The Early Music Show: Recent Episodes

BBC Radio 3

An exploration of early music, looking at early developments in musical performance and composition in Britain and abroad. UK only: please note that not all episodes are podcast.

Hannah French with the second of two programmes exploring the lives of two 16th Century Popes: Leo X and Clement VII, and the music that surrounded them.

Having been brought up together in the wealthy and influential Florentine household of the Medicis, cousins Giovanni & Giulio were always destined for greatness.

As Pope Leo X, Giovanni was a lavish patron of the arts. He sanctioned major renovations on St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, extended the Sistine Chapel Choir, promoted the study of Greek, Arabic & Hebrew, commissioned works from artists such as Raphael & Peruzzi, and maintained a private orchestra as well as the official papal musicians.

In order to fund these lavish artistic interests, Leo X encouraged the purchase of indulgences - remissions of the temporal punishment for sins – which could only be afforded by the most wealthy. Leo was also portrayed by his opponents as a man of gross excess; there were suggestions of sexual impropriety, favouritism and immorality, all of which were fuel to the fire of the burgeoning Protestant Reformation in northern Europe. Needless to say, Leo spent way above the papal means, and when he died suddenly in 1521, the papal treasury was 400,000 ducats in debt.

Leo’s right-hand man throughout his papacy was his beloved cousin, Giulio de Medici. Within three months of Leo’s election as Pope, Giulio had been made Archbishop of Florence, and just three more months down the line, he was appointed Cardinal of Santa Maria in Dominica. By 1517, Cardinal Giulio was made Vice-Chancellor of the Church (ie, second in command). He became deeply involved in the politics of England, France and the Holy Roman Empire, which would eventually backfire on him spectacularly…

When Cardinal Giulio was elected to the heady heights of the Papacy in 1523, as Pope Clement VII, little did he know the struggles that lay ahead. There was already the threat of the Lutherans from northern Europe and the Turks were making in-roads into the east. Plus, there was the childish squabbling of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and King Francis I of France, who both demanded the Pope choose a side, leading to the Sack of Rome in 1527. And six years later, he had Henry VIII’s divorce to deal with. All of this while having to impose austerity measures in an attempt to pay off some of the debts left by his own cousin!

Like his cousin, Pope Clement VII was also a gifted musician. It's likely he too learned from the great composer Heinrich Isaac while growing up in Florence, and over the years he had dealings with the likes of Nicolas Gombert, Jean Mouton, Philippe Verdelot and Costanzo Festa as the music of the High Renaissance swirled around him.

In this first of two programmes, Hannah French explores the lives of two 16th Century Popes: Leo X and Clement VII, and the music that surrounded them.

Giovanni & Giulio were cousins, brought up together in the wealthy and influential Florentine household of the Medicis. Giovanni's father, Lorenzo "The Magnificent" and his brother Giuliano were the rulers of the Florentine Republic. In 1478, though, Giuliano de Medici was murdered in Florence Cathedral as part of the Pazzi Conspiracy. As a result, young Giulio was brought up by his uncle. Both boys were guided into a career in the church, and because of the financial and political backing that came with the Medici name, it was clear they were both destined for high office.

In 1513, Giovanni de Medici was elected as Pope Leo X. He made Rome a strong political power, and as a generous patron of the arts, he helped writers, poets, painters and musicians of the High Renaissance to flourish. But, his lavish tastes depleted the papal treasury, and made many enemies who accused him of being "engrossed in idle and selfish amusements". By 1517, would-be reformers in northern Europe had had enough of papal excesses, and Martin Luther published his 95 theses which were to be the start of the Protestant Reformation.

The young Giovanni de Medici was said to have had a fine ear and a melodious voice, and "loved music to the pitch of fanaticism". It's possible he learned from the great Heinrich Isaac, who was the shining musical light in late 15th Century Florence. As Pope Leo X he expanded the Sistine Chapel choir, and procured the services of professional singers, instrumentalists and composers from all over Europe.

In the last of four programmes across 2025 marking the 300th anniversary of the publication of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Hannah French explores the Violin Concerto in F major, RV.293 - better known as Autumn.

Dancing, drinking, feasting: Vivaldi's musical depiction of Autumn and the sonnet that accompanies it are all about celebrating the good times of harvest and hunt... and warn of the aftereffects of over-indulgence at the festivities. As part of her exploration of the music and its themes, Hannah talks to Amandine Beyer, Baroque violinist and director of the internationally acclaimed early music group Gli Incogniti, about the concerto and working with choreographers to create a danced version of The Four Seasons. And Hannah sends us one final sonic snapshot from her recent research trip to Vivaldi's haunts in Venice and Mantua.

To listen to this programme using most smart speakers just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play The Early Music Show".

In the second of four programmes across 2025 marking the 300th anniversary of the publication of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Hannah French explores the Violin Concerto in E major, RV.269 - better known as Spring.

From the opening's chorus of birdsong to the rustic dance of the finale via the snoring goatherd of the second movement, Hannah considers the concerto's context and inspirations, and shares other early music influenced by the season of hope and new beginnings. Violinist and artistic director of La Serenissima Adrian Chandler talks to Hannah about the Op. 8 collection of concertos that Vivaldi published in Amsterdam in 1725, and what Vivaldi's Spring means to him. And Hannah sends us a sonic snapshot from a recent trip to the church where Vivaldi was baptised in 1678 in the heart of Venice.

To listen to this programme using most smart speakers just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play The Early Music Show".

In the third of four programmes across 2025 marking the 300th anniversary of the publication of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Hannah French explores the Violin Concerto in G minor, RV.315 - better known as Summer.

In its combination of oppressive heat and violent storms, Vivaldi's concerto and the sonnet that accompanies it focus on the hardships of an Italian summer: a harsh musical depiction of tempests and high temperatures. Recorder player and artistic director of the London International Festival of Early Music Erik Bosgraaf chats to Hannah about the challenges of playing The Four Seasons on a wind instrument. And Hannah sends us a sonic snapshot from a recent trip to Mantua, where Vivaldi spent two years working at the court chapel.

To listen to this programme using most smart speakers just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play The Early Music Show".

Hannah French presents highlights of last November's London International Festival of Early Music. There's music by Corelli from the young Korean recorder player Jiyeon Bang, viol player Robert Smith plays a set of variations by John Jenkins, harpsichordist Maciej Skrzeczkowski plays John Bull, and recorder player Erik Bosgraaf and the ensemble filoBarocco explore the world of Telemann's Polonaises.

In the first of four programmes across 2025 marking the 300th anniversary of the publication of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Hannah French explores the Violin Concerto in F minor, RV297 - better known as Winter.

