Recording

Cupid’s Ground Bass | Bellot Ensemble

^{FIRST PUBLISHED 24 SEP 2025 (UPDATED 21 NOV 2025)}

Bellot Ensemble’s debut album, Cupid’s Ground Bass, captures love’s extremes, from radiant joy to deep lament, with enduring themes linking arias and instrumental works in the vivid sound-world of 17th-century Italy.

Featuring composers such as Francesco Cavalli, Andrea Falconieri, Barbara Strozzi and Claudio Monteverdi, the recording includes the ensemble’s own composed written-out instrumental diminutions, and arrangements of some sublime arias. Many of these arias feature the myriad of popular ground bass from this time. Vocal and instrumental interweaving is broken up with the purely instrumental music of contemporary composers from this groundbreaking period of musical history.

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^{Lucine Musaelian (soprano & viola da gamba), Edmund Taylor (violin), Daniel Murphy (theorbo) & Matthew Brown (harpsichord) perform Barbara Strozzi's aria, 'Che si può fare', Op. 8 No. 6}

Supported by a grant from Continuo Foundation, the recording is available to purchase from First Hand Records and on all major streaming platforms.

Album Contents
Strozzi Cantate, ariette e duetti, Op. 2: No. 22 ‘Amor dormiglione’
Uccellini Sonate, arie et correnti, Op. 3: Aria quinta sopra ‘La Bergamasca’
Farina Pavane, Gagliarde, Libro 2: Capriccio stravagante a 4: ‘La Lira’
Cavalli Gli amori d’Apollo e di Dafne, Act III: ‘Misero Apollo’
Il Giasone: Sinfonia; Act I: ‘Delizie, contenti che l’alma beate’
Musiche sacre: Canzon à 3
Il Giasone, Act I: ‘Se dardo pungente’
Kapsberger Intavolatura di chitarone, Libro 4: Toccata No. 1
Biber Mystery Sonata No. 1 in D minor The Annunciation
Kapsberger Intavolatura di chitarone, Libro 4: Capona
Monteverdi L’incoronazione di Poppea, Act II: ‘Oblivion soave’
Kapsberger Intavolatura di chitarone, Libro 4: Canario
Strozzi Arie a voce sola, Op. 8: ‘Che si può fare?’
Monteverdi ‘Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti’, SV 251

Bellot Ensemble
Lucine Musaelian soprano, viola da gamba
Kieran White tenor
Olivia Petryszak recorder
Edmund Taylor violin
Maxim Del Mar violin
Jacob Garside cello
Nathan Giorgetti viola da gamba
Daniel Murphy theorbo, baroque guitar
Matthew Brown harpsichord, organ

Recorded at St Barnabas Church, Walthamstow, London, UK, 8–11 November, 2024
Produced by Tom Pickering
Recorded by John Croft (Chiaro Audio)
24bit, 96kHz high resolution recording, editing and mastering