A brand-new label from one of the world's finest early music ensembles makes an auspicious debut with this stunning new recording of Handel's oratorio Belshazzar. Les Arts Florissants, led by the great William Christie, have launched their new label with the goal of expanding the ensemble's connection to the listening public on a scale far beyond the concert hall. Belshazzar was first performed in 1745, and was frequently revised. Christie has chosen what he considers to be the most successful of the various versions of Belshazzar, resulting in the restoration of the piece in all its splendor. The libretto's subject, which focuses on the decline of a once glorious society and the ephemeral nature of Empire, is especially relevant today. This deluxe set also includes a bonus essay by Jean Echenoz entitled In Babylon, printed separately on special paper and included alongside the regular booklet. This specially commissioned work draws the reader deep into the ancient, majestic city, the seat of power of Belshazzar the King.

Though the origin of Bach’s sonatas for flute and harpsichord is uncertain there has also been considerable debate about their genre. The first three are often called ‘Sonaten auf Concertenart’—sonatas in concerto style—a hybrid genre that became popular between around 1720 and 1740, so Bach may have been deliberately experimenting with form in these works. All offer a fascinating insight into Bach’s use of the sonata genre and a wealth of inventive music.

Caroline of Ansbach, [actually Wilhelmina Charlotte Caroline von Brandenburg-Ansbach] wife of King George II, remarkably beautiful patron of the arts and sciences, considered Handel an esteemed confidant. It was in Hanover that Caroline first encountered Handel, actively encouraging his appointment as Kapellmeister there in 1710, and it was apparently at her behest that he composed five of his Italian chamber duets. With the accession of the elector as George I in 1714, Caroline became Princess of Wales and on his death, in 1727, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, consort of King George II.

A la fin du règne de Louis XIV, le mystérieux Gaspard Le Roux compose pour le clavecin des suites d'une incroyable richesse qui peuvent être jouées à deux clavecins. C'est ce répertoire unique qui est aujourd'hui prétexte à une conversation musicale entre William Christie et Arthur Haas.

The French cantata had a brief, but vibrant life during the first three decades of the 18th century. Beginning with Morin's first book in 1706, there followed dozens of books of cantatas by a number of French composers. Clerambault, Boismortier, Rameau and Monteclair all published cantatas during this period. Monteclair may by relatively unknown, but he was a composer of undoubted talent if judged by the works on this recording…If you like the French baroque, do yourself a favor and try to buy this recording. It is a high point in the art of the cantata, and in the musicianship of William Christie and his colleagues.

The artistic director of the ‘Concert Spirituel’ from 1752 to 1762, Mondonville was one of the most fashionable composers in Paris due to his ‘grands motets’. However, it was in the field of chamber music that he was a real innovator. In creating the sonata for harpsichord with violin accompaniment, he paved the way for a form soon to be raised to sublime heights by Mozart and Beethoven. By giving the harpsichord accompaniment to the human voice Mondonville carried the experiments to its utmost limits.

The appearance on disc of Antoine Dauvergne's opera-bouffon of 1753, Les Troqueurs is at once a happy occasion and a frustrating one. For while we can rejoice at the chance to make the acquaintance of this charming little intermede, it also serves to remind us that there are an awful lot of French comic operas from the second half of the eighteenth century that remain unheard. This is repertory that is both interesting and important to the history of opera in general, and Les Troqueurs is the work that stands at its head, for following as it did on the heels of the influential Paris performances of Pergolesi's La serva padrona it was the first real attempt at a wholly French comic opera in the same modern, dramatically light-footed mould.

When I founded my ensemble Les Arts Florissants in 1979, I knew at once that I wanted the battle I was launching to make the baroque repertory popular again to be fought not only in the concert hall but also through that wonderful weapon of seduction, recordings.

Charpentier’s Médée is one of the glories of the Baroque. Medea’s betrayal by Jason, her comprehensive revenge and the plight of those caught up in this epic tragedy prompted Charpentier to compose music of devastating power. Transcending the constraints of the Lullian tragédie lyrique, he produced characterisations of astonishing complexity and invested vast stretches of music with a dramatic pace and a harmonic richness rivalled among contemporaries only by Purcell. The electrifying exchanges of the third act, mingling pathos with extreme violence, alone put Charpentier on the same imaginative level as Rameau and Berlioz. The machinations of the fourth act and the dénouement in the fifth maintain the same captivating impetus.

This is a disc of Christmas music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704), all the works written during the 1690s possibly for performance at the Jesuit church of Saint-Louis where the composer was Master of the Music. The wide variety of mood, colour and style underlines the extraordinary versatility and originality of this composer, upon whom Carissimi was the strongest influence during his student days in Rome in the 1660s. He was highly prolific (there are no less than 35 works in the oratorio style) and wrote a great deal of both moving and dramatic music.

This is a mixed bag, but it is a mixture of wonderful stuff put together with considerable expertise. Marc-Antoine Charpentier was a major composer of the French Baroque, served at the Sainte-Chappelle in Paris, and wrote much music of solemnity and grandeur, but was also principal composer for the Comedie Française where he wrote music of a lighter nature. What we get here is mainly the latter, more directly entertaining Charpentier, and we get it in the forms of airs serieux, which are refined songs intended for court circles, and airs a boire, in a more popular style.

Rodelinda is a tale of unrequited love steeped in jealousy, treachery and grief. Jean-Marie Villegier's stylish production of Rodelinda sets Handel's tale of royal exile and fidelity in this silent movie era. The composer's ravishing music is perfectly set off by the sophisticated glamour and visual daring that characterized the birth of cinema.

It figures that the ensemble most responsible for the French Baroque revival is the one to outdo Nelson and Kirkby's legendary recording of these lamentation settings. Sophie Daneman and Patricia Petibon don't have the earlier pair's gorgeous, distinctive voices (both occasionally wobble above the staff), but they sound plenty beautiful. More importantly, they've managed to make these major-key pieces sound like lamentations. Twenty years ago, Kirkby and Nelson were pioneers: merely singing with their white tone was risky; they couldn't take many chances with rhythmic freedom.

One of the supreme monuments of western sacred music, the Mass in B minor has been constantly reexamined by successive generations of performers. The questions it raises for musicologists and conductors are many and varied; each of them strives to give his or her own reading with the necessary humility. It was in this frame of mind that William Christie tackled the work in the course of a memorable tour in 2016.