Andreas Staier’s informed and inspired interpretations have left their mark on the discography of both the harpsichord and the fortepiano and have enabled us to see Bach, Mozart and Schubert in a completely new light. This is Staier’s first solo album of a projected series for Alpha Classics, in which he also presents his own compositions for the first time.

Siegbert Rampe is a master of baroque style and of Froberger's in particular. This wonderful composer's music benefits greatly from a player's insight and sensitivity, and it gets these in full measure in this set. Rampe uses an agreeably cosmopolitan variety of harpsichords here, the lion's share being played on three beautiful instruments by Ruckers of Antwerp, Miklis of Prague and Bergaños of Spain.

The cosmopolitan composer and harpsichordist Johann Jacob Froberger (1616-67) was born in Stuttgart. He spent much of his professional life at the court of Vienna but traveled widely to Italy, France, England, and the Netherlands. In his keyboard compositions, he acknowledged the divergent styles of his European contemporaries while forging a highly personal and musically powerful synthesis. Serving the Viennese Hofkapelle from 1634 until 1645, he was granted a stipend from the Italophile Emperor Ferdinand III to travel to Italy and supplement his musical training by studying with Girolamo Frescobaldi. He studied in Rome from late 1637 until 1641 and made a second trip to Rome, Florence, and Mantua before 1649. An extensive period of travel from 1649 to 1653 probably included trips to Paris (where he met Chambonnières and Louis Couperin), the Spanish Netherlands, and England.

A large collection of religious works by two Austrian composers. Bieber's work for 36 voices is a powerful and moving piece, especially for cornets, trumpets, sackbuts and timpani bursts. Here, Junghaner is in charge of the Viennese early music group and Concerto Palatino, who has the best technique and expressiveness in the early music brass system, also contributes to this wonderful performance. It was performed in the mass format at the time, and is recorded with a sonata in front and behind. [Sony Music]

Antwerp, around the middle of the 17th century. Music issues from an imposing house on the Meir. Inside the house, paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, Brueghel, Vermeer and Tintoretto hang everywhere. A small but international group seated close to the fireplace is listening to a concert arranged especially for them. Francisca Duarte (1619-1678), who lives in the house, plays one of the many Ruckers-Couchet harpsichords and virginals owned by the Duarte family. She has chosen the music carefully: there are works from old collections of manuscripts compiled for and by the Duarte family, including music by John Bull and arrangements of dances and songs, as well as new repertoire by harpsichord virtuosos such as Jacques Champion de Chambonnières and Johann Jakob Froberger who have shared their recent compositions with the family.

A fascinating collection of German harpsichord music from one of the instruments finest exponents, Sophie Yates. The German composer Johann Jacob Froberger is the central figure in this collection and he was probably the most significant influence in the development of a distinctive, German style of writing for keyboard instruments. He wrote some twenty-five toccatas of which the two on this album are of very different character; the earlier one is very contrapuntal in style and makes use of a chromatic theme, whilst the other is written in a feer, more improvisatory style, and is harmonically very daring. Sophie Yates writes in her sleeve notes that she wished to include some of the darker more sensual suites, of which the C minor Suite is one of the most striking. Froberger is a colourful composer, and these varied suites, consisting of the usual dance numbers of the day, are most enjoyable. Johann Kaspar Kerll was similarly an innovator and is represented on this album by an impressive Passacaglia which places great demands on the player, Johann Pachelbel is probably most famous as a composer of sacred works and, of course, the ubiquitous Canon in D. Of his instrumental music, the Hexachordum Apollinis is his most well-known work, which comprises a set of six arias with variations, of which the last one is recorded here. George Böhm is best remembered for his influence on other composers, particularly J S BAch.

For this first recording, Andrea Buccarella explores the history of the most emblematic form of Baroque music, from its appearance in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century right up to its apotheosis in Johann Sebastian Bach: the toccata. With its inventiveness, its formal freedom, its contrasting effects of virtuosity and emotion, the Italian toccata – whose name probably comes from the verb toccare (to touch/play) – opened the way for the stylus fantasticus that was to dominate Germany in the late seventeenth century.

SEON (Studio Erichson) is a period music label by the legendary producer Wolf Erichson. Erichson founded the label in 1969 as one of the first labels dedicated only to authentic music. The recordings were made with the best available recording techniques of the time and still deliver a high quality product in line with today's standards. This special boxset offers all SEON CD reissues from the late 90s on 85 CDs in a limited edition boxset.

In its complexity and individuality, Johann Jacob Froberger's oeuvre represents one of the greatest treasures of 17th century harpsichord repertoire. His travels and friendships with musicians and intellectuals throughout Europe - including, for example, Frescobaldi, Kircher, Kerll, Weckmann, Louis Couperin, Gaultier, Fleury alias Blancrocher, Huygens and many others - are reflected in his stylistic versatillity. What is notable about all these contacts is that the fascination was invariably mutual - Froberger was inspired and also provided strong inspiration to his friends.