year (also reviewed by the writer) although in fact it is only the Tomasi that is common to both discs.

In the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, Alison Balsom celebrates the heroic era of the Baroque trumpet in works by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and Henry Purcell (1658 or 1659-1695), whose anthems, odes, sinfonias and operas have provided the music for numerous royal celebrations from their own day to the present.

With an album of celebration – both joyful and solemn – trumpeter Alison Balsom again declares her love for the baroque era, which she calls “the golden age of the trumpet”. Joining Handel’s exuberant Music for the Royal Fireworks are works by two other German-born composers – JS Bach and Telemann – and by the London-born Henry Purcell. “These baroque composers knew the instrument they were writing for,” says Balsom. “There is such value in searching out the sound that they would have heard themselves, with the intention of authenticity. When it comes together it is utterly thrilling.”

Andreas Scholl returns to Decca with a recording of vocal jewels by the great baroque composer Henry Purcell, including 'When I Am Laid In Earth' from Dido and Aeneas. This is Andreas Scholl's first ever recording of the music of Purcell and his uniquely beautiful voice is perfectly suited to the English composer's plangent melodies. The album includes pieces written for the stage, the church and the private chamber, some of which Andreas Scholl has sung in recital for many years, and some he sings here for the first time.

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.

John Taverner's accidentally totemic theme is subjected to more wondrous transformations by the likes of Robert Parsons, Henry Purcell and of course Christopher Tye—and inspires new works from Nico Muhly and Gavin Bryars.

As with several other of Kipnis' albums, these could serve as either an eye opener for those uninitiated to the potential of the late 20th century harpsichord in the hands of these virtuoso musicians. And an introduction of the incredibly rich, varied music of the 18th Century. Igor Kipnis was so much more than a master of the keyboard, he helped introduce three generations to what the Baroque was all about.

This eight-disc set includes odes and theater pieces; and Gardiner's performances are more than excellent. He synthesizes the spare delicacy and ceremonial grandeur of Purcell's music in performances that are very satisfying.

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!