This, Vivaldi's very first opera, was premièred in Vicenza in 1713 and was an instant hit. The story is a relatively uncomplicated one by the standards of Baroque opera, of amatory pretences and misunderstandings: it has been admirably summarised by Eric Cross (who has edited the work) as a 'light-weight, amoral entertainment in which the flirtatious Cleonilla consistently has the upper hand, and gullible Emperor Ottone (a far from heroic figure) never discovers the truth about the way he has been deceived'. The score proceeds in a succession of secco recitatives (with just a very occasional accompagnato) and da capo arias – which the present cast ornament very stylishly.

Handel’s beautiful, intimate settings of liturgical texts written for the First Duke of Chandos are among his less well-known choral works—and are proved by this second volume from Trinity also to be among his loveliest. They are a perfect example of the composer’s English style heard in Acis & Galatea and oratorios such as Judas Maccabaeus.

What can anyone add to the praise that has deservedly been heaped on Robert King and the King's Consort's 11 discs of the complete sacred music of Vivaldi? Can one add that every single performance is first class – wonderfully musical, deeply dedicated, and profoundly spiritual? Can one add that every single performer is first class – absolutely in-tune, entirely in-sync, and totally committed? Can one add that every single recording is first class – amazingly clean, astoundingly clear, and astonishingly warm? One can because it's all true and it's all been said before by critics and listeners across the globe.

Giulio Cesare, Händels aufwändigste Oper aus dem Jahre 1724, markierte im März 1994 den Beginn der Münchner Händelrenaissance. Mit einer spektakulären Premiere sorgte Intendant Sir Peter Jonas international für Furore. Weit über 100 Aufführungen von 1994 bis 2006 spielten vor ausverkauftem Haus.

Here's an excellent Shostakovich chamber program, combining music from different phases of the composer's career as well as introducing two fairly unusual works in combination with a great masterwork, the Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67. This work, written in 1944 as the tide had begun to turn against Hitler's armies in Russia, is perhaps the definitive musical response to the horrors of the Second World War. Its final movement, evoking klezmer music gradually overtaken by darkness, is almost unbearably moving.

Hummel's choral music, like that of his rival Beethoven, lies pretty far down the list of his compositions in terms of overall renown. But some of it originated in a very famous spot: Hummel succeeded Haydn as a composer of large-scale choral works for the use of the noble Esterházy family at its vast palace. The Mass in D minor heard on this album was composed in 1805, when the "Lord Nelson" mass in the same key by Haydn would still have been very much in the air and ears at Esterháza. Faced with the unenviable task of trying to top it, Hummel turned not to Haydn as a model but, as liner-note writer David Wyn Jones points out, to Mozart: the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor provides Hummel's mass with its tense general mood, its flexible shifts between the soloists and the larger group, and its flashes of lyrical light.

As with the previous disc in this series, Richard Hickox and his expert forces bring their usual mix of freshness, rhythmic élan and sensitivity to this attractive, often impressive work. Choir and orchestra respond eagerly to the conductor's enthusiastic direction. And the soloists, led by the ever-eloquent Susan Gritton, interact and blend with true chamber musical finesse.

It is astonishing that such fine pieces have been so completely neglected.They here inspire Hickox and his team to performances just as electrifying as those they have given of the great series of late Haydn masses.

Mock Morris, Molly on the Shore and Shepherd’s Hey are edgily chipper. When Grainger is in this vein he looks in the direction of Frank Bridge’s Sir Roger de Coverley – a Britten favourite - and in this case there is a hint of Capriol too. Died for Love is out of the same green meadow as Moeran’s two pieces for small orchestra. Delightful. The Love Verses and the slightly chilly Early One Morning bring home parallels with Balfour Gardiner’s April and Philomela (long overdue for revival). Youthful Rapture (Tim Hugh, cello) has also been recorded by Julian Lloyd Webber who takes more time than Hugh and this piece can bear the slower tempo.

The eighteenth century is probably the most extraordinary period of transformation Europe has known since antiquity. Political upheavals kept pace with the innumerable inventions and discoveries of the age; every sector of the arts and of intellectual and material life was turned upside down. Between the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the revolution of 1789, music in its turn underwent a radical mutation that struck at the very heart of a well-established musical language. In this domain too, we are all children of the Age of Enlightenment: our conception of music and the way we ‘consume’ it still follows in many respects the agenda set by the eighteenth century. And it is not entirely by chance that harmonia mundi has chosen to offer you in 2011 a survey of this musical revolution which, without claiming to be exhaustive, will enable you to grasp the principal outlines of musical creation between the twilight of the Baroque and the dawn of Romanticism.

Boccherini wrote very little vocal music; however he left two settings of the Stabat mater. It was first set in 1781 for solo soprano and strings and then in 1800 for two sopranos and tenor, obviously influenced by the hugely-popular Pergolesi Stabat mater of 1736. There are many similarities in the notation and harmony—even the same key of F minor is used. The writing is of extraordinary individuality and seems to come straight from the heart. This unjustly neglected piece is surely one of the most remarkable sacred compostions of the era.

You'll find no stereotypical Biblical characters in The Occasional Oratorio; there are no characters at all. This work is nothing but a blood- and-glory martial celebration Handel hastily threw together to raise London's spirits in a crisis. (The "occasion" was the English counterattack against Bonnie Prince Charlie's rebellion.) Handel composed almost no original music for this work, instead lifting choice bits from Judas Maccabeus, Comus, Athalia, Israel in Egypt–he even closes the work with Zadok the Priest! Handel aficionados will have great fun picking out which numbers originated where. In fact, pretty much everyone will have fun listening to this music (gloriously performed by Robert King and his regulars); it is–as it were–a blast.

After the success of Alexander's Feast, a setting of the much admired ode by John Dryden, it was wondered: would the result be greater still if Handel could be persuaded to set the words of a poet even greater than Dryden? Such were the thoughts of an important group of Handel's friends centred around the philosopher James Harris and including Charles Jennens (later the librettist of Messiah) and the Fourth Earl of Shaftesbury. It was under their influence that Handel came to set the poetry of John Milton, first in L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, and later in the oratorio Samson.

‘Deborah contains some of the most glorious music Handel ever wrote. Even if many of the numbers have been recycled from earlier works, the invention is still staggering. Handel devotees can thus amuse themselves spotting the tunes while everyone else can revel in the sumptuous scoring and the sheer vitality and humanity of the piece, all superbly conveyed in Robert King's recording’.

When Handel introduced English oratorios to London in the 1730s, he did not confine himself to sacred subjects, exploring also Classical myths, with texts based on Roman and Greek literature. The Choice of Hercules marks Handel’s last realisation of a Classical tale. It started life in 1749 as music for Alceste, but the Covent Garden production was cancelled, leaving Handel with an hour of superb music on his hands. By the summer of 1750 he had adapted several numbers and added new ones, and in 1751 it premiered as ‘an additional New Act’ concluding a performance of the ode Alexander’s Feast. Much of the music from the original conception (the story of a loyal wife who dies to save her husband and is subsequently rescued from the Underworld by Hercules) transferred easily to its new guise, for example the noble opening Sinfonia, originally intended to mark Hercules’ return from the Underworld, now entirely apt for the entrance of the young Hercules in the new drama.