From the trembling, teeth-chattering cold of the first movement to the fireside warmth of the second and the slippery ice and chill winds of the last, in this concerto Vivaldi vividly depicts the harsh brutality of the Venetian winter. Hannah considers the context and inspirations for the music, and shares other early music influenced by the season of frost and darkness. She talks to violinist Daniel Pioro, whose new recording of The Four Seasons couples Vivaldi's music with new poetry by Michael Morpurgo, about what Vivaldi's Winter means to him. And she sends us a sonic snapshot from a recent trip to the Venetian Lagoon, which completely froze over in the brutal winter of 1709 to devastating effect to local communities.

To listen to this programme using most smart speakers just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play The Early Music Show".

As part of Radio 3's European Road Trip, Hannah French is joined by musicologist and conductor Árni Heimir Ingólfsson to explore early Icelandic music - from the 13th-century poems known as “Eddas” to the influence of mainland Europe that shaped Iceland’s rich sacred choral traditions, which still continue today.

To listen to this programme using most smart speakers just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play The Early Music Show".

Hannah French visits Claire van Kampen - the Tudor music advisor & arranger for both Wolf Hall TV series - to explore the music associated with many of the main characters, including King Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell, Anne Boleyn and Lady Mary, as well as some of the musicians at court: Mark Smeaton, John Taverner and John Blanke.

Hannah is joined in the studio by organist and director of Amsterdam Baroque as he celebrates his 80th birthday this year. They'll chat about his incredible 60-year career and choose some of his favourite recordings.

To listen to this programme using most smart speakers, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play [The Early Music Show".

As the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris reopens its doors to the public after more than five years since fire caused its closure, Hannah French examines the early musical history of this extraordinary building.

With the help of Antony Pitts, founder-conductor of the choral group Tonus Peregrinus, Hannah explores the influential Notre-Dame school of polyphony - musician-priests like Léonin and Perotin who worked in Notre-Dame in the 12th Century. These composers codified a new style of multi-voice liturgical chant known as organum, which flourished just as the cathedral itself was in the process of being built.

Hannah also looks into the musicians who followed in the footsteps of these musical pioneers across the following six centuries, including organists Louis-Claude Daquin and Armand-Louis Couperin who worked in Notre-Dame in the 18th-century.

To listen to this programme (using most smart speakers) just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play The Early Music Show".

In honour of the Paris Olympics, Hannah French explores medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music associated with gold, silver and bronze across three episodes of The Early Music Show.

As the Games draw to a close, Hannah reaches the top spot on the podium, focusing on gold and its allure over composers and musicians across the centuries. Golden apples, the golden fleece, golden tresses, the golden ratio: gold glitters in musical treasures from the Tudor court in England to the opera stages of Baroque Venice.

Hannah French presents the second of two programmes of highlights from the 2023 London International Festival of Early Music, today focusing on their support of young, up-and-coming artists. The OAE Experience Ensemble offers students the chance to play alongside seasoned professionals, and you can hear them playing music by Haydn and Mozart, as well as students from Chethams School of Music in Manchester, and London's Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Junior Royal Academy, performing music by Telemann, Purcell and van Eyck.

Hannah French presents the first of two programmes of highlights from the 2023 London International Festival of Early Music, including performances from harpsichordist Jane Chapman, recorder player Erik Bosgraaf, the Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra and Ensemble Pampinea.

Hannah French marks the 450th anniversary of the birth of John Wilbye, the most famous of the English madrigalists. Wilbye's fame rests almost entirely on the 64 works contained in two books of madrigals which were published in 1598 and 1608.

For their first visit to the Beverley and East Riding Early Music Festival, Ensemble Augelletti - the newly appointed BBC New Generation Baroque Ensemble focus their musical lens on a curious and well-connected local clergyman and musician – Edward Finch. Specialising in making musical arrangements of the most popular music of his time, including Henry Purcell’s wonderful ‘Golden Sonata’, Ensemble Augelletti tell Finch’s singular story and they perform some of his compositions and arrangements alongside music by his friends Purcell, Handel, and Geminiani.

As part of Radio 3’s programming around LGBTQ+ Pride, Hannah French is joined by musicologists Berta Joncus and Lola Salem to explore the life and career of Jean-Baptiste Lully, who shot to fame at the court of King Louis XIV.

Lully was an Italian violinist, guitarist and dancer, who caught the eye of the young King when they danced together in a ballet in 1653. Before long, he became an indispensable part of the Paris and Versailles music scenes, entertaining the royal family for the next thirty years and earning a very good salary from doing so. Lully was bisexual, and for many years his relationships with both men and women were never questioned – there was an implicit acceptance to same-sex desires among the upper echelons of 17th Century Parisian society.

But in 1683, Queen Marie-Thérèse died, and the king's secret marriage to Madame de Maintenon changed everything. Devotion came to the fore at court, the king's enthusiasm for opera dissipated, he became increasingly annoyed by what he now considered Lully's dissolute lifestyle, and everything began to unravel…

In honour of the Paris Olympics, Hannah French explores medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music associated with gold, silver and bronze across three episodes of The Early Music Show.

In second place, it's silver: from silver cymbals to South American silver mines, silver swans to Judas's 30 pieces of silver, Hannah considers the 'second best' metal and examines its connections with early music from Bach to Bolivia.

In honour of the Paris Olympics, Hannah French explores medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music associated with gold, silver and bronze across three episodes of The Early Music Show.

Starting in third place, Hannah considers music relating to bronze, from the extraordinary sound of Bronze Age horns to the magnificent music that would have floated over Bernini's famous bronze altar canopy in St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. She also showcases some of the composers who came in third - including Johann Sebastian Bach, third choice for the job of Thomaskantor in Leipzig.

Lucie Skeaping looks at the life and music of German organist and composer Matthias Weckmann, who died 350 years ago this month.

Mark Seow looks at 18thC Europe's fascination with the Orient, including music by Purcell and Couperin, and he explores the lives of certain musicians living in 18thC Beijing.

Plus an edition of The Early Music News.

From her home in North London, Hannah French presents a selection of medieval carols, plus Renaissance & Baroque music for Christmas Eve, including festive pieces by Corelli, Vivaldi, Charpentier, Manfredini, Byrd, Manchicourt & Handel.

Join Hannah in the French kitchen as she also tucks in to some Yuletide treats fit for a cosy Christmas Eve.

Alessandro Stradella's star burned brightly but briefly. His music was glorious; his lifestyle was dissolute: embezzlement, sexual imprudence and political intrigue - Stradella fell foul of his misdemeanours in 1682 when he was murdered by a hitman at the age of just 38.

