The ensemble was created by flutist Suzanne Stumpf and cellist Daniel Ryan to rediscover music of the late 17th through early 19th centuries performed on period instruments in historic venues across the Boston area.
American countertenor Bejun Mehta and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin perform eight full-length cantatas and excerpts that depict pastoral love, deep piety, and bitter jealousy while also demonstrating the flexibility of this popular Baroque form.
Spanish violinist Lina Tur Bonet brings abundant flair to Vivaldi’s demanding ‘Il Grosso Mogul’ concerto, as well as other works by the Italian composer and an excerpt from a concerto by his pupil Johann Georg Pisendel, edited by the master himself.
Rather than simply playing jazz on period instruments or Baroque interpretations of popular music, Les Délices’ new recording, “Songs Without Words,” is an inventive and warm performance of what Duke Ellington astutely called “good music.”
Only four of the nine sonatas for violin and continuo on this recording by the Brook Street Band can be definitively attributed to the master through an extant autograph score. Authorship aside, all of these sonatas are at the very least charming, often clever, and always beautiful.