At the time of Johann Kuhnau's succession to the post of Cantor of St.Thomas' Church, on the death of the previous incumbent, Johann Schelle, in March 1701, Georg Philipp Telemann's presence in Leipzig was not without irritation to the newly appointed Cantor. Although ostensibly a law student, Telemann's compositions had so impressed one of the city's Burgomasters that he was rewarded with a fortnightly commission for St.Thomas', to be accompanied by 'ample remuneration'. Perhaps noting Telemann's own observation of Kuhnau - 'his frail constitution leads one to expect his early death' - the council reassured the twenty-one year old student of his suitability for the post. Defying all predictions, however, they had to wait over twenty years for a similar opportunity. Kuhnau died on 5th June 1722. Telemann was by this time a musician of considerable repute, established in Hamburg. There were five initial applicants for the newly vacant post, including Telemann. The Leipzig council weren't going to let him slip the net a second time, and, after complying with his request to be exempted from teaching Latin, he was unanimously elected to the post. Whether Telemann gave serious consideration to the post or not remains unclear, but following the success of his petition to the Hamburg city council for a pay increase, he declined the position. After a second election in 1723, the Darmstadt court capellmeister Christoph Graupner was appointed, but when he failed to obtain release from his employer, Johann Sebastian Bach took his place. And so the two great composers' paths crossed; yet the different directions their lives would take was evident from early on: for Telemann the new galant style, for Bach the perfecting of his contrapunctal skills.... When Johann Sebastian Bach was appointed Kantor in 1723 to the church of St Thomas, Leipzig, he may have hoped to augment his salary by regular commissions for the composition of secular cantatas for special occasions. But in the event, his expectations were only partially realised. The few commissions Bach received were for royal occasions, such as birthdays, a royal visit to Leipzig by King August III of Poland, homages to University professors and weddings...

The idea is interesting on the face of it: the Duke of Ferrara, at his court in the late 16th century, maintained a "concerto segreto," secret concerts of three singers who also accompanied themselves on instruments. The three singers of La Néréide have performed a program based on this repertory, reproducing the original circumstances as far as possible. It is perhaps a trifle less effective on a recording, where they employ other instrumentalists for accompaniment, but this almost unknown repertory holds plenty of interest in itself. The music on the album is mostly by the melodiously named Luzzasco Luzzaschi, the Duke's court composer, with other works by his contemporary Luca Marenzio and the slightly later Claudio Monteverdi and Francesca Caccini (who makes the cut because her opera La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola di Alcina, the first opera by a woman, contains an excerpt calls "Le tre sirene"). This was progressive music for the time, including some of the sharp dissonances better known in the writing of Carlo Gesualdo and also the emerging texture in which melody was accompanied by a continuo. Thus, La Néréide captures the swirl of influences out of which early opera emerged, framing them in a vivid scene that will be unfamiliar, like the music in general, to most listeners. The three women have a strong sense of ensemble, and the engineering from the small Notre-Dame-des-Centeilles chapel suggests the music's original surroundings. A really interesting release for those fascinated by the late Renaissance. © James Manheim /TiVo

In the last two decades of the sixteenth century, Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, supported an extraordinary professional trio of women singers and instrumentalists and engaged some of the leading composers of the time to write for them. The trio, known as Concerto delle Dame di Ferrara, performed only music that had been written exclusively for them, and only privately, for the most scrupulously vetted audiences. Perhaps the group's most remarkable legacy is the effect its performances had on Carlo Gesualdo, who spent a year and a half working with it and who wrote that the group's influence radically altered his views on harmony. Most of the repertoire for the group has been lost, but two of the ensemble's composers, Luzzasco Luzzaschi and Ludovico Agostini, published collections of madrigals after the Duke's death, and this CD is made up largely of their work for one, two, or three voices, with instrumental accompaniment. The music is characterized by an intense expressivity, harmonic freedom, and, in some pieces, almost freakishly demanding ornamentation. At the same time, it's consistently lyrical and gratifyingly written for the voice. The sound of the two or three women's voices in gorgeously interwoven contrapuntal lines, the astonishing harmonies, and the florid embellishments give the music an immediate appeal; anyone who loves Gesualdo's madrigals will find much to savor here. The performances by the ensemble Doulce Mémoire, led by Denis Raisin-Dadre, are consistently top notch. Sopranos Véronique Bourin, Axelle Bernage, and Christel Boiron sing with tonal purity and warmth, a beautiful blend, and great passion, and they are ably accompanied by an ensemble consisting of lute, harp, gamba, and harpsichord. The sound is clear, clean, and intimate.© TiVo

When it comes to prosperity, Vivaldi got pretty lucky. Thanks to a succession of happy accidents, his personal collection of manuscripts has survived through the centuries, allowing his music to be preserved, then later played and recorded. The contralto Delphine Galou and Ottavio Dantone, the director of the Accademia Bizantina, drew from this priceless batch of nearly 450 compositions to develop the program for this album of sacred music pieces dedicated to the alto voice.This new recording of the Vivaldi Edition, begun by NAÏVE many years ago, offers cantatas and arias for viola, functioning as perfect companions for the album of works sung by the same Delphine Galou. The lyrics, often by unknown authors, do not have a strong literary interest. Here, we find a pastoral world populated by shepherds in need of love as well as cruel and fickle nymphs, obeying the cannon of the time.Vivaldi takes advantage of these stereotypical characters to vary his expressive palette in a very subtle way and introduce the operatic style into works primarily intended for living rooms. The exceptional quality of his music generally transcends the commissioned work he is obliged to do, both in Mantua and Venice. These cantatas are accompanied here by some arias from his many operas. They allow Delphine Galou to fully express the variety and range of her singing through the pathetism of Liquore ingrato (Tito Manlio), the sweetness of "Andrò fida e sconsolata" of the same opera or the innocent grace of a childish song in the aria "È pure dolce ad un'anima amante" (Il Giustino). © François Hudry/Qobuz

