New recordings of Bach’s ‘Saint Matthew Passion’ continue to come at us apace. The latest, from the Bay Area’s Cantata Collective, is highlighted by stellar vocal soloists and by Nicholas McGegan’s emotionally subtle conducting.

Letter to the Editor: ‘It’s sort of a compliment that the current re-structuring of the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra is taken as a paradigm for the decline in early-music studies in higher education…I see HBCO returning to its roots in a necessary and salutary way.’

From the Executive Director: Early music suffered another painful blow when the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra lost its university funding. But if we want to keep historical performance alive, we have to think bigger than just protecting individual programs at the collegiate level, and, for nonprofit ensembles, think bigger than just fighting for our own little slice of pie.

Searching for music actually linked to the late-14th c. ‘Canterbury Tales,’ Elisabeth Ellison found almost none. So she searched the archives and found dance tunes and sacred works that Geoffrey Chaucer and his pilgrims may have heard in their own day.