Hannah French is joined in the studio by the University of Birmingham's Professor Andrew Kirkman, who conducted a recent performance of Stradella's opera "La forza dell'amor paterno" with Barber Opera. Together they'll explore Stradella's colourful life and wonderful music, including extracts from the Birmingham performance, alongside recordings of Stradella's other operas, oratorios and orchestral works.

Programme also includes your weekly bulletin of Early Music News, with Mark Seow.

Lucie Skeaping delves into the life and music of the extraordinary 18th-century German viol player and composer Carl Friedrich Abel, who was born 300 years ago this year.

Plus, your weekly edition of Early Music News from Mark Seow.

The National Trust's Senior Curator John Chu takes Hannah French around two stunning properties in Derbyshire: Hardwick Hall & Kedleston Hall to explore the musical links in the buildings, furnishings and art works.

Plus, your weekly edition of Early Music News from Mark Seow.

The Tallis Scholars mark their 50th anniversary this year so today, founder Peter Phillips and two of the group's singers meet with Hannah French to choose some highlights from the last five decades of recording and giving concerts at home and abroad.

The Academy of Ancient Music celebrates its golden anniversary this year - 5 decades since harpsichordist Christopher Hogwood and record producer Peter Wadland cooked up the idea of forming a historically-informed orchestra one evening in London's Marquis of Granby pub. Since then, they have produced hundreds of recordings, launched the careers of many international soloists and brought fantastic period performances of Baroque and Classical music to the public's attention.

Today, Hannah French takes the opportunity to chat to current music director Laurence Cummings and CEO John McMunn about the group's first fifty years and the impact they have made.

Lucie Skeaping discovers the remarkable Guillaume de Machaut, as both poet and composer in 1300s France, in conversation with Machaut experts Elizabeth Eva Leach and Uri Smilansky.

With thanks to French Radio, Le Miroir de Musique, the Orlando Consort and Sollazzo Ensemble for making recordings available for this programme.

The Taverner Consort and Players emerged in 1973 and has since become a world leader in the period performance of Baroque and Classical music. Hannah French talks to its founder Andrew Parrott about the group's extraordinary five decades of success and discovery.

"The most celebrated Italian musician of his generation"...but what do we know now about the 17th century composer Antonio Cesti? In his quatercentenary year, Lucie Skeaping delves into his life and music to find out more, and we'll hear excerpts from his many operas.

Plus, your weekly bulletin of Early Music News from Mark Seow.

International performer & lecturer Sietz de Vries takes Hannah French on an organ tour of the Dutch province of Groningen to explore its still thriving tradition of improvisation.

Although best known for his vocal music, William Byrd's keyboard music was rich and diverse, leading the way for composers such as Giles Farnaby and Thomas Tomkins. Lucie Skeaping speaks to Professor of Harpsichord and Fortepiano Carole Cerasi about how Byrd set the future style of English keyboard music and why it remains important now 400 years after his death.

Mark Seow explores the cantata with which JS Bach exploded onto the musical scene in Leipzig in 1723 – Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV75. Bach composed the piece at a decisive turning point in his career. After various positions in churches and courts, he assumed his post of Thomaskantor in Leipzig on the first Sunday after Trinity, performing this cantata.Plus, there's a round-up of the week's Early Music News with Hannah French.

Lucie Skeaping meets the singer-songwriters of 13th century northern France, in conversation with medieval vocal music experts Joseph Mason and Meghan Quinlan. The trouveres were the northern cousins of the more famous troubadours, and their songs cover the gamut from courtly love to religious devotion via the Crusades and political and personal conflicts.

Hannah French chats to conductor Stephen Rice about his Oxford-based choir The Brabant Ensemble which celebrates its silver anniversary in 2023. Stephen chooses some of his favourite recordings from the group's first 25 years, including music by Pierre de Manchicourt, Nicolas Gombert, Jacobus Clemens non Papa, Cristobal de Morales, Orlando Lassus, Jean Mouton, Francisco Guerrero, Giovanni da Palestrina, Josquin des Prez, Robert Parsons, Antoine de Fevin and Jacquet of Mantua.

Hannah French leafs through a new book of 100 exhibits exploring Renaissance music history, in conversation with its editors Vincenzo Borghetti and Tim Shephard.Links to images of the exhibits they discuss: Venus (Florence, c. 1464): www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1845-0825-467 Plato charming the wild animals by his music (Lahore, 1595): https://imagesonline.bl.uk/asset/1355 The Whole Booke of Psalmes (London, 1627): bit.ly/3ITG3XiChansonnier of Margaret of Austria (?Mechelen, c. 1515/20): https://lib.is/IE7906245/representation?fl_pid=FL7906763 Valance (England, Scotland or France, c. 1570/1600): https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O15351/valance-unknownLe Jardin de Plaisance et Fleur de Rhétorique ((The Garden of Delight and the Flower of Rhetoric, Paris, c. 1501/2): https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1511444hThe Musicians of the Holy Church, Exempt from Tax (Peru, c. 1615): www5.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/680/en/text/?open=idm464Sacred and Profane Love (Venice, 1514): www.collezionegalleriaborghese.it/opere/amor-sacro-e-amor-profano

Lucie Skeaping charts the history of German art song from its beginnings with the 12th-century Minnesänger through to the Renaissance in the 1500s, with music by Tannhäuser, Walther von Vogelweide, Oswald von Wolkenstein and Heinrich Isaac.

On the first anniversary of the passing of Clare Salaman, Lucie Skeaping celebrates her life and work. Clare founded The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments, and championed rare and exotic instruments including the trumpet marine. With archive of Clare herself and contributions from fellow practitioners from the world of early music including Rachel Podger.

2023 marks the 400th anniversary of English composer William Byrd - often hailed as one of the finest of the European late Renaissance. Hannah French will explore his influence with the vocal ensemble Stile Antico, including music from their newly released recording.

Hannah French is in Germany to mark the 40th anniversary of one of Europe’s most successful early music ensembles - the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin. Founded in 1982 in what was then East Berlin, the Akademie has blossomed into a Grammy award-winning outfit that tours worldwide and enjoys a reputation to match. Hannah will be talking to the ensemble’s general manager Uwe Schneider, long-standing oboist Xenia Löffler, founder member and concert master Bernhard Forck and one of the ensemble’s eminent regular guest conductors – René Jacobs.Music includes the Akademie’s recordings of JS Bach, CPE Bach, Handel, Mozart, Gluck, Telemann, Keiser and Vivaldi.Plus, there'll be the usual round-up of Early Music News with Mark Seow.