This re-release of an album recorded in 2003 and for a long, long time unavailable on the market - sometimes it can be found on sale for eye-watering sums - is the vision supplied by Philippe Jaroussky and the musicians of the Artaserse ensemble, of the 14 concert airs (and what airs!) written by Benedetto Ferrari (1603-1681). While he is not very well known today, Ferrari was a great star in his day, and one might well suspect that the final duet from L'incoronazione di Poppea, signed by Monteverdi - the extraordinarily moving Pur ti miro, pur ti godo  - might well have been written by Ferrari. Alas, none of his own operas have survived, but we still know three books of airs by Ferrari: the Musiche varie a voce sola (published in Venice in 1633, 1637 and 1641), from which Jaroussky has made this judicious selection. If the musical differences between the airs do not necessarily jump out at the listener at first, no-one can deny the virtuosity of the young Jaroussky on display here - he was 25 years old at the time, and he had not yet won the numerous awards which would propel his career onwards, starting with the 2004 "Victoire de la Musique".  But it was all already there... © SM/Qobuz

Competition between composers was fierce and ruthless in the princely courts of 18th century Europe, and Mozart was just one of many. This new album from Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko serves as the perfect reminder of this, dedicated to Mozart’s famous arias (The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Clemency of Titus) but also including works by Traetta, Martín y Soler and Paisiello, which are equally as masterful. The three excerpts from Tommaso Traetta’s Antigone which derived from Neapolitan opera and was composed for the court of Catherine II of Russia, are a testament to the passion that motivated composers from this period. His melodic phrases are full of tenderness and affliction and they certainly did not go unnoticed by the young Mozart. Paisiello and Martín y Soler were also both very successful in their time and completely eclipsed Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro, which only really gained popularity in Prague and was the reason why he was asked by the Czech capital to compose Don Giovanni. Even if Mozart’s contemporaries were tough on him, his unique genius has been recognised overtime and his extraordinary legacy has overshadowed all those of other great composers from his time. This album provides an enthralling replica of his music, featuring top-class performer Olga Peretyatko alongside the Basel Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ivor Bolton. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Handel's Serse (1738), about romantic intrigues at the court of the Persian king Xerxes, bombed at its first performances and wasn't revived until the 20th century. Serse, sung here by mezzo-soprano Emily D'Angelo (it was originally a castrato role), gets an imposing entrance aria, the famous "Ombra mai fu," but much of the opera is comic, and the mixture of elements flummoxed 18th century hearers, including the critic Charles Burney. Audiences wanted big tripartite da capo arias and serious Greek themes, but instead, what they got, were brief one-section arias that flashed by and various bits of coquetry and satire that originated in Italian comic traditions and looked forward to Mozartian opera buffa. Nowadays, the opera is one of Handel's more popular, and its structure fits the talents on this recording perfectly. It is hard to decide which is more of a draw, the crisp conducting of Harry Bicket, leading the venerable English Concert and keeping the proceedings moving along as Handel intended, or the singing from a veritable all-star cast, at least among the women (there are no countertenors). D'Angelo is glorious, and Mary Bevan is equally good as the flirt Atalanta. The smaller roles are strong, too, and really, there is not a weakness to be found. A very strong Handel opera recording. © James Manheim /TiVo

This is a Barbiere "di qualità, di qualità": in fact, of very great quality indeed, from Deutsche Grammophon. Recorded in London in the summer of 1971, it is one of the first meetings of Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra. It is also the first of Alberto Zedda's philological editions of Rossini's works, whose scores have been covered over by inherited errors for over a century. Getting rid of the additions which have, quite wrongly, become traditional, means restoring certain interruptions and the fine instrumentation of the period; and above all, singing and playing without exaggerations, thanks to an innate sense for the theatre. It's a spot of spring cleaning which has restored the youth of the 24-year-old composer's masterpiece. Bravo, signor barbiere, ma bravo! It is a dream record, with singers who are well-versed in the repertoire. Everyone is right where they need to be, from Teresa Berganza's wiley and cheeky Rosina, to the refined and hard-working Figaro played by Hermann Prey, via Luigi Alva's frivolous Count and the utterly ridiculous Basilio played by the outrageous Paolo Montarsolo. We're amused by their antics, as we admire the well-oiled and unstoppable machine of Rossini's theatre, under the unceasingly inventive and thrilling baton of Claudio Abbado. © François Hudry/Qobuz

This new recording in the Edition Vivaldi series – the first of two volumes dedicated to Vivaldi’s "cantate da camera" for soprano – displays the energetic vitality with which a new generation of artists in their thirties is encountering the baroque repertoire. This sixty-eighth album of the Edition highlights the expressively powerful voice of the soloist, soprano Arianna Vendittelli, already heard in the operas Il Tamerlano (2020) and Il Giustino (2018) conducted by Ottavio Dantone, as well as the artistic vision and high standards of the harpsichordist, organist and conductor Andrea Buccarella, who in 2018 carried off the first prize at the Bruges International Early Music Competition with his Abchordis Ensemble. In these six cantatas – of around thirty attributed to the Venetian master and composed between 1718 and the mid 1730s – these artists display their enhanced vocal and instrumental artistry, and a profound understanding of Vivaldi’s scores. No subtlety escapes these artists in their interpretation of this secular vocal genre, so fashionable during the 18th century, and still being rediscovered today, with its alternating arias and recitatives.