Round-up: Seven of the latest UK Early Music record releases

There has been a strong crop of releases from across the Early Music spectrum recently, ranging from Medieval songs of Robin and Marion to Beethoven’s ‘Ghost’ Trio on period strings and fortepiano. Below are seven of the best new recordings from UK period-instrument ensembles and soloists.

Toby Carr: Softest Thunder
Delphian Records 💿 BUY NOW 🎧 STREAM ONLINE

After the award success of Battle Cry with mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, Toby Carr's debut solo album interweaves Renaissance lute works by John Dowland, Robert Johnson and Robert Ballard with his own arrangements of Purcell, Eccles, Satie and Poulenc. At its centre is Blue, specially commissioned from guitarist and composer Laura Snowden, whose heightened, personal language responds to the rhetorical elegance of early lute music while exploring the instrument’s modern possibilities.

Baroque in the North: Friends in High Places
First Hand Records 💿 BUY NOW 🎧 STREAM ON SPOTIFY
Supported by a grant from Continuo Foundation ⭐

Best described as a delicate classical bagpipe, by the 1760s the musette had become an integral part of French culture and music-making, featuring in music for the theatre, court and salon, and played by amateurs and virtuosi alike. Disappearing with the French Revolution, this instrument was only rediscovered during the 1960s, and this album showcases the its unique sound world. Ever wondered what two musettes sound like, or a musette and flute duo? These combinations bring out a unique sound world that isn’t replicated anywhere else in this latest release from Baroque in the North.

The Mozartists: Sturm und Drang 4
Signum Classics 💿 BUY NOW 🎧 STREAM ON SPOTIFY

Conducted by Ian Page, the fourth instalment in The Mozartists' critically-acclaimed Sturm und Drang series opens with Kraus’s rarely heard Symphony in C minor, which Haydn predicted would be regarded as a masterpiece for centuries, and closes with Haydn’s own celebrated Farewell Symphony. In between, soprano Alexandra Lowe performs dramatic scenas by Traetta, Mozart and Georg Benda, continuing the ensemble's survey of this turbulent style on period instruments.

Sirinu: Knights, Knaves and Amorous Escapades
Tremula Records 🖥️ DIGITAL DOWNLOAD 🎧 STREAM ON SPOTIFY

Sirinu's latest recording brings Medieval tales of Robin, Marion, Tristan and Arthur to life through songs, dances and motets performed on period instruments and voices. Much of this music was composed for performance by the composers themselves, often in a public and competitive arena to a critical and discerning audience who would have been fully conversant with the mythic characters and their deeds. Sirinu utilises a range of historic instruments and voices in monophonic songs, carols, pastourelles and ballades, exploring the interplay between social classes, the sexes, and town and country in Medieval society.

Linarol Consort: Epitaph for a Green Lover
CRD Records 💿 BUY NOW 🎧 STREAM ON SPOTIFY
Supported by a grant from Continuo Foundation ⭐

Linarol Consort joins forces with soprano Héloïse Bernard in an exploration of the musical treasures found within the private songbooks of one of the Renaissance’s most influential women: Margaret of Austria (1480–1530). It offers a rare, personal portal into the life of the Duchess of Savoy and Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands – a woman whose court was a linchpin of 16th-century culture, yet whose musical legacy has remained largely under-represented.

Solomon's Knot: JS Bach: Köthener Trauermusik
Linn Records 💿 BUY NOW 🎧 STREAM ON SPOTIFY

Marking the ensemble's label debut on Linn, Solomon’s Knot performs one of Bach’s most fascinating works: musicologist Chad Kelly's reconstruction of Bach's lost funeral music for Prince Leopold of Anhält-Köthen, drawing chiefly on the first version of the St Matthew Passion. Kelly uses carefully considered creative licence, bringing to life the sincerity of the text and the context of the occasion for which it was written.

Rautio Piano Trio – Beethoven: Piano Trios Op. 70
Resonus Classics 💿 BUY NOW 🎧 STREAM ON SPOTIFY

Beethoven’s two Op. 70 Piano Trios emerge from a world shadowed by inner turmoil and spectral imagination. The latest instalment in Rautio Piano Trio's complete Beethoven cycle pairs the 'Ghost' Trio and Op. 70 No. 2 with the lesser-known WoO 39 and Hess 48, played on a fortepiano modelled on an 1805 Viennese original alongside period strings.

Visit each artist’s profile page to find their upcoming concerts, and find out more about the recording projects Continuo Foundation supports at ContinuoFoundation.co.uk.

^{Cover photo: Toby Carr by Will Coates-Gibson}