Recent releases

This recording celebrates the richness of choral music performed at the 17th- and 18th-century coronations of James II, William and Mary, Anne, and for Georges I, II and III.

Famous anthems by Handel (Zadok the Priest; The King shall rejoice) and Purcell (I was glad; My heart is inditing) appear alongside works by William Boyce; William Croft; Jeremiah Clarke and John Blow; all leading composers of their day.

This is a re-issue of Decca 470 226-2, released in 2002, to celebrate HM Queen Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee. Coronation Anthems was Editor’s Choice in Gramophone magazine and is now in Decca’s Critics’ Choice, Legendary Performances series.

The completion of the AAM’s complete Haydn symphonies cycle with Christopher Hogwood was postponed after the release of the 10th boxed set. These two symphonies were recorded as the first CD in volume 11, and are available exclusively with the May 2005 issue of BBC Music Magazine.

When Mozart heard of the death of JC Bach he wrote ‘What a sad day for music’.

This recording gives a taste of the orchestral music that excited London audiences in the 1760s and 1770s, by JS Bach’s youngest son. It comprises opera and concert overtures, with a sinfonia concertante which had its first performance in the interval of a performance of Handel’s Samson in 1775.

Decca have recently re-released the AAM’s award-winning recording of Mozart’s symphonies from 1772–1773 in their Gramophone Awards Collection series.

In this recording there is no conductor, but, as in Mozart’s time, the role of directing is shared between the keyboard continuo player (Christopher Hogwood) and the Concert Master (Jaap Schröder).

‘...the Play-house Musick impoved yearly, and is now arrived to greater perfection than ever I knew it’.

So wrote a playgoer describing the changes in the English theatre between 1660 and 1690. The Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660 had a hugely beneficial effect on social life and the arts in England, re-establishing the Court and its household of musicians, the Church of England and music in the Church, and allowing the theatres to open their doors once more. No English composer bears greater responsibility for the state of near-perfection achieved by theatre music during this period than Henry Purcell, and by the 1690s no play was complete without a garnishing of incidental music and complement of songs.

This set of six CDs is a compilation of songs and instrumental music from Henry Purcell’s theatrical corpus. Soloists including Dame Emma Kirkby, Judith Nelson and James Bowman perform a diverse selection of music based on text by the likes of John Dryden (Tyrannic Love or The Royal Martyr, The Indian Emperor or The Conquest of Mexico); Aphra Behn (Abdelazer or The Moor’s Revenge); William Congreve (The Old Bachelor, The Double Dealer) and Beaumont and Fletcher (The Knight of Malta).

The discs are a recent reissue drawing on Decca releases of recordings made by the AAM between 1974 and 1983.

Christmas was celebrated with particular splendour in the churches and court chapels of seventeenth-century Lutheran Germany. This attractive programme draws together a wide variety of Schütz’ choral motets and dialogues to form an alternative Christmas story. As Schütz wrote no purely instrumental music; the sonatas and conzonas are by his associates and pupils Gabrieli; Usper and Weckmann.

This is a re-issue of A Christmas Collection that was originally released in 1997.

This recording was first released in 1986 and has been reissued as part of Decca’s new series celebrating Gramphone Award-winning recordings. Athalia won the Choral Award in 1987; receiving glowing reviews:

The first great English oratorio. It was a brilliant stroke of imagination to ask Dame Joan Sutherland to take the title-role... her singing is truly magnificent in its grandeur and its clear; bell-like; perfectly focused tone. As a whole these two discs; excellently recorded; give an admirable and often striking realisation of this work; and I warmly recommend it.

Purcell’s exotic semi-opera tells of Zempoalla; the Indian Queen; who assumes the throne of Mexico. She is opposed by the Inca of Peru and his general Montezuma; who switches sides and then becomes the fatal object of the queen’s desire. Purcell did not live to complete the score so his brother; Daniel; wrote a wedding Masque to close the work which provides a somewhat jolly ending to an otherwise tragic tale.

This recording was originally released by Decca in 1995 and is reissued here as part of their ‘British Music Collection’.

Mozart’s ‘Abduction from the Seraglio’ begins in Turkey where the young Spanish girl Konstanze; her maid Blonde and Pedrillo; the latter’s lover; are being held. They have been abducted by pirates and sold as slaves to Pasha Selim and this opera tells of their rescue by the young nobleman Belmonte; who is in love with Konstanze.

This is a reissue of the box set originally released by Decca in 1991.