Hannah French chats to the Dunedin Consort's artistic director John Butt in the ensemble's 25th anniversary year, and John chooses some of his favourite recordings from their discography.

Lucie Skeaping is joined by Professor Magnus Williamson of Newcastle University to explore the life & music of 16th Century composer Robert Parsons, who died 450 years ago this year, at the young age of 37.

Hannah French explores the major recording series the Vivaldi Edition, in conversation with its artistic director Susan Orlando. At 68 discs so far - the 69th will be out on Friday - the Edition is one of the biggest recording projects of the 21st century and aims to release every note of music in the manuscripts Vivaldi had with him when he died in 1741.

Vivaldi Edition website: https://vivaldiedition.net

Hannah French presents a tribute to the extraordinary musician, linguist and founder of Joglaresa - Belinda Sykes - who died last year. With contributions from friends and colleagues, and tracks from her many recordings.

Hannah French presents a tribute to the extraordinary musician, linguist and founder of Joglaresa - Belinda Sykes - who died last year. With contributions from friends and colleagues, and tracks from her many recordings.

Hannah French presents a tribute to the extraordinary musician, linguist and founder of Joglaresa - Belinda Sykes - who died last year. With contributions from friends and colleagues, and tracks from her many recordings.

John Blanke was a trumpet player of African descent employed by the English Kings Henry VII and Henry VIII in the early 1500s. He's the only black person of the Tudor period for whom we have both a name and a picture – in the Westminster Tournament Roll of 1511, currently on display at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool – but he was by no means the only person of African heritage living in England at that time. Lucie Skeaping uncovers the life and world of John Blanke and the music he would have known, in conversation with expert on diversity in Tudor England, Dr Onyeka Nubia.

Radio 3's New Generation Baroque Ensemble - Ensemble Molière - play Lully, Couperin and Telemann, showcasing the coming together of French and Italian musical tastes in the late 18th century, known as the 'Réunion des goûts'.

Presented by Hannah French.

Hannah French is in Cambridge exploring links between Handel and the city...which he never visited! She's joined by The Fitzwilliam Museum's Dr Suzanne Reynolds, Handel aficionado Dr Ruth Smith and Emeritus Professor Iain Fenlon to look at a number of treasured items of Handel memorabilia.

She'll also be chatting to Cambridge Handel Opera Company's Julian Perkins ahead of their forthcoming production of Tamerlano.

Lucie Skeaping celebrates the 450th anniversary of Thomas Tomkins's birth. He studied with William Byrd, was choirmaster at Worcester Cathedral and organist at the Chapel Royal. Born in 1572, his life spanned the end of the Tudor period, the beginning of the reign of the Stuarts and the execution of Charles I to whom he dedicated his Sad Pavan: for these distracted times. His music is still performed regularly in cathedrals, in particular his anthem When David Heard.

New York-based wine historian Ron Merlino joins Hannah once again to explore some of the music and wines associated with 18th-century Venice during Carnevale season, with a particular focus on the operas of Vivaldi - himself something of a wine connoisseur.

Hannah will be tasting three red wine varieties - a Marzemino, a Refosco and an Amarone.

New York-based wine historian Ron Merlino joins Hannah French to explore the Carnevale season in Baroque Venice. There's music specifically associated with wine, and the wine trade - a mainstay of the 17th-century Venetian economy.

Hannah will be tasting three white wine varieties intrinsically linked to music by Cavalli, Monteverdi, Pallavicino and Cesti.

Hannah French uncovers the amazing story of a 15th-century songbook rediscovered in 2014, in conversation with Professor Jane Alden of Wesleyan University. The Leuven Chansonnier, as it's become known, is only the size of a pack of playing cards, but it's beautifully decorated and packed full of the most popular French chansons of the day - plus 12 songs that until now were lost for 550 years.

Photographs of the whole Leuven Chansonnier can be seen on the website of the Alamire Foundation here (click on "VIEW IMAGES" towards the right-hand side of the page): https://idemdatabase.org/items/show/166

Additional information about the Leuven Chansonnier and the related family of songbooks known as the Loire Valley Chansonniers is available on the website created by Peter Woetmann Christoffersen: https://chansonniers.pwch.dk

Thanks to Danish Radio for the recording of Robert Morton's "Le souvenir de vous me tue".

Following his very public rift with long-term contributor Jean-Baptiste Lully, Molière turned to Marc-Antoine Charpentier to provide the incidental music for his last theatrical productions.

As part of Radio 3's celebration of Molière's quatercentenary, Lucie Skeaping explores the music Charpentier composed for Molière's final theatre pieces, including the plays Le Malade imaginaire and Le Mariage forcé.

This programme includes brand new recordings by Radio 3's recently inaugurated New Generation Baroque Ensemble - the aptly named Ensemble Molière.

Using the words of the favourite 19th-century English carol “Good King Wenceslas”, Hannah French explores the music, food and traditions of Christmas in Bohemia.

“Good King Wenceslas looked out On the Feast of Stephen”

The carol tells the story of the Bohemian king, Saint Wenceslaus I going on a journey and braving harsh winter weather to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Saint Stephen. During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following his master’s footprints, step for step through the deep snow.

Saint Stephen’s Day – 26th December – celebrates the saint who is credited with being the first Christian martyr.

“Bring me flesh and bring me wine”

What is the traditional Bohemian Christmas fare? Hannah is joined by food-writer and philanthropist Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines MBE to unpack some of the yuletide traditions still practiced in the Czech Republic today.

“Ye, who now will bless the poor Shall yourselves find blessing.”

As a child, Lady Milena, with the help of Sir Nicholas Winton, escaped Nazi-occupied Prague in 1939 on the last train to leave the city. That concept of deep selflessness and kindness is surely one Saint Wenceslas might have approved of!

Hannah’s other guest is singer and language coach Jarmila Karas, and together they will also explore some of the traditional Czech music associated with Christmas and pieces related to Saint Stephen by Bach and Zelenka.

Hannah French seeks the real Lucrezia Borgia through the music she knew and loved, in conversation with Professor Laurie Stras of the University of Huddersfield. Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519) has had an appallingly bad press, but pretty much everything we think we know about her is wrong: she may have been the pope's daughter - hardly her fault - but she almost certainly didn't do any of the really nasty things she's been accused of – incest, murder etc. The real Lucrezia was a highly skilled administrator and a patron of the arts and music who sang, loved dancing, and employed some of the best composers and performers in Italy.

One of the most influential composers during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, Robert Fayrfax died 500 years ago this year. Lucie Skeaping is joined by Professor Magnus Williamson of Newcastle University to unpack the details of Fayrfax's life and his extraordinary music.

