Henry Purcell: In Guilty Night

This Paraphrase, on chapter 28:325of the First Book of Samuel, was set to music by Purcell in 1691, a dramatic retelling of the last attempts of the once-great King Saul to gain Gods protection from his ensuing demise by seeking out the Wizards, and those with familiars he had previously persecuted, and driven from Israel, to raise his conduit, the Prophet Saul, from the dead. What ensues is arguably one of the most haunting dialogues of the Baroque period.

Luigi Rossi: Un Peccator Pentito: Spargete Sospiri

The text of Giovanni Lottis Un Peccator Pentito is one on a theme popular in The Roman Oratorio Volgare from the 1640s until the end of the 17th Century; This setting, attributed to Rossi based on its likeness to his madrigal Lasciate Chio Pene, has remained in relative obscurity, placed as part of a miscellany based on the theme of the Penitent Sinner, rather than as part of an Oratorio. In any case, it stands as perhaps the most overlooked displays of the pathos and experimental harmony, for which Italian music of the 17th century is renowned.

Domenico Gabrielli: Ricercar III

Rafi Colman, Baroque Cello

Interval

By the time Domenico Gabriellis Ricercari, canone e sonate per violoncello (1689) was published the Ricercar had long since passed the height of its popularity amongst the Contrapuntists of the first half of the 17th century, becoming ever more akin to the more clearly structured Fugues of the High and Late Baroque. What Gabrielli had demonstrated, however, was a pioneering virtuosity that, much alike H. I. F. Bibers Rosencrantz Sonaten for violin, placed him at the forefront of the early development of works for Solo Cello.

Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger: Arpeggiata

Katalin Ertsey, Theorbo

Unlike Piccinini, much of Kapsbergers music is extant today, although like Piccinini it is his music for Lute and Theorbo that is the most popular. His Toccata Arpeggiata (Rome, 1611) is representative of much that makes his style unique; surprising changes of harmony, unusual

Henry Purcell: Hosanna to the Highest

This setting of words by an anonymous poet, dating from around 1680, stands as one of the best examples of Purcells undisputed mastery of the Ground-Bass, as well as one of his longest Vocal Grounds. Purcell avoids the monotony so often attributed to works of this type by later composers by varying cadences over repetitions of the Bass, to the point where cadential harmony becomes almost unpredictable to the first-time listener.

rhythms and a disregard for the fundamentals of strict counterpoint often led him to discredit in his own time, prized far more as a performer. However much of his work, and this Toccata in particular, can be seen to inspire many similar models, by J.S Bach and Marais included, throughout the rest of the Baroque period.

Giacomo Carissimi: Historia di Jephte

Although a prolific writer of Oratorio, and certainly not the first to compose them, Carissimis Historia di Jephte is the most well-known of early Italian Oratorio. As with a comparison between Carissimis operatic counterparts of Monteverdi and Cavalli and the late Baroque masters Handel and Vivaldi, it is far more succinct, and certainly darker than Handels setting; rewritten so that Jephtes daughter is at the last moment, saved. In a fashion similar to Rossis Peccator Pentito, here anguished suspensions and intervals over tonality not fully grounded in the diatonicism of later music result in a gripping pathos that make it fully deserving of its place as a masterpiece of oratorio.

Alessandro Piccinini: Toccata VI

Katalin Ertsey, Theorbo

Piccinini was an established composer well before the publication of his Intavolatura di Liuto et di Chitarrone, libro primo (Bologna, 1623). However, it was this and his Intavolaturo di Liuto, published posthumously in 1639, and in particular Toccatas such as this one contained therein, that he is most remembered for.