Producing a darker tone from the Maybeck Yamaha piano than do some other participants in the series, Kenny Barron gets a chance to flaunt a wider range of his influences than he usually does in a group format. Barron opens with a stride-ish "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You," which sports a few minor fluffs (this is live, folks), and then explores a number of diverse styles under the bop umbrella. Barron's "Bud-Like" has reminiscences of "Un Poco Loco," built on an ostinato bass pattern most of the way, with a witty "Bemsha Swing." As usual with Maybeck, the sound of the hall's bright, brittle Yamaha piano is brilliantly captured.

Remastered from the original LP recording, this performance is now available on CD.
Leclair was one of the best violinists of his times. The story is told that he had to compete in a musical duel with Locatelli in Kassel - then a most highly popular form of musical entertainment. The chronicler describes his "devilish" playing, contrasting it with the "angelic" style of his Italian rival. His trio sonatas suggest familiarity with the Italian school but also draw on entirely independent French traditions and shine with ingenious inventions and harmonic refinements.

In their first recording for harmonia mundi, Bertrand Cuiller and the musicians of Le Caravansérail immerse us in the dreamlike world of the London theatre of the 17th century. Incidental music, airs, dances and inventive melodies combining the English tradition and French and Italian innovations are the ingredients that make up the five imaginary tableaux of this reconstruction of the period, illuminated by the voice of the distinguished soprano, Rachel Redmond.

Church musicians, especially of the Anglican/Episcopal persuasion, should be happy that there's at least one person out there writing first-rate, functional, and very accessible (in the best sense) anthems and service music–music that dedicated, competent choirs and organists can perform to a high standard. Some listeners may recognize Grayston Ives (nom de plume of Bill Ives) for his years (in the 1980s) with the King's Singers where he both sang and contributed as an arranger.

Saul is one of Handel's most action-filled, fast-moving oratorios; an opera in everything but name only. It has been lucky on disc–both Paul McCreesh (Archiv) and John Eliot Gardiner (Philips) have led superb readings, and Joachim Carlos Martini leads a good performance on Naxos, which is a bargain. Now René Jacobs and his remarkable Concerto Köln come along and offer a truly majestic reading, filled with real drama and beautiful, precise singing and playing. Tenor Jeremy Ovenden sings Jonathan with nobility and faces down Saul in Act II with style and power. David is sung by countertenor Lawrence Zazzo, and he's as good as the best-recorded competition (Andreas Scholl, Derek Lee Ragin). Emma Bell is ravishing as Merab; Rosemary Joshua makes a fine Joshua.

John Butt and the Dunedin Consort are familiar to many listeners for their exquisite recordings of Baroque choral masterworks, such as Handel's Messiah and Bach's Mass in B minor, but this set of Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos is the first instrumental outing for the Scottish period ensemble. Playing original instruments or modern copies, and using a lower tuning of A = 392hz, the group recreates Bach's music with a lively combination of extemporaneous ornamentation and propulsive rhythms that is invigorating for its lack of preciosity. The music is by turns brusque and gentle, and at times quite raucous, as it should be in the Concerto No. 1 in F major with its echoing horn calls, chattering oboes, and buzzing bassoon, and vigorous in the Concerto No. 3 in G major, with its energetic string playing.

These two discs contain Leclair's 12 sonatas for two unaccompanied violins en duo. He produced them in two sets of six, the earlier one, Op. 3, dating from 1730, the later one from 1747-9. Barely a handful have previously been recorded, so these new issues make an important addition to the baroque catalogue. Leclair more than any of his French contemporaries implemented the technical developments in violin playing which were taking place in Italy in the hands of the post-Corelli generation.

Britain-to-Scotland transplant Sally Beamish wasn't just self-taught as an orchestral composer: you might say she learned by doing. According to her notes on this BIS release, one of a group covering her orchestral output, she had never written an orchestral piece or even studied orchestration when the city of Reykjavik, Iceland, commissioned her Symphony No. 1 in 1994. The result was a work full of unusual sonorities, rather loosely woven but constantly surprising, that drew on various features (formal and textural, not tonal) of the music of Scotland.

Johann Baptist Vanhal's clarinet sonatas are mostly notable for their historical value. Written between 1801 and 1810, they legitimized the clarinet as an equal partner in the sonata form. They did for that instrument what Beethoven did for the cello around the same time. Until the turn of the century, the clarinet had mainly appeared in ensembles with multiple other instruments, like the great quintets of Mozart and Weber.