Trevor

Written in 1724, just after Giulio Cesare and just before Rodelinda, Tamerlano comes from one of the most fruitful periods of Handel’s career, full of compelling inspiration, yet it has been relatively neglected on disc. This Avie recording was made live at Sadler’s Wells in London in collaboration with the BBC in June 2001, marking a welcome return to disc of Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert. The result is delicate on a smallish scale, less sharply focused than Pinnock’s Archiv recordings, but with unerring judgement on style and pacing.

A Grand Concert of Music a rich English Baroque programme including a violin concerto (by Geminiani) and a keyboard concerto by Arne, featuring respectively Simon Standage and Trevor himself.

A superb recording of Haydn's Saint Nicholas Mass on period instruments by Trevor Pinnock conducting the English Concert. One needn't be an expert in Haydn or in classical vocal music to enjoy the brilliant clarity of the orchestra or the fecundity of Haydn's writing, and the soloists–Nancy Argenta, Catherine Robbin, Michael Schade, and Alastair Miles–are perfect. The Theresienmesse, a mass in B flat minor, is also featured on this disc.

The three orchestral suites on this disc afford splendid examples of Telemann's seemingly inexhaustible invention in this sphere. The best-known of the suites is that in C major for three oboes, bassoon and strings. It's one of countless pieces that demonstrate Telemann's sympathy for and knowledge of the oboe. The movements are effectively contrasted with the composer juxtaposing for example a vigorous Bourree en trompette with a drowsy ''Sommeille'' whose somnolent quavers have almost hypnotic powers. Pinnock revels in scene-painting of this kind, just as he invariably hits upon effective tempos for the dances.

John Jenkins: yet another seventeenth century English composer who deserves to be more widely known. This delightful CD from The Consort of Musicke directed by Trevor Jones is no dutiful study of a hidden but rather uninspiring corner of English early Baroque consort music; rather, a mosaic – rich in color and shape, carefully crafted and full of surprises. Listen, for instance, to the unpretentious, jaunty and appropriately figurative progress through the Saraband (52, tr.6) and the restrained melancholy of the Fancy-Air (4, tr.7). Jenkins' counterpoint is well-wrought, his instrumental palette fresh and crisp and his melodies catchy without being fey or superficial in any way. He is in excellent hands with the Consort of Musicke… eight string players of the caliber of Monica Huggett and Alison Crum violins; Alan Wilson organ and Anthony Rooley theorbo. If fresh, beautiful, expertly-played English consort music appeals to you, don't hesitate to get this gem of a CD – actually a reissue of a Decca disc from 1983: it's unreservedly recommended.

Naxos' album devoted to Carson Cooman's instrumental works, including symphonies, chamber music, and solos, represents an infinitesimal portion of his output; his opus numbers were in the 700s before he was out of his mid-twenties, and include pieces written in virtually every genre of Western music. Inevitably, there are some areas in which he will be stronger than others. His choral music is especially compelling: well written for the voice, with excellent text setting in a style that is not simple, but is also immediately engaging.

A Grand Concert of Music a rich English Baroque programme including a violin concerto (by Geminiani) and a keyboard concerto by Arne, featuring respectively Simon Standage and Trevor himself.

Boys Will Be Boys is the debut record from the group Rabbitt, the South African rock quartet led by Trevor Rabin. It was released in 1975 on Jo'Burg Records in South Africa, and promptly went gold faster than any other disc released in the country. The band would go on to win the Sarie Award (South Africa's equivalent to the Grammy) for "Best Contemporary Pop".

Verses in praise of music for St Cecilia's Day were fashionable in the seventeenth century but in poetic inspiration none equalled Dryden's two poems in which he attempts to imitate the effects of music in language. He wrote this one, his Song for St Cecilia's Day, in 1687; it was set to music during the poet's lifetime but not, of course, by Handel whose setting dates from 1739… The highlight of Handel's score for me is, without question, his hauntingly beautiful setting of Dryden's second stanza, ''What Passion cannot Musick raise and quell!''. Here, especially, Handel matches a text which Dr Johnson regarded as exhibiting the highest flights of fancy with a tenderly expressive cello obbligato.