This sequel of the highly successful CHRISTMAS ALBUM VOL. 1. Features legendary classic interpretations of baroque music: for the first time one single CD combines all four Christmas concertos from Corelli, Locatelli, Manfredini and Torelli with Vivaldi's Winter, the Bach Air and Pachelbel's Canon. Nothing is more redolent of a Berlin-style Christmas than the timeless sound of Herbert von Karajan with the Berlin Philharmonic, making this the ideal gift to brighten the winter season.

The Concerto Grosso is a popular Baroque form, in which two instrumental groups complete against each other: a small group of soloists and the tutti of the orchestral group. It is the forerunner of the solo concerto form, which features only one solo instrument. This set present the complete Concerti Grossi by Pietro Antonio Locatelli, modelled on the popular concerti grossi of his teacher Corelli. The writing as might be expected from Locatelli the devil violinist, is highly virtuosic and brilliant, inventive in harmony and counterpoint, written to impress and entertain.

Locatelli’s set of Opus 1 Concerti grossi, although indebted to Corelli (with the Eighth of the set ending with a Christmas Pastorale), similarly has a style and personality all its own. The invention is vigorous, the expressive range appealing. The Capella Istropolitana play with crisp attack, plenty of sparkle and resilient rhythms, while slow movements reveal a keen identity with the lessons of period performance, even though modern instruments are used. The Naxos recording is admirable.

If you're looking for a recording of Locatelli's complete Opus 8 Violin Sonatas, look no further. These 1994 recordings by the aptly named Locatelli Trio are not only superbly played and beautifully recorded, they have the singular virtue of being the only available recordings of the works. That's alright: with violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch at the helm, they are uniformly first-rate performances. Wallfisch is herself a superior period instrument player who balances the virtuoso demands of the music with its undeniable melodic charm and harmonic invention, and she leads cellist Richard Tunnicliffe and harpsichordist Paul Nicholson in performances that amaze as well as delight the listener. Furthermore, when the trio becomes a quartet with the addition of violinist Rachel Isserlis for the final four sonatas for two violins and continuo, the best gets even better through the brilliant interplay of two skilled soloists. For lovers of virtuoso violin music of the Italian High Baroque, this is as good as it gets. Hyperion's sound is crisp but warm, detailed but deep.

Listening to this disc will certainly blow the cobwebs away. On second thoughts, the experience could more accurately be described as blasting the cobwebs away. Superbly performed interpretations breathe life and a sense of adventure into this music that ranges from late Baroque to the Classical period.

Théotime Langlois de Swarte continues his exploration of the violin repertory of the early eighteenth century. On this program, he highlights the links between three leading composers for the instrument, whose popularity was burgeoning at the time: Vivaldi, father of the violin concerto, and two of his most brilliant younger contemporaries, Locatelli and Leclair. A recording which, beyond the interplay of echoes and personal connections, showcases the extraordinary versatility of an instrument as virtuosic as it is poetic.

Christmas celebrations are thought to go all the way back to the formidable feasting of the Vikings at midwinter, when in true Nordic fashion yuletide was toasted in. The celebration of the birth in Bethlehem is more subdued and spiritual, but it is of a far more recent date. We do not know if the Vikings celebrated yuletide with music, but music at Christmas has been a popular tradition since the Middle Ages. Today, practically all peoples around the world celebrate midwinter with special religious and cultural rituals; the precise times vary, but gifts, decorations, festivities, candles, bells and special Christmas music are apparently always part of this. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Christmas was the busiest time of the year for church composers.

Published in 1733, Pietro Locatelli’s L'Arte del violino for solo violin, strings, and basso continuo took both violin technique and the solo concerto as a genre into a whole new realm. The twelve concertos included in the collection also played a part in forming the image of the violin virtuoso, reaching its full bloom with Paganini towards the end of the century. While the unusually high technical demands of the solo part are obvious to the listener from the start, the great surprise comes at the end of the first and third movements of each of the concertos. Here Locatelli inserts Capriccios for the soloist alone of a difficulty previously unheard of, with a left hand technique making use of extensions, octaves, unprepared tenths, double and triple stopping, arpeggios and double trills.

Germany's Accent label has released a series of twin-CD sets featuring the Baroque flute recordings made by Barthold Kuijken, sometimes (as here) accompanied by his cello-playing brother Wieland. The originals date back to the late '70s, when Kuijken was one of the Dutch specialists who brought historical performance out of the too-precious phase, and they still sound good. This release pairs a 1979 set of French flute sonatas from the middle eighteenth century with a 1991 group of Italian works of the same period. The two discs, both recorded in Belgian churches, don't have exactly the same ambiance, but the pairing is an intelligent one, making this a good pick from among the various discs available.

Das Freiburger Barockorchester zählt zu den wichtigsten Kammerorchestern weltweit. Zahlreiche nationale und internationale Auszeichnungen, darunter der Grammy Award, Echo Klassik oder der Deutsche Schallplattenpreis sind Zeugnisse ihres einzigartigen Schaffens.

In the course of his illustrious career, Fabio Biondi has nurtured a remarkable empathy with Italian music from across many centuries, but strikingly so with the early Baroque violin sonata repertory, the development of which was dramatically propelled into the future by Arcangelo Corelli with his Op 5 collection. It is this empathy possessed by Biondi which has inspired the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome (from its bowed instrument collection) to make him a loan of the precious 1690 “Tuscan” violin made by Antonio Stradivari, for this Glossa recording.

Since it's founding in Freiburg in 1958, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi has been one of the most important and ambitious labels for period performances. Over decades, globally-acclaimed recordings were created with outstanding musicians. The limited edition "Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 100 Great Recordings" contains 100 outstanding DHM recordings with some of the most important and best artists in their field: Nuria Rial, Dorothee Mields, Al Ayre Espanol, Hille Perl, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Skip Sempé, Capriccio Stravagante, La Petite Bande, Gustav Leonhardt, Andrew Lawrence-King, Frieder Bernius, the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Thomas Hengelbrock and many others.

Dimitry Sinkovsky is a dazzlingly multi-talented artist a brilliant violinist, countertenor, conductor, and founder in 2011 of the ensemble La Voce Strumentale. In Virtuosissimo, his fifth venture with Naïve, he has teamed up again with the ensemble Il Pomo dOro, his partners in numerous recordings and concerts, to cast more light on Pisendel, a celebrated violinist and composer who led the prestigious Dresden Court Orchestra, and a Vivaldi devotee who copied out several of the Venetian masters concertos for performance in Dresden.

Het ensemble Europe Galante, onder leiding van Fabio Biondi, is sinds zijn oprichting in 1989 uitgegroeid tot één van de belangrijkste muziekgroepen op het gebied van de zeventiende- en achttiende-eeuwse Italiaanse barokmuziek. Op het programma staan dan ook verschillende Italiaanse componisten uit die tijd. Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762) en Pietro Locatelli (1695-1764) waren in hun tijd beroemd om hun virtuoos vioolspel. Hun muziek is tegelijk vurig en virtuoos, maar blijft steeds elegant en hoogst melodieus.