Supremely lovely and deeply beautiful, the performances on this two-disc set devoted to the music of Luigi Boccherini are compelling proof that the Italian-Spanish composer was more than a Rococo bantam weight. Beyond his well-known Minuet, Fandango, and "La Ritirada di Madrid" and his enormous number of cheerful cello concertos and sonatas written for the cello-playing Spanish king, Boccherini was also a composer of quartets, quintets, symphonies, and sacred works that rival those of his contemporary Haydn.

Cavalli's Giasone debuted in 1649 in Vienna, and quickly became the most frequently performed of all 17th Century Italian operas. In addition to being highly acclaimed in its day, it was revived no fewer than twenty times over the following forty years throughout Italy. Almost Wagnerian in its length and scope, the work recreates the tale of Jason and the capture of the Golden Fleece. This edition features Rene Jacobs leading Concerto Vocale.

Leclair's single opera Scylla et Glaucus may lack the sheer audacity of his teacher Rameau, but it's enormously likeable…the performers respond…stylishly to Leclair's charming if slightly predictable sound-world…and the conducting preserves a neat balance between drama and ornament…It is clear that Gardiner favours intervention over chilly authenticity; whether or not you agree with all his decisions, the clarity of the image he presents is often provocative and always bracing.

Conductors coming to the Fauré Requiem have choices: The original, 1888 version with only five movements of the eventual seven and very minimal instrumentation; the more commonly performed 1893 chamber version, scored with only the lower strings (violins reserved for the In Paridisum movement), plus harp, timpani, organ, horns, and trumpets, but without woodwinds; and the 1900 revision for full orchestra. Philippe Herreweghe recorded the 1893 version several years ago; here he opts for the full-orchestra setting. But there’s a nice hitch: it’s played on period instruments and uses a harmonium instead of an organ. It comes across as much leaner than other recorded “full” versions (i.e., Chung’s on DG, Dutoit’s on Decca), and indeed the details of the “big” score are nice to hear.

Herreweghe's 1990 performance was the first modern reading of Gilles' celebrated Requiem from manuscript, shorn of Andre Campra's beefed up orchestration, and very fine it is. In the style of the French Grand Motet, much of the singing is given to soloists and quite florid - as is the choral work.

Genius vindicated! Carissimi would seem to have been one of those composers popularly associated with sacred genres (in part because he was a Jesuit priest in the important post of Maestro de cappella at the Roman Collegio Germanico, in part because of the whims of the recording industry) to the neglect of the secular genres—especially the cantata—which he is acknowledged to have pursued with such distinction. During his lifetime Carissimi's cantatas were very much admired and with the appearance of this delightful CD the weight of his contemporary reputation will be more evenly divided.

Boccherini wrote two versions of his much admired Stabat mater. The original dates from 1781 and is for solo voice; then, 20 years later, he revised it, on a larger scale, using three voices, in order (he said) to avoid the monotony of the single voice and the fatigue to the singer, and also adding a symphony movement to it. This 1801 version was published during his lifetime and in several later editions and seems to have eclipsed the earlier one altogether (which survives only in the autograph manuscript). Yet on hearing this new recording of the original I feel that it conveys the message of the work much more potently than does the more elaborate later version.