Michel de la Barre - Flute Suites - Nancy Hadden with Lucy Carolan, Erin Headley

Considered the best French flautist of his time, Michel de la Barre (c 1675 - 1754) has endeavoured to elevate his instrument and bring it to perfection much as Marin Marais did for viola da gamba. The composer stated this intent himself in the preface to his first book of solo flute suites (which can also boast the first information in print about slurring and ornamentation on the transverse flute). Indeed, the overwhelming majority of his musical output belongs to flute music and it is a known fact that he helped to make this instrument one of the most fashionable of the time and establihed the style that later flourished in the hands of Jacques Hotteterre le Romain and other French flute composers.

It is a pity that this music is so sparsely recorded, for it is full of sweet charm and that measured, well-balanced sensitivity and reserved sensuality which is characteristic of the best in French baroque. This disc contains pieces from different flute books by de la Barre - in later ones he began to call his suites sonatas as was the Italianate fashion of the time.

On the cover is the group portrait of French musicians (by Robert Tournières or François de Troy) where the man with the flute is thought to be de la Barre himself.

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European Baroque Guitar Music (Rome-Paris-Madrid) - Bartolotti, Granata, Corbetta, de Visee, Sanz, Guerau - Pierre Pitzl

The concept behind this album is to showcase the work of best baroque guitar composers in the period when this new instrument swept across Europe and conquered it along with its kings - that is the second half of the 17 C. The composers chosen for this task are Michelangelo Bartolotti, Giovanni Battista Granata (who answer for Rome), Francesco Corbetta (an international star of Italian origin) and his pupil Robert de Visee (Paris), and Francisco Guerau with Gaspar Sanz for Madrid. 
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Il Bestiario di Leonardo - Animals in Renaissance Music - Renata Fusco, Massimo Lonardi

Just what the title says - this is an album of instrumental and vocal pieces by known and mostly unknown Renaissance composers devoted to different animals, from swan and lion to basilisk and dragon (and even the turbulent relationship of dog and flea).
Composers: Barbetta, Capirola, Arcadelt, Attaignant, Scoto, da Milano, Lando, da Lodi, Gorzanis, Horatio Vecchi, Donato and various anonimous.

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Henri Hardouin - Complete Four-Part a cappella Masses Vol. 1

Technically the oeuvre of Henri Hardouin (1727-1808) falls outside the baroque period but the antiquated style he practiced has no place within the classical idiom. Unaccompanied masses he wrote were rare for baroque as well - however stile antico was a known phenomenon and had its practitioners and audience, mostly in the provincial chruch. And Rheims Cathedral where Hardouin worked, despite its symbolic importance for the French crown was such a provincial place.
Of course the unaccompanied choral music in stile antico  wasn't identical with the Renaissance polyphony that was its ideal - rather it was a combnation of polyphonic and homophonic elements taken from the baroque idiom. This is also the case with Hardouin: "like most stile antico composers, he abandons strict countepoint once all the voices have entered and moves toward a more homophonic style"(booklet). The overall effect of this music which may have appeared anachronistic in its time is surprisingly modern and rather reminds one of modern composers' experiments with Renaissance idioms.

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Johann Kuhnau - Neuer Clavier-Ubung, Vol. 1 - Gabriele Micheli

Most known as the last Thomaskantor in Leipzig before Bach, Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722) was a man of many talents - composer, harpsichordist, theorist, writer and lawyer. As was later said of him, he "displayed an element of medieval universality and mastered music, law, theology, rhetoric, poetry, mathematics and foreign languages’ (Schering, 1926). "Scheibe put him alongside Handel, Keiser and Telemann as one of the major German composers before Hasse and the Grauns, and Mattheson, paying equal tribute to his musicianship and his erudition, claimed never to have known his like as composer, organist, chorus director and scholar. Among his pupils were such great figures as Fasch, Heinichen and Graupner.
Kuhnau's surviving music belongs to two categories: keyboard music, nearly all published by 1700, and sacred music, mostly cantatas and all of it unpublished. His secular vocal works are all lost. The Neue Clavier-Übung the first part of which (the one in major keys) is presented on this CD strongly influenced keyboard music of the time. As the title suggests, these compositions were meant primarily for his pupils, as exercises for very advanced practitioners.

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John Johnson - Lute Music - Christopher Wilson, Shirley Rumsey

John Johnson (c 1550-1594) can be regarded as the founder of of the school of English Golden Age lute. His works can be found in manuscripts all over Europe, though for the most part anonymously, and the only other English lute composer to surpass him was Dowland.
Johnson's style is a natural amalgam of the Italian style prevailing in his day and native preferences and pecularities, as such it's more idiomatic than original. Indeed, his compostions were so often used for variations, improvisations and imitations that the first composer's name got often lost in the process.

