Vivaldi 12 Sonatas

The Camerata Köln is a Cologne-based chamber ensemble devoted largely to early music, with a special focus on woodwind compositions. The group's repertory includes concertos, quartets, quintets, sonatas, and other works mainly from the post-Renaissance era and reaching into the Classical period. The group concertizes regularly in Germany and most parts of Europe and has made numerous tours of the Americas and other parts of the globe. By 2006, it had made well over 50 recordings…

This disc includes five works which in the Vivaldi catalogue are ranked among the concerti con molti stromenti. This can be explained by the fact that various instruments have solo episodes, especially the violins and pairs of oboes and horns. The title could suggest that these concertos were specifically written for the court orchestra in Dresden, but that is not the case. What we get here are rather concertos which the star violinist of the Dresden orchestra, Johann Georg Pisendel, collected over the years and adapted for performance in Dresden. (Johan van Veen)

World premiere recording of violin and cello sonatas by Albinoni, Bigaglia, Caldara, Gentili, and Reali. Scaramuccia Ensemble.

Jed Wentz began his career as a virtuoso flutist but gradually turned to conducting. He founded the early music ensemble Musica ad Rhenum (Music on the Rhine) and has appeared as soloist or conductor with them in numerous concerts throughout the world. Wentz has hardly abandoned the flute though or its early music counterparts like the traverso but he has, since the 1990s, focused more on the conducting side of his career and devoted much time as well to the understanding and implementation of historically informed music practices.

Grammy Award-winner Alex Klein, former principal oboist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, performs sonatas that signify the oboe’s 20th-century reemergence as a brilliant solo instrument. One of the world’s most famous oboe players, Klein says he waited to acquire a professional lifetime’s worth of experience before putting his stamp on the six sonatas heard here.

The revival of the viola d'amore as an instrument distinct and separate from the viola is a well-established phenomenon, advanced by composers and performers alike at least since the 1920s. That doesn't mean, however, that there are a great many players of the viola d'amore around, nor are there nearly as many viola d'amores in existence to play, at least in a quantity relative to the number of violas that are out there.

In this extensive 50-disc set, Brilliant Classics presents 500 years of organ music. The pieces presented here offer a survey of diversity, value, and historical importance. The first portion of the set is devoted to pieces from the early period. Groundbreaking organ composers such as Cavazzoni and De Macque, who developed the capriccio and canzon forms and composed complex counterparts to the periods vocal music, are featured here. The Baroque and Classical eras are represented in this set by the likes of powerhouse composers Mozart, J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Handel, Telemann, and Haydn.