Legend of Suheldev: The King Who Saved India

In 1601, English composer Thomas Morley published a volume of madrigals called The Triumphs of Oriana. The music was intended to honor the aging Queen Elizabeth I, referred to as Oriana for reasons about which historians disagree (one version of the story is given in the detailed and informative notes by Thomas Elias). Each madrigal concluded with some variant of the couplet "Then sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana/Long live fair Oriana," allowing the composer (there were 23 different ones for the 25 pieces) to strut his polyphonic stuff at the end of the song.

It would be hard to find a more pleasing version of The Four Seasons than this one, done in period style with a superb blend of the instruments, making the music spring to life without any striving after effects. Any number of passages illustrate this, but the first movement of Summer with its repeated notes on the solo violin rising through different chords shows the beauty of this unvarnished approach. At a steady tempo, the sheer beauty of the writing emerges, utterly suited to the violin, whose sounds are a source of endless fascination.