In the time of Jean-Marie Leclair (1697-1764), it was common practice to substitute instruments specified in a work with others, often from different instrument families, based upon what was available. This is still done frequently today with music of this time, although the reason for the...

A conspicuous gap in the run of “Complete Editions” on CD is one for Georg Friderick Handel. Publishing such an edition must always be a tricky business. If something “new” is discovered after your complete edition is released, it becomes “well, sort of”. In...

This is the third release in a series of recordings from ATMA Classique highlighting the chamber sonatas of German composer Johann Gottlieb Janitsch (1708-1763). As in previous issues, the excellent performances are by the Montreal-based Notturna ensemble, a group who dedicates itself to the...

Wolfgang Adam Anton Hoffer may well be the most obscure composer we have ever featured here on Expedition Audio. That’s saying a lot. When I search the internet for his name, the only relative results that I get have to do with this disc. The album is from the New Classical Adventures...

Referred to by some admirers as “the Polish Handel,” Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki (1665-1734) was the most important composer of the Polish high baroque. This release from CD Accord - all class, inside and out - contains the world premiere recordings of his Missa Rorate,...

Carl Heinrich Graun (1703-1759) is another enormously gifted composer whose music has been thoroughly eclipsed by that of great and like-sounding contemporaries. In Graun’s case, it’s Bach and Handel. Best known in his day as a composer of opera, Graun also produced a relatively...

Henry Purcell (1659-1695) was the last great English composer before the twentieth century. The program on this Ricercar CD performed by Lionel Meunier and Vox Luminis offers some of Purcell’s most profound utterances, along with exquisite music by Thomas Morley (1557-1602) and Thomas...

It’s striking how much this Passion by Homilius sounds like the passions and oratorios of J.S. Bach at times, especially in the choruses, but also in the recitatives. This new recording of the St. Mark Passion HoWV I.10 by Gottfried August Homilius (1714-1785) is an important release...

Entire programs of the harpsichord music of Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer have been recorded by such illustrious harpsichordists as Christophe Rousset and William Christie on the L’Oiseau Lyre and Harmonia Mundi labels respectively - but neither are currently available. Just issued...

On this beautiful Rondeau CD, we hear Dietrich Buxtehude’s exquisite cantata cycle Membra Jesu Nosti. Under the direction of Jörg Breiding, the performances are by the Himlische Cantorey, Barockensemble L’Arco and Knabenchor Hannover. Although this work by Buxtehude (1637-1707)...

German baroque composer Johann Rosenmüller (1617-1684) spent the first half of his adult life in Leipzig. He spent the rest of his life in Italy after being imprisoned on charges of homosexuality, jailed, and subsequently absconding to Venice. Considered by some scholars to be “the...

Lord Gallaway’s Delight from Alpha Productions is, as the album’s subtitle states “An Excellent Collection of Dances & Gaelic Laments” as performed by the early music ensemble Les Witches with guest Irish harpist Siobhán Armstrong. The music is drawn from various...