It’s that time of year isn’t it? Spooks and surprises lurking round every corner...In today’s Early Music Show, Hannah French is joined by Dr Clive McClelland of the University of Leeds to explore how 17th & 18th Century composers really frightened their audiences.

Hide behind the sofa and cover your eyes with a cushion to protect yourself from scary music by Gluck, Handel, Cavalli, Rameau, Marais, Purcell, Locke, Haydn and Mozart.

Hannah French continues her series of programmes associated with The Elements. Today's programme focuses on fire, with music by Hannah French continues her series of programmes associated with The Elements. Today's focus: fire - with music by Vivaldi, Rameau, Araujo, Corette, Rebel and JS Bach.

Hannah French continues her series of programmes associated with the elements. Today's programme focuses on the wind - with music by Bach, Rameau, Monteverdi, Boyce, Marenzio, Rebel, Palestrina, Handel, Lully and Hildegard of Bingen.

Lutenist Paula Chateauneuf and historian Clare Clinton reflect on the history and music associated with the household of West Horsley Place in Surrey during the 16th and 17th Centuries, with intriguing links to King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh and even Guy Fawkes!

The programme explores the Golden Age of English lute music, and includes pieces by John Dowland, Robert Johnson, Daniel Batchelar, Robert Jones, John Coprario, Richard Allison and Thomas Morley.

Presented by Lucie Skeaping in conversation with historian Clare Clinton, lutenist Paula Chateauneuf and Isabel Dawson of the Investec International Music Festival.

Photograph: Alistair Wilson

Ana Her celebrates the life and work of Italian composer Tomaso Albinoni, known for his operas and instrumental music, marking the 350th anniversary of his birth on 8 June 1671. It is thought that Albinoni wrote at least 50 operas, although few of them survive. His oboe concertos were the first of their type by an Italian composer to be published, and his instrumental music was admired by Bach, who wrote fugues based on Albinoni's works and also used them in his teaching.

At a time when our own freedoms are being restored, Lucie Skeaping explores the concept of liberty. Freedom from or freedom to? Do we want to be enchained by love? Or find release through that ultimate escape, death? What does classical myth tell us, and religious belief? All the big ideas are here, with music including Byrd, Barbara Strozzi and Handel.

In this week raising awareness of mental health, Hannah French considers Music for Melancholy. From Dowland’s Flow, My Tears to David’s Harp, she’s off in search of music with the power to balance the humours and transform the spirit. CPE Bach offers a contest between Sanguinius and Melancholicus and Michel Richard Delalande emerges as a figure who turned to music when faced with mental trials both great and small.

Lucie Skeaping explores the many Baroque operatic settings inspired by Ludovico Ariosto's epic poem Orlando furioso, including music by Francesca Caccini, Vivaldi, Handel, Steffani, Hasse, Lully and Haydn.

As he celebrates his 70th birthday, conductor Jeffrey Skidmore talks to Hannah French about his career in music and his life on tour and in the studio with the ensemble Ex Cathedra.

Hannah French looks into the music behind Johann Sebastian Bach's Easter Oratorio, which was composed in Leipzig and first performed on Easter Sunday in 1725.

Hannah French explores the colourful lives and little-known music of two 18th-century German princess-composers, both related to Frederick the Great...and both called Anna Amalia!

Bach’s Germany was an agrarian society. Just beyond Leipzig’s city walls, farmers worked the land to grow crops that sustained its citizens. Some of Bach’s music explicitly engages with farming. Its rustic oomph and repetitive motifs call to mind the manual toil of digging. John Eliot Gardiner even described the texture of one Bach cantata as “warm topsoil, fertile and well irrigated”. Yet devotional writings of Bach’s time make it clear that farming was something not just done out on the fields. Instead all Lutherans were to be farmers of sorts: they were to plough the “soil” of their hearts so to receive the Word of God and bring it to fruition.

The notion that scripture was a type of seed pervaded eighteenth-century thought, and Bach was intimate with this kind of corporeal agricultural. In this episode, violinist and member of Chineke!, Mark Seow explores how the cultivation of Lutheran hearts as if they were farmland urge us to rehear much-loved moments of Bach, including movements from his Christmas Oratorio and the St Matthew Passion.

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and works of one of colonial Latin America's greatest composers - Juan Gutierrez de Padilla.

Musician, priest and purveyor of fine musical instruments, Padilla was born in 1590 in Malaga, Spain. He took a big step in his church career by emigrating to Mexico in his 30s, and by the mid-1600s, he was Musical Director of Puebla de los Angeles' magnificent cathedral and composer of a substantial collection of glorious works for double choir - firmly establishing the cathedral as the most outstanding musical institution of the Spanish colonies in the process. We also join Andrew Cashner, assistant professor of music at Rochester University, for a closer look at the impact of Padilla's social and cultural world upon one of his most intriguing works, Al establo más dichoso.

Orlando Lassus wrote a staggering number of pieces about wine, covering all genres from sacred to secular and everything in between. They tell us much about life, trade, and feasting in Munich in the second half of the 16th century, but also show that Lassus was quite the wine connoisseur: not only in drinking the best wines across Europe, but even his knowledge of wine production.

For this second of two programmes, Hannah French is joined down the line from New York by wine historian and musicologist Ron Merlino to explore the music of Lassus while tasting some of the types of wine he encountered at the Court of Duke Albrecht V in Munich.

In this programme, Ron has chosen four types of wine thought to have been known to Lassus - 2 red wines and 2 sweet wines:

a Cabernet Franc from Anjou in the Loire Valley, France

a Falernian (made from Aglianico grapes) from Campania, Italy

a sweet Malvasia from Sicily

and

a sweet Rust wine from Austria

Orlando Lassus wrote a staggering number of pieces about wine, covering all genres from sacred to secular and everything in between. They tell us much about life, trade, and feasting in Munich in the second half of the 16th century, but also show that Lassus was quite the wine connoisseur: not only in drinking the best wines across Europe, but even his knowledge of wine production.

For this first of two programmes, Hannah French is joined down the line from New York by wine historian Ron Merlino to explore the music of Lassus while tasting some of the types of wine he encountered at the Court of Duke Albrecht V in Munich.

Today, the two wines featured in the programme are both white wines known to have been available in Bavaria in the 16th century:

Trimbach Muscat from Alsace

and

Rueda Verdejo from Spain

As part of Radio 3’s Light in the Darkness season, illuminating winter, Lucie Skeaping explores depictions of chiaroscuro - a technique used in visual art that produces striking musical contrasts too. With music by Gesualdo, Dowland, de Rore, Handel, Graupner and Haydn.

