England produced few remarkable composers for a period of several hundred years. For virtually all of the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras, the country had to wait until the time of Britten, Vaughan Williams and Elgar in the early 20th century to boast their own true greatness. However, if...

The Birth of the Violin explores the earliest repertoire for the emerging ‘vyolon’ during the first half of the sixteenth century. On this Ricecar album, both sacred and secular examples are presented, in polyphonic settings of three and four parts, or with the violin appearing as...

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...