April 1, 2001.   April is Opera Month on CC&C!    Today we begin at the beginning, with the wedding of Henry IV of France and Maria de Medici, October 5, 1600. During the festivities that day Jacopo Peri's Euridice, generally agreed to be the first opera, received its first performance. We hear music performed during the proceedings, and portions of Monteverdi's Orfeo from 1607, both from splendid new recordings by Ensemble Doulce Memoire (Astrée) and Gabriel Garrido's Ensemble Elyma (K617).

March 25, 2001.   A church "concerto" of Heinrich Schütz, plus "Tower music" with the Piffaro wind band; Hopkinson Smith plays a lute suite by Sylvius Leopold Weiss, a household friend of the Bachs; a concerto for multiple instruments by Telemann, led by gambist Lorenz Duftschmid; and a chorus from Bach's joyous cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (no. 147).

March 18, 2001.   Otherworldly music of Brumel's "Earthquake" Mass; Lute music of Johann David Mylius, with theorbist Lutz Kirchhof; Monteverdi's avant-garde madrigal "Altri canti d'amor"; Court music from the regency of the child-king Louis XIV; and an extraordinary Vivaldi concerto played by violinist Fabio Biondi.

March 11, 2001.   Music for the Leipzig Court, ca. 1710.  Ceremonial music of Johann Hermann Schein, chansons of Orlando di Lasso.  One of the "Paris Quartets" of Telemann, with the Kuijken Brothers and G. Leonhardt (1999); and Bach's Passacaglia & Fugue in C minor played by E. Power Biggs (1960)

March 4, 2001.  Two vignettes: Spain in the time of Carlos V (part II), music of Morales, H. Parabosco, and Josquin des Préz. And the wedding of Mary Tudor and Philip II (Carlos' son) 1543: Music of John Taverner, Morales, and Nicholas Gombert.

February 25, 2001. Fifteenth century vocal music sung by the Voix des Femmes and the Ferrara Ensemble; Three Sinfoniæ (3-part Inventions) by Bach, played by Christine Schornsheim, harpsichord; Zelenka choral music; and the Concerto in D for Harpsichord of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (Schornsheim again.)

February 18, 2001.  Two settings of Versa est in luctum by Victoria and Alonso Lobo; a canzona of Biagio Marini; 16th-century Spanish music by Anon, de la Torre, Gombert, and Valente; Alfred Deller sings Purcell's The Plaint; and a Bach Trio Sonata by the Rare Fruits Council.

February 11, 2001.  Music for Carlos V, part I: music of Josquin des Préz, Anon, Janequin, Juan del Enzina, and Cabezon; Weelkes' When David heard; English instrumental music of Dowland, Byrd and Gibbons.