Hannah French and Zak Ozmo explore the life and work of the extraordinary 16th-century Italian lutenist, music theorist and composer Vincenzo Galilei, who was born around 500 years ago.

Galilei was a hugely important figure in the musical life of the late Renaissance - a polymath, who studied the science of music as well as performing it, and was clearly an enormous inspiration for his son - the astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei. Some scholars credit him with directing the activity of his son away from pure, abstract mathematics and towards experimentation using mathematical quantitative description of the results. And Zak Ozmo says there is a case for regarding him as the father of Baroque music, pre-empting the work of Monteverdi and possibly influencing JS Bach to compose the Well-Tempered Clavier over a century later.

We also hear from Acoustic Engineer, Professor Trevor Cox, who looks at the practical experiments Galilei carried out to see if Pythagoras's theories about string lengths in musical instruments were correct.

The 18th Century singer Caffarelli expressed a wish to be castrated when he was just ten years old - already wanting a career in music. He flourished into one of Europe's finest singers, and enjoyed great fame - and notoriety - for almost forty year, amassing a great fortune along the way.

Many composers of the day created roles for him in their productions, including Handel, Porpora, Hasse, Pergolesi and Gluck.

Lucie Skeaping explores Caffarelli's extraordinary life and career with music from recordings by Franco Fagioli, Max Emmanuel Cencic, Andreas Scholl and Simone Kermes, among others.

For just under a year, from 1705, Telemann was employed by Count Erdmann II of Promnitz in northern Poland. His tenure was cut dramatically short by developments in the Great Northern War, but during his time in Zary and Silesia, the composer came into contact with Polish folk music, which influenced him for the rest of his career.

When travelling through Poland with his employer, Telemann would often stop at taverns for refreshment or accommodation, and there he heard Polish gypsies improvising on fiddles, bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies - a music which is thought to have its roots on the Indian subcontinent.

Lucie Skeaping explores some of those original melodies in recordings from Ensemble Caprice, alongside some of the pieces Telemann composed with those Polish influences very much at the forefront of his mind.

Hannah French begins a series of four programmes associated with the ancient concept of the elements: earth, air, fire and water. Today's programme focuses on all things earthly, with music by Rebel, Purcell, Handel, Almeida, Monteverdi, Ramsay, Brumel, Delalande, Morley and Byrd.

Hannah French profiles the life and music of John Dunstaple - a musical innovator, influencer and leading composer of his generation, during the reigns of Henry V and Henry VI.

A selection of recordings from previous prize-winners at the biennial York Early Music International Young Artists Competition stretching back to 1985. Performers include oboist Paul Goodwin, harpsichordist Nicholas Parle, soprano Mhairi Lawson and ensembles Stile Antico, Ensemble Amarillis, Consone and Sollazzo.

Presented by Lucie Skeaping

A further selection of recordings from previous prizewinners at the biennial York Early Music International Young Artists Competition stretching back to 1985. Performers include The Locke Consort, I Fagiolini, Savadi, Le Jardin Secret, Profeti della Quinta, BarrocoTout and last year's winners L'Apotheose.

Presented by Lucie Skeaping.

The ancient Greek tale, Hercules at the Crossroads, sees the man of the moment offered a choice between Vice and Virtue. Personifications of each visit him to offer the option of a pleasant and easy life, or a hard but glorious one. It was all the rage in the Renaissance, inspiring writers and artists and remained so to the time of Bach and Handel. Two pillars of the Baroque, each knowing something of pleasure and toil, and each setting this Herculean conundrum in his own style. Which will you choose?

Music comes from recordings of Bach's secular cantata "Laßt uns Sorgen, laßt uns wachen", BWV.213 and Handel's 1750 oratorio "The Choice of Hercules".

Presented by Hannah French.

At the turn of the 18th century, a contest was announced in an attempt was made to kick-start the operatic scene in London. The brief was to set an all-sung English opera based on William Congreve's short libretto: The Judgement of Paris. An alluring 100 guineas was promised to the winner, and four contestants entered the competition: John Weldon, John Eccles, Daniel Purcell and Gottfried Finger.

Each entry was given an individual premiere before all four were staged on one night - a grand finale at Dorset Garden Theatre on 3 June 1701. The competition was judged by a public vote... what could possibly go wrong?

Hannah French explores the music and stories of the four entries.

Celebrating the early cultural contribution of black people in the arts in the 17th and 18th centuries, including music by the first black man to vote in a British general election, Ignatius Sancho. There's also the musketeer Le Chevalier Meude-Monpas, 'the Black Mozart' Joseph Boulogne Chevalier de Saint-George, Brazilian composer Jose Nunes Garcia, and the real dedicatee of Beethoven's 'Kreutzer' Sonata. Lucie Skeaping presents.

Hannah French joins trumpeter Simon Desbruslais at the Bate Collection in Oxford to explore some of the museum's examples of Renaissance and Baroque trumpets. Featuring music by Albinoni, Cacciamani, Bach, Telemann, Homilius, Kauffman and Hummel.

Hannah French talks to father and son team Masaaki and Masato Suzuki about period performance ensemble Bach Collegium Japan, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. With music by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.

Hannah French is joined by members of vocal ensemble Stile Antico to explore choral music written for the festive season.

Hannah French and violinist Adrian Chandler chat about 25 years of his ensemble La Serenissima, including recordings of music by Vivaldi, Tartini, Pisendel and Fasch.

Lucie Skeaping explores early music that evokes stormy weather and extreme climates, from tempests to heatwaves. Featuring works by Marin Marais, Matthew Locke, Jean Fery-Rebel and Christopher Tye.

Lucie Skeaping takes a look at the life and works of the remarkable early 16th-Century French composer Jean Mouton, compared only to the great master of the Renaissance polyphony, Josquin des Prez. Mouton excelled in writing especially elegant and deep religious motets, as well as other religious pieces for the French court, where he spent most of his career. He was also a teacher and had among his pupils no other than Adrian Willaert, who went on to create the Venetian school in Italy. So great was Mouton's popularity that the Medici Codex of 1518, one of the most famous and elaborate compilations of music from all Europe at the time, prepared for the pope, included some of his best work, which prompted a scholar in the 1960s to argue that the book had actually been edited by Mouton himself - but did he work on it? And how did his pieces end up in this celebrated Italian collection? All will be revealed in this programme!

AL-ANDALUS! THE TREASURES OF MOORISH SPAIN & PORTUGAL.

A day of programme exploring the music and culture of Al-Andalus - the 800 year period of Muslim rule in Spain and Portugal which ended in 1492. Al-Andalus was both a beacon of learning and knowledge in the Middle Ages and a place of subordination for Christians and Jews. The music and culture which emerged from the three faiths left a unique legacy.

