Alte Musik Koln

The violin virtuoso Heinrich Anton Hoffmann (1770-1842) was a member of the Kurmainzer Hofkapelle until 1799. Later he moved to Frankfurt, where he became concertmaster of the theatre orchestra and vice music director. His string quartets Op.3 (1795) astound with their modernity, which despite their proximity to the models of the Viennese Classical period already show the style of later decades. They are characterised by formal variability and harmonic flexibility with a special preference for chromaticism. The Ensemble Alte Musik Koln, playing on historical instruments, lets us discover this amazing Beethoven contemporary.

A marvelous treatment of Pachelbel's lesser known works with a definitive performance of the all-too famous Canon. Too many interpreters of the Canon use the wrong tempo for this work, too slow and sentimental. This group does not and they have made it possible to listen to this work without gagging. They also do a wonderful job of presenting Buxtehude's chamber music. This composer is too often associated with ponderous Baroque organ music.

This is an excellent and varied selection of composers from the very well known like Palestrina, Monteverdi, Bach and Vivaldi, through the less famous but familiar like Frescobaldi, Sainte-Colombe and Zelenka, to the downright obscure. It is all delightful: the musicians are uniformly excellent, and include such great names as Gustav Leonhardt, Cantus Colln, Christopher Hogwood and so on. They give fine performances both of the familiar works and of the less familiar ones. Obviously there will be discs you like more than others and you may already have favourite versions of some works, but these discs are never less than very good and are often outstanding.

This luxurious set containing 39 CDs, 3 DVDs, 1 CD-Rom and four detailed booklets will tell you the full story of Baroque opera in Italy, France, England, and Germany. No fewer than 17 complete operas (including two on DVD) and two supplementary CDs (the dawn of opera, Overtures for the Hamburg Opera) provide the most comprehensive overview of the genre ever attempted! The finest performers are assembled here under the direction of René Jacobs and William Christie to offer you 47 hours of music. An opportunity to discover or to hear again the masterpieces of Baroque opera, some of which have been unavailable on CD for many years.