2023 Holiday Gift List

Every year at this time, I compile a list of some of my favorite recent recordings to recommend for your holiday gift giving. For many years the goal has been pretty straightforward: to give you practical guidance and take away a little bit of the stress of getting ready for the holiday season, which can sometimes be chaotic.

Listening to music is itself a gift. It can provide comfort or brighten our mood, it can be a welcome distraction, or be a soothing balm. As a regular listener, you and I enjoy the music on Sunday Baroque every week.

Oboist Albrecht Mayer offers a branch of the Bach Family Tree – music by Johann Sebastian Bach, two of his sons: Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-1788) and Johann Christoph Friedrich (1732-1795), and his older cousin Johann Christoph (1642-1703). Berliner Barock Solisten were founded in 1995 by Rainer Kussmaul and other prominent members of the Berliner Philharmoniker to give them an opportunity to perform 17th and 18th century music. A polished and lovely recording.

Pianist Rochelle Sennet is a brilliant and sensitive artist, and she has compiled (so far) two impressive recordings of music by Johann Sebastian Bach paired with solo piano music by Black composers including Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Jeffrey Mumford, R. Nathaniel Dett, H. Leslie Adams, and Frederick Tillis (Volume 1).

Bach to Black: Suites for Piano, Vol. II represents pianist Rochelle Sennet’s continued interest in performing suites and multi-movement works by Black composers in combination with works by Johann Sebastian Bach. In addition to works by Ulysses Kay, Harry Thacker Burleigh, and George Walker, this 3-cd volume contains works by three Black women composers: Florence Price; Montague Ring; and Joyce Solomon Moorman.

Volume 3 is scheduled for release in Spring 2024, and I can’t wait!

Grammy-winning conductor and harpsichordist Jeannette Sorrell is a woman who takes matters into her own hands. She founded Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra in part because of the glass ceiling she encountered as a young conductor. And she has cultivated a world-class ensemble. Apollo’s Fire’s recording of George Frideric Handel’s oratorio ISRAEL IN EGYPT was adapted by Jeannette Sorrell to emphasize its drama.

Violinist Isabelle Faust collaborated with Giovanni Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico to present Violin Concertos and Concerti Grossi by Pietro Antonio Locatelli. He was a phenomenal violin player – IL VIRTUOSO (the virtuoso!) — so the music he composed for his instrument was impressive and fiery. Locatelli was also an imaginative composer who knew how to craft lovely and nuanced music for his instrument – IL POETA (the poet!)

The music on this exceptional 2023 recording is a little off the beaten path. If you enjoy baroque music, you’ll appreciate extending your library with this terrific music by Diego Ortiz, Nicola Matteis, Alessandro Scarlatti, Andrea Falconieri, Nicolas Fiorenza, Emanuele Barbella, Francesco Corselli, Francesco Durante, Leonardo Leo. These are top-notch performances of interesting music that you may not have heard before!

James Brydges, the Duke of Chandos from 1719, had musicians in his service. One of them was  Berlin native, Johann Christoph Pepusch, whose time with the Duke overlapped with George Frideric Handel’s time there. The Harmonious Society of Tickle-Fiddle Gentlemen (don’t you love their name??) have lovingly recorded Pepusch’s CHANDOS ANTHEMS for the Duke of Chandos. This is another fine recording of delightful music you’ve probably not heard before!

The brilliant young French guitarist Raphaël Feuillâtre is a huge fan of baroque music. So for his first recording with the Deutsche Grammophon recording label he made an all-Baroque recording that has music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Jaques Duphly, and Antoine Forqueray. Raphaël Feuillâtre is an astonishing talent. This is the recording to give to someone on your list who doesn’t yet realize the classical side of the guitar.

This is another volume of the ongoing VIVALDI EDITION series. [Listen to my interview with Susan Orlando, artistic director of the VIVALDI EDITION.] Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante perform Violin Concertos that Antonio Vivaldi composed for one of his particularly talented students in Venice.

Abendmusik is New York’s Early Music String Band, and they’ve carved out a delightful niche playing rarely-performed string consort music from the 17th and early 18th centuries. These fine instrumentalists play viola da gamba, violin, harpsichord and chamber organ, lute and theorbo. This recording zooms in on the consort music composed by William Whyte. These performances of this music is the embodiment of elegance and the spirit of chamber music as a collaborative endeavor.