Search - History of Baroque Music :: History of Baroque Music: Secular

Western music is often regarded as growing out of the rich heritage of Catholic and, later, Protestant church music. Yet for all the glories of early religious chant and song, secular music ran in parallel, usually having more freedom of expression and inspiring unfettered flights of musical fancy for their own sake. A History of Baroque Music: Secular Music is a companion to an equally impressive anthology of instrumental music, the two sets together exploring the development of the baroque as music broke ever further away from the previously all-pervasive control of the Church. Over five discs and 6-1/2 hours we explore the madrigal, the birth of the opera, and its progress to a pinnacle of refinement with Handel's Giulio Cesare and Ariodante and Vivaldi's L'Incoronazione di Dario. The talents on offer are a Who's Who of Early Music, including Les Arts Florissants, La Chapelle Royal, Alfred Deller, Emilyvan Evera, the Hilliard Ensemble, Andreas Scholl, Stephen Varcoe, and many other fine performers. Twenty-two pages of notes place everything in historical context as we go from the Italy of Gesualdo and Monteverdi through the England of Dowland and Blow and the operas of Purcell (King Arthur and The Fairy Queen) to the France of Charpentier and Lully and so end in Germany with Gruan's Cleopatra e Cesare. It is a magnificent journey, wonderfully described by this impeccably assembled anthology, which is quite simply a treasure-trove of great music. --Gary S. Dalkin