This 2-CD set is a reissue of recordings by various artists. Among them are five works with the AAM; recorded in 1980 and originally released by The Folio Society as Venice preserv’d; as well as Christopher Hogwood playing the harpsichord with the Choir of St John’s College; Cambridge.

‘The best of Purcell’ is a compilation of songs and instrumental movements from Henry Purcell’s music for the theatre in late 17th-century London. Soloists including Dame Emma Kirkby; Catherine Bott and James Bowman sing some of Purcell’s best known songs such as ‘Music for a while’; Dido’s Lament and Evening Hymn

‘Eloquence’ is a new series of reissues drawing on releases from the Deutsche Grammophon; Decca and Philips Classics labels. This reissue features various artists: 10 of the 16 tracks are from AAM CDs recorded between 1976 and 1994.

For a composer who died at the age of 26; Pergolesi enjoys a fine reputation. That reputation; however; is almost solely based on one work (the Stabat Mater) and has been clouded by forgeries and works misattributed to him. Such is the extent of these misattributions; only about one third of the works that appeared in the first ‘collected’ works (published in the 1940s) is by Pergolesi.

This new 2-CD set reveals Pergolesi’s true legacy through a newly-researched panorama of his sacred choral work brought together in a ‘reconstruction’ of Marian Vespers.

A law student turned self-taught composer; Arne is perhaps best-known — to the English; at least — for composing the patriotic song; ‘Rule Britannia’ and for his setting of the song from Shakespeare’s The Tempest; ‘Where the bee sucks’. The latter song appears on this disc; sung here by the ever-popular Dame Emma Kirkby; but the greater part is devoted to Arne’s Eight Overtures; written to accompany theatrical productions.

This 2-CD set also features other artists and is reissued as part of Decca’s ‘British Music Collection’.

The Boyce ‘Eight Symphonys’ are one of the treasures of English eighteenth-century music; cheerful; unassuming and confident; full of good tunes; and typically English in the heterodoxy of their style — their quirky lines; their refusal to follow the regular procedures; their mixture of baroque and classical features; with their fugues declining to remain fugal; their very un-French French overtures: all this is part of their particular charm.

This CD was first released in 1994 and is reissued by Decca within their new series; ‘The British Music Collection’.

J. S. Bach’s seven harpsichord concertos and the “Triple” concerto BWV 1044 span the total range of Baroque expression: from the tempestuous élan of BWV 1052; through the disquiet and amger of BWV 1056; to they joy and elation of BWV 1055. Richard Egarr and The Academy of Ancient Music; led by Andrew Manze; present these masterpieces in radically fresh; intimate readings; charged with dramatic intensity.

This is music that aspires to convey a sudden flash of insight that resonates through eternity.

The Guardian

Total Eclipse — John Tavener’s latest icon in music; is a moving meditation on the conversion of St Paul. It is combined with Agraphon; a meditation on the unwritten traditions about Christ.

These fascinating arrangements by the eleven-year-old Mozart (assisted by his father Leopold) of works by older contemporaries; were made to display his prodigious virtuosity.

This is a collection of English songs from the seventeenth century sung by the soprano Barbara Bonney. They bring together three strands of composition — music for voice and viols (with the Phantasm Viol Quartet); lute songs (with Jacob Heringman) and; from later in the century; songs with orchestra (The Academy of Ancient Music).

Following two sell-out tours in 1999; the AAM and an all-star cast directed by Christopher Hogwood went into the recording studio for a fortnight; and this is the spectacular result. With David Daniels in the title role and Cecilia Bartoli as Almirena; this is a landmark recording of Handel’s first Italian opera written for the London stage in 1711.

Andrew Manze writes: ‘This recording presents twelve orchestral concerti grossi by Francesco Geminiani; which are based on the Op 5 sonatas for solo violin by his teacher; Archangelo Corelli. They are more than arrangements or orchestrations: they are explorations; expansions; the end product of a process of musical evolution’.

Listen out in particular for the wild ‘Follia’ — a veritable showcase for the talents of Andrew Manze and the AAM strings.

Christopher Hogwood and Andrew Manze combine to bring the listener more gems from Vivaldi’s vast output. In addition to the six concertos of Op 6; the disc also includes his delightful concerto in A major RV 335 nicknamed ‘The Cuckoo’. For those who think Vivaldi wrote wrote the same concerto hundreds of times; try this CD and be prepared to revise your views!