"His works show the English taste for cross-relations, surprising harmonic and tonal relationships and, above all, variation. Indeed, without exception, all his compositions include some form of variation procedure and often more than one kind at a time; variation techniques range from an entire piece being based on a single motif, to the varied reprise, to discanting on English and Italian grounds, to variations of popular tunes such as Walsingham and Carman’s Whistle. He is now best known, especially among lutenists, for his treble variations of grounds and duets for equal lutes." (Grove)

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Giovan Battista Ferrini - Opere per Clavicembalo - Roberto Loreggian

A native of Florence, Giovan Battista Ferrini (c 1601-1674) also called "Giovanni della spinetta" is known as a Roman musician where he worked in different church establishements. He may be considered  as one of the more interesting Italian keyboad composers of the generation between Frescobaldi and Bernardo Pasquini, his main fault being that he left no printed works. Although he served as an organist as well, most of his "tabulatures" existing in manuscripts are thought to be written for the harpsichord or, indeed, spinet. These compositions fall into three categories - free improvisations (toccatas and tastate), dances and partitas on airs popular at the time.

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Francesco Mancini - Recorder Sonatas - Ensemble Tripla Concordia

The first half of this Brilliant edition I present here contains  recorder sonatas No 2-5, 7, 9, 11, 12  written by Neapolitan composer Francesco Mancini (1672-1737). During his lifetime Mancini was somewhat overshadowed by Alessandro Scarlatti and Gaetano Veneziano, however he was well known throughout Europe as a prolific writer of operas, canatats and oratorios. Writing instrumental music came in very much second for him - maybe that's why it sounds so fresh and unusual. The fast movements have almost rock drive, or as the Grove says more scientifically "the peculiarity of his instrumental writing can be seen in his sonatas, for example the rich harmonies accompanying the melodies and the contrapuntalism of the second movements, which are often almost proper fugues".

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Mathurin Forestier - Missa Baises Moy, Missa L'Homme Arme - Chicago a cappella

The only known fact about Mathurin Forestier (c. 1500-1535) is that there indeed had been a composer under this name - at least there are extant manuscripts with his supposed works. I say supposed because out of the two masses recorded on this disc one has been attributed also to Josquin Desprez (Baises Moy, based on the latters' chanson by the same name) and the other - L'Homme Arme - to Jean Mouton. At any rate, it is an honour for a composer to be confused with either of those two. Grove article below.
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Joan Baptista (Juan Bautista) Comes - Lamentationes Jeremiæ Prophetæ - Victoria Musicae

Juan Bautista - or Joan Baptista in Catalan - Comes was born around 1582 in Valencia and is considered among the greatest Catalan composers. His talents were recognized beyound his province borders also and in 1618 he was appointed a vicemaestro of the royal chapel in Madrid. However, unlike many an ambitious musuician he didn't appreciate the life in the capital and hankered to return to his home town - which he eventually did. Valencia repaid for his loyalty with money and honours.
The Lamentations of Jeremiah presented here sound very much in vein of the early baroque - that transitional Monteverdi-style which seemed to linger longer in Spain than it did in Italy - and France which leapt from Renaissance polyphony almost straight to its beloved grand motet. Personally I'm very partial to it - it retains all the spirituality and therapeutic harmony of the Renaissance polyphony while being easier to understand for our major-minor trained ear.
Below the cut is the Grove dictionary article on the composer.
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La Belle Danse (Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marin Marais, Muffat, Praetorius, Brade, Luigi Rossi) - Capriccio Stravagante, 24 Violons du Roy, Sempe

This anniversary album for Skip Sempe and his Capriccio Stravagante probably brings nothing essentially new - however, for me as a Lullyste it was of interest, particulary due to new recordings of the Superintendent's ouvertures. As Sempe stated in his interview, these ouvertures were all meant to convey different emotions and should therefore sound different. He did indeed make them different - not only from each other, but from other recordings of them too. Some of these experiments sound more curious than convincing (like the ouverture from Roland), but on the whole I rather liked the effect. The album also contains the most lyrical rendition of the passacaille from Armide I've ever heard (at least the first part of it) - even though lyricism wasn't quite Lully's forte here one may rather start to wonder whether it is indeed true.
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Jean-Baptiste Masse - Sonatas for two cellos, Book II - Brandywine Baroque

Jean-Baptiste Masse is one of those unfortunates who's been passed by even the Grove dictionary (and completely undeserved too). True, there is not much known about his life. The tentative dates of his birth and death are inferred indirectly from the publishing dates of his oevre and the payroll of Comédie Française where he worked in the orchestra. He was also a member of 24 Violons du Roy and hence among the most professional and best paid musicians in the kingdom.

France was known for its strong gamba school so the cello had to compete for the place of the main bass string instrument for quite some time. Masse is considered to be the first French composer to write for solo cello, although he did indicate that it could be replaced with gamba or even bassoon.

The second book presented here was dedicated to Monsieur Gaudion de le Grange, councillor to the Parliament and apparently the composer's patron. The fragments from the first book, dedicated in turn to the colleagues from Comédie Française can be found on the album Les Prétentions du Violoncelle recorded by Ricercar Consort.
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