This Virgin Classics release reunites William Christie and Les Arts Florissants with the music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier, a composer for whom it can be said Christie has done more to expose than any other he has taken on. This is saying a lot, as Christie has also made extensive recorded forays into the works of Campra, Lully, Montéclair, Monteverdi, Purcell, and in particular, Handel. However, Charpentier remains a special case to Christie, and there is still a monumental amount of unrecorded music by this composer to exploit. The two works on Virgin Classics' Charpentier: Judicium Salomonis actually have been recorded before, though not often and not by well-known groups like Christie's – the Motet pour une longue Offrande has been recorded by Philippe Herreweghe and that's about it in terms of the competition.

Handels Messiah is already very well-represented on the market with dozens of existing recordings and new productions appearing at regular intervals. Yet this is a very special version, carefully crafted, Halle Handel Edition in hand, by a Basel-based selection of fine vocal soloists and instrumentalists who have all graduated from the world-famous Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Under the fine direction of Daniela Dolci, singers Miriam Feuersinger, Flavio Ferri-Benedeti, Dino Luthy and Raitis Grigalis join the ensemble Musica Fiorita for a moving studio recording made in October 2015.

This is an ATMA Classique reissue of one of Les Violons du Roy’s seminal discs: the orchestra’s 2002 Dorian label recording of Mozart’s Requiem as revised and completed by Robert D. Levin. The recording won the JUNO® Award for Best Classical Album of the year in the Vocal or Choral Performance category. Founding conductor Bernard Labadie brought Les Violons du Roy and its the fifteen member core together in 1984. The ensemble specializes in the vast repertoire of music for chamber orchestra, performed on modern instruments but in a stylistic manner most appropriate to the work’s era.

One might think that with all of the attention that Handel’s music has received over the years and especially since the tercentenary of his birth in 1985, that no stone has been left unturned in the effort to accord the composer his due. Indeed, there have been revelatory and monumental cycles of his operas and oratorios—especially Messiah—as well as numerous releases of Music for the Royal Fireworks, Water Music, the Concerti grossi, ops. 3 and 6—the list goes on and on, almost ad nauseam. As with any composer, though, there are darker recesses in Handel’s œuvre that seemed to have attracted the interest of a multitude of dust bunnies, but few performers. This Hyperion recording, originally recorded in 1988 and released under the title Music for Royal Occasions, holds three such works specifically composed for English courtly festivities of various import between 1713 and 1736.

During the long era when Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were creating the musical canon of Western Europe, the songs of African slaves resounded in the colonies on the other side of the Atlantic, expressing pain and longing, but also joy and the desire for freedom. The American countertenor Reginald Mobley - a rising figure in baroque music, notably under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner with whom he sings very regularly - and the French pianist Baptiste Trotignon, winner of numerous awards (Victoires du Jazz, Django d'Or) have combined their talents and sensibilities to celebrate these spirituals and the music of Black composers including Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949) and Florence Price (1887-1953), whose beautiful transcriptions and melodies blend with Baptiste Trotignon's subtle arrangements of the famous.

Grands motets, requiring lavish vocal and instrumental resources, always signalled important occasions at the French court. Until the advent of public concerts in Paris in the 1720s they were performed exclusively by the king's musicians for the court. Olivier Schneebeli has assembled an admirable survey of these large-scale settings of psalm texts, which were excerpted and arranged to convey doubles entendres flattering to Louis XIV and his policies. The music employs an orchestra with a full continuo complement, a choir and a petit choeur of soloists that relies on high male voices. The only concession to modern times is the use of sopranos instead of castrati in the top part and the inclusion of girls among the pages.

Thirty-five of Scarlatti’s oratorios are extant, a mere handful yet recorded. Biondi’s championing of them is very welcome, as this excellently recorded disc vividly demonstrates. His sterling research has uncovered date and place (1704, Rome) for the first performance of this mini-drama – the Virgin Mary, single-handedly and contrary to Christian doctrine, defeating the power of Lucifer and sentencing him ‘to eternal weeping and cries of pain’. Two Corelli trio sonatas serve as interludes within the oratorio. Rossana Bertini celebrates the Virgin’s birthday with a lovely fresh voice. Lucifer, unusually tenor rather than bass, is a taxing role – Crispi flags momentarily, though he is agile and well cast.

The acclaimed recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger and her ensemble 1700 team up with famous countertenor Andreas Scholl for this inspiring new album featuring the work of J.S. Bach. The album includes arias from Bach cantatas for alto, a concerto for harpsichord arranged for flute, the cantata BWV 170 “Vergnügte Ruh” and the famed Brandenburg concertos No. 2 and No. 4. Dorothee Oberlinger is one of the most amazing discoveries of recent years, an expressive virtuoso who - quite rightly - received numerous awards while still very young.

Experience the transcendent glory of Messiah in Sir Andrew Davis’s new, majestic, must-hear edition of Handel’s beloved classic.

Judas Maccabäus is one of Handel’s most impressive and successful works. More than 50 performances took place in Handel’s lifetime. The integration of the libretto with the conflict between the Scottish Jacobites under the leadership of the catholic Stuart pretender Charles Edward and the royalist government troops played a crucial role in this. The original libretto tells the story of the struggle of the Jews against the rule of the Seleucids. Handel portrays the plot with colourful arias, touching laments and exultant triumph choruses.

A performance like this makes me wonder why it isn’t (the Mass) performed more often… this mass is a treasury of beautiful sounds… I can’t imagine better readings than the ones here.

CantoLX, B'Rock Orchesta and conductor Frank Agsteribbe present Antwerp Requiem c. 1650, an album showcasing the exceptional wealth of musical life in Antwerp in the age of Rubens. Philippus van Steelant's recently-rediscovered Requiem settings are unique in their exuberant splendour, tied to a funerary culture that embraced the glory of life.

Grechaninov’s long life (1864-1956) covered much, from birth in Moscow and training with Rimsky-Korsakov to exile when he was already old, and death in New York. His quiet Russian lyricism never left him, and his idiom did not range as wide as his experience. The Missa festiva is one of several attempts at reconciling Eastern and Western traditions, and to this Orthodox composer’s surprise it won a prize in 1937 for a setting of the Catholic liturgy. As in his subsequent Missa oecumenica, he tries to bring together different styles, making use of Gregorian-influenced melodies but avoiding the use of polyphony in favour of a more chordal, Russian manner; however, there is an important part for the organ. The most successful movements are the closing “Benedictus” and Agnus Dei, where his essential gentleness finds touching expression.

Soprano Mary Bevan writes: “In 1975, the original Bevan Family Choir released their debut album on vinyl, featuring an eclectic programme of sacred choral works, Welsh folk songs, and piano music."