Hannah French is joined in the studio by guests including musicologist Jonathan Shannon, Islamic art historian Sabiha al Khemir and historian Hugh Kennedy to explore the music and culture of Al-Andalus, with contributions from linguist Dr Alice Corr and food writer Claudia Roden.

1200 - Hannah French introduces us to some of sights and sounds pf Al-Andalus alongside guests Sabiha al Khemir and Hugh Kennedy.

1215 – THE MUSIC OF AL-ANDALUS Singer and performer Belinda Sykes delves into the Arabic influences on the music of the Iberian Peninsula - connections, parallels and differences between the various secular repertoires of medieval Spain.

1315 - Hannah French and guests explore how the culture of Al-Andalus has influenced modern-day Spanish and Portuguese language, architecture, food, literature and music, including contributions from linguist Dr Alice Corr (Birmingham University) and food writer Claudia Roden.

1345 - FADO, & FLAMENCO – legacy of a different sort Elizabeth Kinder delves into more contemporary Spanish and Portuguese music including fado, flamenco and fandango to find out how the music of Al-Andalus has left its mark. With contributions from Rui Nery (foremost expert on fado, based in Lisbon), Juan Pinilla (flamenco singer, based in Granada) and Anita La Maltesa (performer of fandango and flamenco dance, based in London).

1410 – Hannah French and guests ask where the Al-Andalus traditions are most alive today, in music, language, architecture and writing.

1415 - AMINA ALAOUI Amina Alaoui is a Moroccan-born exponent of the Andalus tradition, who really opened the doors for female singers to perform this repertoire. Having studied in Granada, she specialises in the gharnati (the Arabic word for Granada) style of music. Amina talks about her studies, her career and about her love of this music, and we hear some of her favourite music.

1430 - Hannah French and her studio guests return to examine some of the myths and memories of Al-Andalus amongst Muslims and Europeans today

1440 - ORCHESTRE ARABO-ANDALOUI DE FEZ This musical tradition is still very much alive in north Africa today, but much less so in Spain and Portugal. We hear from musician Mohammed Briouel, artistic director of the Morocco-based Orchestre Arabo-Andaloui de Fes, to find out what this music means to him and his peers.

1450 Hannah French and her guests sum up the afternoon with final thoughts and some delicious treats courtesy of Claudia Roden!

Choreographer and dance historian Darren Royston joins Lucie Skeaping to explore the 16th-century dancing manual, "Orchesographie", published in 1589 in Langres by a French cleric who went under the pseudonym of Thoinot Arbeau. The manual is in the form of a dialogue between Arbeau himself and a fictional pupil by the name of Capriol, and the dances and music therein became familiar all across Europe.

Recorded at the Palace of St James's in London. Lucie Skeaping examines music written for the Chapel Royal with its director Joseph McHardy, with the backdrop of more than 300 years of turbulent history of Britain from the 15th to the 17th centuries, the different monarchs that were in power at the time and the composers who served them. Familiar names like Thomas Tallis, William Byrd and Henry Purcell feature, but also those of lesser-known composers like John Pyamour, Robert Faryfax, Thomas Tomkin and Pelham Humfrey among others.

The life and sacred works of 16th-century composer Claude Le Jeune, active during ferocious religious wars between Roman Catholics and Protestants in France. Lucie Skeaping talks to Edward Wickham, Music Director at St Catharine's College Choir, Cambridge, and historian Tom Hamilton to unravel the composer's age and how it affected his music and that of his fellow Huguenot contemporaries.

Musician and director Thomas Guthrie explains the history of the use of puppets in Baroque and Classical opera, arguing that puppets are still powerful tools with which to tell operatic stories today. That moment when the audience suspends disbelief and believes that what they know to be inanimate is a living and breathing character – that magical moment – is also when their ears open, and the music can make its full impact.

Image of Thomas Guthrie courtesy of Theresa Pewal.

Hannah French explores Heinrich Schutz's 26 psalm settings, published 400 years ago this year, which were one of the first major collections of choral music in the German language.

A profile of 18th-century French violinist and composer Louis-Gabriel Guillemain, who served King Louis XV, becoming one of the most highly-paid musicians at court. His private life was a troubled one, though - a heavy drinker and often in debt, it's thought that he took his own life at the age of 65.

Hannah French delves into the life and legacy of an extraordinary 16th-century polymath - Edward Herbert, Lord Herbert of Cherbury. She meets Dr John Chu, Assistant Curator of Pictures and Sculpture at the National Trust who shows her the portrait of Lord Herbert currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery. John takes Hannah on a tour of Lord Herbert's haunts in central London.

Herbert is one of those vital people in the history of music – an artist and an informed observer. He was an accomplished lutenist, and compiled a book of lute music (some of which he wrote himself) which survives in manuscript. But he travelled and heard the latest and greatest music. He was in fact a soldier, diplomat, historian, poet, philosopher, and considered one of the most handsome of courtiers, even by Queen Elizabeth I. In London he heard Byrd and Bull at the Chapel Royal, in Paris he attended the Balls and Masks of the French Royal Court, and in Italy he encountered Bartolomeo Barbarino and Claudio Monteverdi. In this programme we learn more about this dashing young man, ‘in greate Esteeme both in Court and Citty’, who offered his poetry to musicians across the continent.

Image of Herbert of Cherbury, painted by Isaac Oliver, (c. 1565-1617) courtesy of National Trust Images/Todd-White Art Photography.

Orlando Gibbons came from a very musical family – his father was a member of the Oxford Waits, two of his brothers were also composers, and his son entered into the profession too. Lucie Skeaping explores the lives and music of this 17th-century musical dynasty.

Marking the 400th anniversary of her birth, Hannah French presents a profile of the extraordinary 17th-century singer and composer, Barbara Strozzi. Part of Radio 3's programming for International Women's Day 2019.

Florlegium's artistic director Ashley Solomon joins Hannah French to profile the life and music of their fellow Baroque flautist and great 18th Century patron of the arts, Frederick the Great of Prussia. Ahead of Florilegium's forthcoming concert at Wigmore Hall, which uses James R. Gaines' novel "A night in the palace of reason" as its inspiration, Ashley will be choosing some of his favourite pieces connected with Emperor Frederick, by composers like CPE Bach and JJ Quantz.

German-born Johann Christoph Pepusch spent much of his career working in London, where he founded the Academy of Ancient Music and found fame with his music for John Gay’s “Beggar’s Opera”. Lucie Skeaping talks to Robert Rawson of Canterbury Christ Church University about the extraordinary life and music of this now-neglected 18th-century composer.

