Handel’s group of nine German arias, composed in London in the mid 1720s, is unique in his vocal output. They are not big display pieces, and they are not excerpts from operas or oratorios. In fact, we don’t know much about the purpose behind their composition. Catriona MacLeod’s excellent notes make a good case for these having been written for private in-home performances, like the trio sonatas with which Chandos fills out this disc. These are significantly more intimate and inward-looking arias than much of Handel’s vocal writing, reflective in nature—and also chamber-like in the musical relationships between voice and instruments.

The first volume of Tempesta di Mare's series on Chandos, Comédie et Tragédie, offers period-style performances of orchestral music by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Féry Rebel, and Marin Marais. The orchestral suites drawn from Lully's music for Le bourgeois gentilhomme, Rebel's symphonie nouvelle Les élémens, and Marais' suite from the tragédie en musique Alcyone give a taste of theater music in the court of Louis XIV and Louis XV, and these pieces show how inventive composers were with instrumentation and their combinations of dances with dramatic scene painting. Tempesta di Mare, which is also known as the Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra, gives bright and energetic performances, and the musicians have a fine sense of the swung rhythms, distinctive tone colors, and lively ornamentation in French Baroque music. The recording is clear and well-balanced, though the percussion in Lully's March for the Turkish Ceremony (track 4) is a bit startling, and the dissonant opening of Rebel's Le Chaos (track 13) has its own shock value. Highly recommended.

Here Bachs Trio Sonatas BWV 525-530 for organ have been re-imagined in historically informed arrangements for baroque chamber ensemble, made in the spirit of Bach, himself a serial re-arranger of his own works. They are performed by the Tempesta di Mare Chamber Players, an early-music ensemble described by Fanfare as one of the finest in the world.

The Philadelphia-based baroque orchestra Tempesta di Mare here reveals an unparalleled musical legacy, presenting long forgotten works by the German baroque composer Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, confined for centuries to unexamined archives.

Fasch Orchestral Works, Vol. 3 is the third and concluding volume in Tempesta di Mare's series of orchestral works by Johann Friedrich Fasch, a contemporary of J.S. Bach and Telemann. In his day, the works of Fasch (cantatas, concertos, symphonies, and chamber music) were performed extensively across the German-speaking world. J.S. Bach, who arranged at least one of his trio sonatas for organ, held Fasch in great esteem. Tempesta di Mare, Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra, performs the music on baroque instruments with 'zest and virtuosity that transcends style and instrumentation'.

This is Volume 2 in Chandos' series of orchestral works by Johann Friedrich Fasch, a contemporary of J.S. Bach and Telemann. In his day, his output in terms of cantatas, concertos, symphonies, and chamber music was performed extensively across the German-speaking world, and Fasch was held in great esteem by Bach who owned copies of six of his orchestral suites, and arranged at least one of his piano trio sonatas for organ.