Tomaso Albinoni Adagio in G Minor

London Baroque offers another installment in its ongoing European Trio Sonata series, this time devoted to 18th-century Italy; as with the ensemble’s previous efforts the program features generally excellent performances of lesser-known repertoire. Ten years ago I reviewed a similar 18th-century Italian program by this same group titled “Stravaganze Napoletane”, also on BIS, and was generally impressed with the performances–except for one piece: Domenico Gallo’s Sonata No. 1 in G major.

The London Virtuosi use modern instruments, but their playing is fresh and refined and the digital recording is natural and beautifully balanced. The calibre of Anthony Camden’s solo contribution is readily shown in slow movements, matched by Georgiadis’s rapt, sensitive accompaniments. On the first disc Camden’s excellent colleague is Julia Girdwood, but for the two other collections Alison Alty takes over, and the partnership seems even more felicitous, with the two instruments blended quite perfectly. Also included is a Sinfonia arranged by Camden a Sinfonia concertante. This series can be strongly recommended on all counts.

This is a fine recording of the complete set of concertos for strings with solo violin and harpsichord by Tomaso Albinoni, performed by I Solisti Veneti directed by Claudio Scimone. Albinoni was a contemporary of the better-known Antonio Vivaldi and wrote concertos in a similar style. String instruments much as we know them today were developed in Cremona in the 17th and 18th centuries by three families in particular - Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari - to replace the viols that had been used in the previous centuries. As a result there were several composers, in Italy especially but also elsewhere in Europe, who composed works for these exciting new-sounding instruments.

Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706), Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751), Francesco Maria Veracini (1690-1768), Alessandro Marcello (1684-1750), Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770).

An ensemble that attracts rave reviews and sell-out crowds at prestigious venues everywhere from Vienna to New York, the sensational SIGNUM Saxophone Quartet present their first Deutsche Grammophon album. Featuring inventive arrangements of music by composers from Dowland to Peter Gregson, as well as Guillermo Lago's "Sarajevo," a sax quartet original.

At a simply unbeatable price, Meditation offers ten CDs worth of intimate instrumental favorites by classical masters. These timeless melodies are a soothing, soul-satisfying balm for our hectic, harried lives. Sail away with Pachelbel's Canon, Albinoni's Adagio, Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata, Debussy's "Clair de lune," and Brahms's Lullaby, as well as melting masterworks by Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and many others.

The English, historical-instrument, Baroque ensemble La Serenissima (the term was a nickname for the city of Venice) has specialized in somewhat scholarly recordings that nevertheless retain considerable general appeal, and the group does it again with this release. The program offers some lesser-known composers, and some lesser-known pieces by famous composers like the tiny and fascinating Concerto alla rustica for two oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo, RV 151. What ties the program together formally is that it covers a range of Italian cities that were becoming cultural centers as they declined in political power: not only Venice (Vivaldi, Albinoni, Caldara), but also Padua (Tartini), Bologna (Torelli), and Rome (Corelli). There are several works by composers known only for one or two big hits, and these are especially rewarding. Sample the opening movement of Tartini's Violin Concerto E major, DS 51, with its unusual phrase construction and daringly chromatic cadenza passage: it has the exotic quality for which Tartini became famous, but it does not rely on sheer virtuosity. That work is played by leader Adrian Chandler himself, but he also chooses pieces for a large variety of other solo instruments: the Italian Baroque was about more than the violin. Each work on the album has something to recommend it, and collectively the performances may make up the best album of 2017 whose booklet includes footnotes.