Rachel Podger

Some of the connections with Venice may be a little tenuous, and this particular Winged Lion even circles over Spain clutching a Venetian guitar. The Palladian Ensemble's debut disc was called An Excess of Pleasure; the sequal offers nothing less! From two gutsy Vivaldi concertos via the dashing caprice of Santiago de Murcia's La Jota to a canzon by Cavalli which discharges itself in a haunting echo of Monteverdi's Lamento della Ninfa, the programme continually surprises and enchants. The playing too.

Gary Cooper is one of our foremost performers on the fortepiano, well-known for his wonderful series of Mozart Violin Sonata discs with Rachel Podger…

I’ve become increasingly fond of Aapo Häkkinen’s recording of the Goldberg Variations since reviewing it in 2009, and I was therefore more than happy to see his name appearing against some further favourite repertoire. Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concerts were written and published when his reputation as a composer of opera was already well established, and the nature of the music follows patterns which might relate to Couperin’s Concerts royaux and composers such as Mondonville.