This two-CD album brings together the two earliest recordings by La Petite Bande. They were made in 1973 and feature landmarks in two important French forms of entertainment—comedie-ballet and opera-ballet. Performed in 1670 at Chambord, one of Louis XIV's grandest country retreats, Le bourgeois gentilhomme was the high water mark of Lully's collaboration with Moliere and was to be the last work of its kind on which the two worked together. Moliere developed the comedie-ballet from the fashionable court ballets, working the dances and music into the body of the play with unparalleled skill. Lully, himself a dancer, proved a gifted partner as the music for Le bourgeois gentilhomme reveals.

This is a beautiful, thoughtfully compiled disc. It chronologically charts the life of Jean de La Fontaine, that 17th-century master of the fable, through his own words and through music that sets his text, or that he simply admired. There’s one particular coup: the inclusion of identifiable extracts from the opera by Charpentier that sets a text by La Fontaine. Alas, the whole work did not survive, probably for reasons to do with Lully’s royally granted privilege, but the booklet notes make an excellent case for the association with the opera of the few pieces recorded here.

In his position as the king’s composer, Jean Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) created the opera Persée for Louis XIV. The opera was considered the crowning achievement of 17th century French music theatre and was widely recognized as Lully’s greatest work. Filled with dancing, fight scenes, monsters and special effects, this truly spectacular music drama recounts the thrilling story of Perseus, son of Zeus and heroic vanquisher of the snake-haired Gorgon Medusa. More than half a century after its premiere, Louis XV chose “Persée” to open the new Royal Opera House at the Chateau de Versailles, an event that formed part of the celebrations for the future Louis XVI’s marriage to Marie Antoinette.

A famous French horn virtuoso in his days, the shadowy figure known only as ‘Mr Charles the Hungarian’ was an eccentric opportunist who travelled to Dublin in March 1742. A natural entrepreneur, he capitalized on the ‘Handelmania’ surrounding Handel’s residence in the city at the time, and produced a concert at the Smock Alley Theatre which consisted mainly of Handel’s music. This album recreates the programme and the bohemian atmosphere of the event, showcasing solos for various instruments, some of which had never been heard in Ireland before.

Here is a very special recording devoted to early 18th-century dance music for which we have recently rediscovered choreographies from the period. Such a discovery may well come as a surprise, since it is not generally realised that, long before the proliferation of various 20th-century systems of dance notation, an earlied system had already been invented and them forgotten, only to be rediscovered within the last few years.

An ancient hero, a dragon, a young goddess: love and glory are at the heart of Lullys first opera, first performed in front of Louis XIV. As in his previous works - divertissements, ballets de cour and comédies- ballets - Lully makes the voices and the orchestra sparkle, multiplying the pieces which stand out and that were appealing to the court. But with the help of the librettist Philippe Quinault, he introduced the dramatic force of French classical tragédie in an exclusively musical work: and here the audience was bewitched by the mythical love stories so sumptuously portrayed.

John Kitchen continues his much-lauded series of recordings from the instruments of the world-famous Roger Mirrey collection of keyboard instruments. Recorded in St Cecilia's Hall, Scotland's oldest purpose-built concert hall, this programme is specifically designed to highlight the unique qualities of the 1755 double-manual harpsichord by Luigi Baillon. Built in Cyteux, Burgundy, it has a very different sound from Parisian instruments of the time; cleaner and brighter in tone, it is the perfect vehicle for Kitchen's subtly nuanced playing, which brings the sophistication of the period to new life.

Stéphane Fuget has a highly disciplined ensemble that brings out the depth and intricate layers of Lully’s music with fine diction (for the vocalists) and tempos that highlight the dramatic content…the performance is engaging and powerful, showing the pride and elegance of the French court of Louis XIV. This is one excellent disc and should be part of any collection.

Daniel Hope's new album "Dance!" reflects his boundless interest in the most diverse styles and periods of music. The star violinist takes the listeners on a journey through seven centuries of music history and explores the rhythms that have set bodies in motion and lifted hearts since time began.

Although Lully never held any post in the Chapelle du Roi, his influence on the development of the grand motet, so emblematic of the Grand Siècle, was of decisive importance. He wrote imposing motets celebrating the glory of God and the King for the great ceremonies at court. Of the many royal funerals, that of Queen Marie-Thérèse in 1683 was among the most grandiose. Lully’s Dies iræ and De profundis were sung there. But his most celebrated motet was undoubtedly his Te Deum, which rang out for the first time in 1677 and became the king’s favourite.

'Armide' is in the form of a tragédie en musique, a genre invented by Lully and Quinault, and was their last collaboration. It was a new form of opera that combined elements of classical French drama with ballet, French song and a new form of recitative. Critics in the 18th century regarded 'Armide' as Lully's masterpiece and it continues to be well-regarded, featuring some of the best-known music in French baroque opera and being arguably ahead of its time in its psychological interest. The subject, chosen for Lully by King Louis XIV, is the enchantress Armide’s unhappy love for the knight Renaud, drawn from Tasso’s 'Gerusalemme liberata'.

The present recording brings together various examples of night music from the European tradition and constitutes a kaleidoscope refracting the manifold facets of night. In tells of brilliant celebrations, nocturnal love dramas and desires, tender lullabies, ghosts, birds of the night and the most holy of nights. It is Antonio Vivaldi's music that is pivotal to our recording. Providing a bridge between his works and functioning as interludes are songs, diminutions, motets, madrigals, sommeils and chaconnes from Spai, the Netherlands, France, England, Italy, Germany and Austria.

Even by the supremely high production standards of Alpha recordings, this issue is especially splendid. Entitled Versailles, L'ile enchantée, it fully lives up to its name. As directed by Skip Sempé, the widely varied program features music written for Louis XIV's pleasure palace, performed by the Capriccio Stravagante Orchestra with mezzo soprano Guillemette Laurens and bass violist Jay Bernfeld. Each work is superbly selected, and every performance is absolutely idiomatic and wonderfully alive. There is wit and tenderness and elegance and, yes, nobility to their performances, which taken together form as much a portrait of the Sun King as the palace of Versailles itself.

This is an excellent and varied selection of composers from the very well known like Palestrina, Monteverdi, Bach and Vivaldi, through the less famous but familiar like Frescobaldi, Sainte-Colombe and Zelenka, to the downright obscure. It is all delightful: the musicians are uniformly excellent, and include such great names as Gustav Leonhardt, Cantus Colln, Christopher Hogwood and so on. They give fine performances both of the familiar works and of the less familiar ones. Obviously there will be discs you like more than others and you may already have favourite versions of some works, but these discs are never less than very good and are often outstanding.

Skip Sempé, distinguished for many years as a master interpreter of the French classical harpsichord repertoire, has recently been hailed as the quintessential ambassador of French Baroque music. With his ensemble Capriccio Stravagante, Sempé presents a fascinating collection of orchestral repertoire from the seventeenth century. La Belle Danse revives the tradition of the 24 Violons of Versailles the most celebrated orchestra of seventeenth century Europe. The album transports the listener to Versailles at the time of Louis XIII and Louis XIV with a dazzling tour of ouvertures and suites by Lully, Marais and Muffat. A selection of rare repertoire that influenced the first generation musicians of the 24 Violons is also included, with dance and theatre music by Michael Praetorius, William Brade and Luigi Rossi.