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The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin continue their Handel trilogy with this recording of the last six concerti grossi of the composer’s Op. 6. Originally designed as attractive interludes to English oratorio performances, Handel’s concerti grossi soon gained fame as some of the most appealing orchestral music of the baroque era. With these pieces, written in London towards the end of his career, Handel paid tribute to the immensely popular concerti grossi of Corelli while simultaneously proving his mastery, incorporating all musical styles of his times into his work. The players of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, led by their concertmaster Bernhard Forck, demonstrate why many consider them the best baroque ensemble of today. The concerti grossi Op. 6 are concluded with this second instalment, and a recording of the concerti grossi Op. 3 will complete the trilogy.The ensemble’s first PENTATONE album, Cantata (2018) with countertenor Bejun Mehta, won a Diapason d’or. Their 2019 recording of the first six Op. 6 concerti grossi was hailed as “immaculately played … free of fashionable eccentricities” by The Sunday Times, while Klassik praised the ensemble’s playing as “eloquent”.

Another chapter in the rediscovery of an 18th-century master by Brilliant Classics. While the music of this Rimini-born violinist, composer and publisher has been excerpted and recorded on several albums, Brilliant Classics is assembling a uniquely comprehensive overview of a figure much esteemed in his lifetime for music that sparkles like the Venetian lagoons, yet has been almost completely forgotten until recently.

Shostakovich was still a young composer when he was hired to provide incidental music for The Bedbug, a surreal and farcical satire on Communist utopian dreams and bourgeois corruption and vulgarity. He produced a terrifically knockabout score that draws on local firemans bands and American dance music. Illustrated by Shostakovichs powerful middle-period music, Love and Hate is a film about female fortitude set in a mining village during the 1919 Civil War. The innovative score, newly reconstructed by Mark Fitz-Gerald from rough piano sketches and the 1935 soundtrack, combines symphonic sections with popular songs.

The only available complete recording, newly made by a stylish Italian early-music ensemble, of a landmark collection of Baroque chamber music.

Salvatore Lanzetti was born in Naples around 1710 and died perhaps in Turin around 1780. A pupil of the Conservatory of S. Maria di Loreto in Naples, he was a cellist and composer active first in Lucca, where he played with Francesco M. Veracini, and then at Turin court in 1727/28, and from 1760 to his death. He was in London between 1939 and 1954 or 1956, and also played in Sicily, France and Germany. He is considered one of the first great cello virtuosos. He published five collections of sonatas for cello and Basso Continuo (but op. 2 is nothing more than a London edition with five sonatas taken from the 12 of op. 1 plus an

Ruhadze plays Geminiani: the latest volume in a revelatory project breathing new life into the founding figures of the Italian violin school of the 18th century.

Depuis une trentaine d’années maintenant, le claveciniste, fortepianiste puis chef d’orchestre italien Ottavio Dantone (*1960) explore le monde infini d’un répertoire allant de la Renaissance jusqu’au début du XIXe siècle, toujours sur les instruments des époques qui ont vu naître les œuvres en question. En 1989 déjà, il avait commencé à travailler avec la désormais fameuse Accademia Bizantina – basée non pas à Byzance mais à Ravenne –, avant d’en devenir le directeur musical en 1996.

Christoph Hammer Conductor and fortepianist/harpsichordist Hammer creates historically informed performances, often highlighting lesser-known composers.