Albinoni: Complete Oboe Concertos

String instruments and especially the violin demanded a key position in Baroque music particularly in Italy. Like many of his contemporaries Tomaso Albinoni composed a large number of pieces for string ensemble and many concertos for the violin. With his concertos for one and two oboes Albinoni more or less introduced a new genre. He did not copy Vivaldi’s violin concerto form but for both form and style drew on his vast experience as an opera composer. Most entertaining Baroque music elegantly performed by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra under Nicol Matt, with Stefan Schilli, oboe, and Tanja Becker-Bender, violin.

During the 1990s, Collegium Musicum 90 and Simon Standage released several volumes of Albinoni concertos, which proved popular with critics and public alike. The concertos were released as discs of single oboe concertos, double oboe concertos, and string concertos. In this re-issue on the Chaconne label, the concertos are presented in opus number order, showing the contrasting colours and tonalities of the concertos as they originally appeared.

Bob van Asperen (born 8 October 1947 in Amsterdam) is a Dutch harpsichordist and early keyboard instrument performer, as well as a conductor. He graduated in 1971 from the Amsterdam Conservatory, where he studied the harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt and the pipe organ with Albert de Klerk. Since then he has been performing extensively in Europe and the rest of the world, both as a soloist and as an accompanist/conductor.

During the summer of 1989, oboists Alfredo Bernardini and Paolo Grazzi together with bassoonist Alberto Grazzi founded Zefiro, a versatile ensemble specialized in 18th century music predominantly featuring wind instruments. Zefiro soon made a name for itself worldwide, and to celebrate its thirty years of activity Arcana is releasing an elegant 10-CD set of their complete recordings of baroque music. From the ensemble’s first disc (Sonatas by Zelenka - Grand Prix du Disque), the compilation alternates recordings of repertoire composers and pieces that have become absolute points of reference, such as the Vivaldi Bassoon Concertos, Handel’s Fireworks (Diapason d’or de l’année 2009) or the Bach Overtures (judged by Gramaphone to be one of the 50 best Bach recordings of all time).

For consistently amiable, if undemanding entertainment, Albinoni’s concertos, with or without oboe, or oboes, are hard to beat. Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music here perform the 12 concertos contained in the collection published in 1722 as the composer’s Op. 9.

On 100 discs (99 CD & 1 DVD), this box presents the complete oeuvre of Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert on Archiv Produktion. Purcell, Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Haydn and Mozart are the focus of the repertoire. Numerous recordings such as the Brandenburg Concertos, Corelli's Concerti Grossi or the symphonies of William Boyce are among the milestones of recording history. A Bach album from the ensemble's early days is released for the first time on CD, as well as the never-published Dead March from Handel's "Saul". A 184-page booklet with essays by Trevor Pinnock and Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, the director of the Royal Academy of Music, as well as numerous photos and documents complete the extensive portrait.

Michala Petri war und ist das weibliche Gesicht der Blockflötenrenaissance. Die sympathische Dänin brillierte nicht nur virtuos im barocken Hit-Repertoire, wie ihre furiose Version von Vivaldis "Vier Jahreszeiten" eindrucksvoll belegt. Ihr unverwechselbarer, warmer Klang machte auch weniger bekannte Bach- und Händel-Sonaten mit Jazz-Legende Keith Jarrett zu einem Hörereignis. Auf diesen insgesamt 17 CDs, die zwischen 1987 und 2001 entstanden sind und die hier erstmals komplett erscheinen, zeigt sich das Können der ECHO Klassik-Preisträgerin bei einem immensen Repertoire von Bach und Telemann bis zu Raritäten von Grieg, zeitgenössischen, melodiösen Kompositionen, einem faszinierenden Weihnachtsalbum und herrlich-nostalgischen Piecen von Fritz Kreisler.

For several decades beginning in the 1950's I Musici was the leading ensemble specializing in Italian Baroque music, and their performances were standard-setting in their time. Their recordings still hold up exceptionally well even though approaches to early music, driven by the period instrument revolution, have changed somewhat since then.

Limited 96 CD set. Conductor, pianist, composer and media personality, André Previn excelled in a diversity of musical genres and idioms. A child prodigy in his native Berlin, he moved to the USA in 1939 and made his early career in Hollywood, winning four Academy Awards. His time as Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (1968-1979) established him as a major interpreter of symphonic repertoire, particularly Russian, French and British music - "The very definition of good conducting," wrote Gramophone of his celebrated LSO version of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.