Archives des Records – Total Baroque Magazine

CD – New Releases

Handel: Solo Sonatas

How should Handel’s solo sonatas be brought to life when their publishing history, their sources and, at times, even their intended instrumentation remain fluid? Released in MDG’s Preziosa series, this double album by the Ganassi Consort with Anne Röhrig does not opt for uniformity: it entrusts the corpus to a whole range of period instruments, in order to recover, as closely as possible to historical practice, the diversity of a chamber Handel who is by turns lyrical, dance-like, theatrical and inventive.

by Total Baroque 3 August 2026

CD – New Releases

Gabrielle Rubio

The Transverse Flute

For her first recital on Harmonia mundi, Gabrielle Rubio returns to the composers who first established the French transverse flute as an instrument of distinction. From Michel de La Barre to Michel Blavet, via Hotteterre, Philidor, Boismortier and Couperin, the young flautist traces a journey through dances, reveries and chiaroscuro, from the hushed intimacy of the King’s Chamber to the salons of the eighteenth century.

by Total Baroque 24 July 2026

CD – New Releases

Nova Ars Cantandi

Nola: Motetti pastorali

Giovanni Acciai and Nova Ars Cantandi bring Antonio Domenico Nola’s “Motetti pastorali per la solennità del Santo Natale” back into the light: an expansive Neapolitan fresco for four voices and basso continuo that had remained in obscurity for almost four centuries. Combining sacred narrative, expressive polyphony and echoes of popular Christmas traditions, this recording reveals a still little-known figure in Neapolitan music at the turn of the eighteenth century.

by Total Baroque 24 July 2026

CD – New Releases

Olivier Fortin & Emmanuel Frankenberg

Harpsichords in Concert

With “Clavecins concertants”, Olivier Fortin and Emmanuel Frankenberg recreate an entire world of French orchestral theatre on two harpsichords, from Lully to Rameau via Marais, d’Anglebert, Chambonnières, Lebègue and Forqueray. Overtures, chaconnes, dance airs and celebrated pieces acquire a new breadth in this setting: the two instruments do more than simply converse, together they reimagine the colours, textures and energy of a Baroque orchestra.

by Total Baroque 24 July 2026

A Violin Along the Roads of the Mediterranean

CD in four questions

Cristina Prats Costa

A Violin Along the Roads of the Mediterranean

In “Spiritillo Mediterraneo”, Spanish violinist Cristina Prats Costa follows in the footsteps of a lively, mischievous little Baroque sprite, taking her violin on a journey through Mediterranean ports, courtyards, and intertwined traditions. From Falconieri to Vivaldi, from Matteis to the Spanish dances of Sanz, Murcia, and Nebra, her first solo album transforms the Mediterranean into a theatre of invention, where ornamentation becomes storytelling.

by Gabriel Davigneau 14 July 2026

The Metamorphoses of an Unfettered Baroque

Record of the month

Jakub Józef Orliński & Michał Biel

The Metamorphoses of an Unfettered Baroque

When a star countertenor and a chameleon-like pianist take hold of the Baroque, stylistic certainties begin to waver. And it is precisely there that the surprise begins.

by Julien Delhom 29 June 2026

CD in four questions

Pablo Agudo López & Les Impertinences

Bestiario: Baroque in the Wild

With “Bestiario”, Les Impertinences plunges into a free, raw, and virtuosic seventeenth century, where instruments imitate animals, bodies, cries, dance, and the tumult of the world. Around Biber, Farina, Uccellini, and Du Mont, Venezuelan violinist and director Pablo Agudo López embraces an unruly baroque style, fueled by improvisation and Latin American traditions.

by Gabriel Davigneau 22 June 2026

Loris Barrucand Pays Tribute to the Last Master of the French Harpsichord

CD in four questions

The Splendour and Twilight of Jacques Duphly

Loris Barrucand Pays Tribute to the Last Master of the French Harpsichord

With “Éclats et derniers feux”, harpsichordist Loris Barrucand returns to the French clavecin master Jacques Duphly, a discreet composer of the Enlightenment whose music has accompanied him since his student years. Conceived as a “shattered mirror”, this anthology reveals the many facets of an art at once refined, brilliant and tender, at the moment when the harpsichord, soon to be supplanted by the pianoforte, casts its final glow.

by Gabriel Davigneau 15 June 2026

The first complete Demachy recording by Flore Seube

CD in four questions

Rediscovered seventeenth-century "Pièces de violle"

The first complete Demachy recording by Flore Seube

With her complete recording of Sieur Demachy’s “Pièces de violle”, Flore Seube gives voice once again to a mysterious figure of the Grand Siècle. The result of ten years of research and an intimate engagement with this repertoire, this recording reveals a sophisticated, lively, and refined style of viol music that balances textual fidelity, French sensibility, and the art of polyphony.

by Gabriel Davigneau 10 June 2026

CD – New Releases

Benjamin Alard

Bach: Chaconnes BWV 1178 & 1179

With this new release, Benjamin Alard adds two freshly authenticated works to his ambitious complete recording of Johann Sebastian Bach’s keyboard music. Centred on two chaconnes recently restored to the Cantor, the French keyboard player continues his exploration of an instrumental world in which dance, variation and contrapuntal architecture come together in the same expressive concentration.

by Total Baroque 5 June 2026

CD – New Releases

Dmytro Kokoshynskyy

Music for These Troubled Times

With this first solo recording, harpsichordist Dmytro Kokoshynskyy offers far more than a journey through the golden age of the English virginalists. Centred on Tallis, Byrd, Bull, Gibbons and Dowland, among others, he builds an intimate meditation on music as refuge, remedy and mirror of troubled times, extended into our own day by KHORA by the composer Maxim Shalygin.

by Total Baroque 5 June 2026

CD – New Releases

Arnaud Marzorati & Les Lunaisiens

Jadis et Naguère

With this new album, the ensemble Les Lunaisiens, led by Arnaud Marzorati, reaffirms its mission: to bring the ancestral heritage of French chanson back into the spotlight. By presenting a history of France through its songs, the ensemble brings to light contrasting tales from different eras—sometimes dramatic, sometimes satirical—which bear witness to the richness and complexity of the popular vocal heritage.

by Total Baroque 1 June 2026