# TopicsAnniversary Baroque CD New Releases Early music festival Focus guests Heritage History interview music pictures of the Week Playlist of the week Portrait Presto Record of the month Records Report Video of the week Young talents
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.
From Seville to Barcelona, from Granada to Alcobaça or Marvão, every summer the Iberian Peninsula brings together early music and living heritage. Gardens, palaces, cloisters, monasteries, and fortified towns serve as the setting for medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque repertoires, blending sacred fervour, polyphonic tradition, and open-air musical evenings.
From Buxton to Brecon, from Oxford’s medieval colleges to the churches of Kent and Sussex, Britain’s early music festivals form a sonic postcard of green countryside, historic houses, chapels and charming villages. In one of the great cradles of the early music revival, summer unfolds to the sounds of Handel, Dowland, Monteverdi, Purcell and Bach.
Building on the legacy of the Franco-Flemish polyphonists of the Renaissance and the Baroque traditions of Northern Europe, festivals in Belgium and the Netherlands foster a dialogue between musical heritage and musicological research. From Utrecht to Namur, from Bruges to Liège, by way of Antwerp, a true route of the musical Low Countries emerges, where the greatest international ensembles meet the new generation of the European Baroque scene.
From Leipzig to Innsbruck, from Bayreuth and Potsdam to the Romanesque churches of the Rhineland, the German-speaking world remains one of the great historical laboratories of European early music. Here, Bach, Handel, Schütz, and the masters of the early Baroque continue to inspire a vibrant musical scene where philological research, grand Baroque operas, and the transmission of musical tradition are in constant dialogue. Between festivals in heritage sites and more intimate gatherings, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland thus form a vast musical geography where architectural heritage and historically informed performance continually respond to one another.
From Parma to Florence, from Cremona to Urbino, Italy remains one of the great historical stages of European early music. Between palaces and baroque basilicas, medieval and Renaissance cities, festivals bring the legacy of Monteverdi, Cavalli, Stradella, and Legrenzi back to life while cultivating remarkable artistic vitality.
With more than twenty festivals taking place between June and October, France remains one of Europe’s great territories for early music. From the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel to the Alpine valleys, from great Romanesque abbeys to the gardens of the Vendée, and through remarkable sites in Auvergne and the west of the country, these festivals today bring together historically informed performance, exceptional heritage settings and new generations of artists.
From the very first bars, the “St John Passion” reveals itself like an old master painting freshly revarnished under the brush of Raphaël Pichon and his ensemble Pygmalion: the lines become firmer, the contrasts sharper, the light begins to circulate, revealing unexpected gleams and rough edges.
John Eliot Gardiner has just completed a European tour with his new ensemble, Constellation, featuring a Bach trilogy: two cantatas and the Easter Oratorio. A year and a half after his departure from the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra (which he founded in 1964), he reflects on this new musical and human adventure. He will be performing at the Royal Chapel in Versailles on 11 and 12 June.