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is home to a priceless collection of manuscripts bequeathed to the university by the extraordinary 18th-century polymath, the 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam.

Harpsichordist Sophie Yates visits the museum to explore the life and legacy of Fitzwilliam, whose now-famous Virginal Book is considered to be the primary source for late Elizabethan and early Jacobean keyboard music.

Sicilian-born composer Alessandro Scarlatti had a love/hate relationship with the city of Rome. In the early part of his career, he was employed there by the self-exiled Queen Christina of Sweden, and he returned to the city for the last six years of his life, composing some of his finest work there. Lucie Skeaping explores Scarlatti's Roman years and some of the music he produced during his time in the Italian capital.

Harry Christophers, Founder & Conductor of the Sixteen, celebrates 40 years of the ensemble in conversation with Lucie Skeaping, and chooses some of his favourite recordings from the choir's extensive discography. With music by Mundy, Victoria, Monteverdi, Purcell and Handel.

A fascinating exploration of three extraordinary Catalonian brothers: Joan, Manuel and Josep Pla, who performed and composed in Barcelona, Lisbon and Madrid during the mid-18th century, including at the Spanish and Portuguese Royal courts. Presented by Hannah French.

The Elizabethan Dance Band: Lucie Skeaping is joined by William Lyons to explore music for the Broken Consort, an ensemble heard at dances and theatre productions, and for which Thomas Morley compiled a rarely-heard repertory.

Lucie Skeaping talks to Dr Sam Barrett and Benjamin Bagby about Sequentia’s project to reconstruct songs from Boethius’ seminal work, “The Consolation of Philosophy” - one of the most widely read books of the Middle Ages. It’s a fascinating piece of research, musical detective work, detailed reconstruction... and some imagination too!

On the day before Bonfire Night, Hannah French explores music for fireworks, with music by Corelli, Bach, Rameau and Gluck, and Handel's celebrated Music for the Royal Fireworks.

Hannah French explores Francois Couperin's extraordinarily dark and powerful vocal music for Holy Week - his settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah - the Lecons de Tenebres.

Countertenor Iestyn Davies marks the 450th anniversary of the birth of composer Philip Rosseter, and his role in a thriving scene that included Thomas Campion, John Dowland and Robert Johnson.

Lucie Skeaping takes her second musical journey through the mysterious world of possession, featuring witchcraft, demons, sorcery and madness, and including pieces by Handel, Tartini, Purcell and Charpentier.

Lucie Skeaping takes the first of two musical journeys through the mysterious world of possession, featuring music associated with the ecstatic trances of Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Avila and Joan of Arc, Sufi dervishes, musical exorcisms performed to the wild rhythms of the tarantella and initiation rites of the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé.

Hannah French explores the simple melody "The Western Wind" that inspired the early 16th Century masses by John Taverner, John Sheppard and Christopher Tye.

Hannah French marks the 300th anniversary of the premiere of Handel's Acis & Galatea on the terraces overlooking the gardens at Cannons - the seat of the Duke of Chandos.

A tale of two printers: Estienne Roger in Amsterdam and John Walsh in London. Hannah French discovers how and why they changed the publishing scene and how musical taste spread across Europe as a result.

Robert Hollingworth looks at Orazio Vecchi's madrigal comedy L'Amfiparnaso, which was premiered in Modena in in 1594. It's a particular form of musical theatre that flourished briefly in Italy, just before the dawn of opera, combining music and commedia dell'arte, the down-to-earth improvised street comedy of the time.

Lucie Skeaping talks to cornett player Gawain Glenton about the history of the Hanseatic League - a trade route that developed across the Baltic Sea and beyond from our own shores right up to Estonia - which engendered its own musical tradition too. They are joined in the studio by Dr Bettina Varwig, lecturer in early modern music at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge. Gawain has just released a disc of music from the Hanseatic cities with his ECHO Ensemble.

Hannah French looks at music celebrating the Feast of the Ascension through the eyes of father and son JS and CPE Bach.

Lucie Skeaping presents a musical exploration of the Greek myth of Ariadne, the daughter of Minos and granddaughter of Zeus, as told in works by Handel, Porpora, Monteverdi, Benda and Marcello.

Lucie Skeaping talks to harpsichordist Carole Cerasi about the keyboard music of Francois Couperin, in the light of her recent release of the complete works for harpsichord.

Lucie Skeaping profiles the life, times and music of the 18th-century Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka, who won the admiration of many distinguished contemporaries, among them Johann Sebastian Bach. One of the most neglected figures of the late baroque, Zelenka composed some of the most sumptuous and glorious church music ever written.

As part of the commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of Debussy's death, Hannah French asks what it was about Rameau that inspired the composer's "Hommage a Rameau".

Looking ahead to International Women's Day, Lucie Skeaping talks to Rebecca Cypess of Rutgers University in New Jersey about music played, collected and commissioned by the Jewish salon hostess Sara Levy (1761-1854), student of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and great-aunt of Felix Mendelssohn. Levy was a remarkable woman and was hugely important in the preservation and perpetuation of the Bach family tradition in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, before Mendelssohn ignited the widespread craze for Bach's music in 1829.

At a time before Jews had legal rights in Prussia, Levy's father received special status as a "court Jew" (ie, financier) to Frederick the Great. Sara and her siblings benefited from his wealth and position, and received the finest musical education available. By 1774 she was studying harpsichord with no less a teacher than Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784), eldest son of the great JS Bach). In 1783, when she married Salomon Levy, Friedemann presented her with a song, "Herz, mein Herz sey ruhig" (Heart, my heart, be still) as a gift. Around the time of her marriage, Sara began to host salon gatherings in her home, in which men and women, Jews and Christians, gathered to socialize and to discuss new cultural ideas. However, unlike other salons hosted by women in Enlightenment Berlin, which were centred primarily around literature, Sara's salon was musical. She became a keyboard virtuoso, defying the expectation documented in the many collections of "Damen Sonaten" (Ladies' Sonatas) of the late 18th century that women could play only easy pieces. By the mid-1790s she was performing outside of her salons as well, in concert series and, later, as a concerto soloist at the amateur music society known as the Singing Academy of Berlin.

Sara Levy was also a collector - among the first to take an interest in the preservation and performance of music of previous generations, especially that of J.S. Bach. This was at a period when older music in general was neglected in favour of newer music, and when the music of Johann Sebastian in particular was viewed as old-fashioned and overly difficult to understand. Yet Sara Levy, along with her sisters and her husband, played solos, chamber music, and concertos by Bach and his contemporaries, and their soirées constituted what the composer Johann Friedrich Reichardt called a "Bach cult." Around 1813, Sara donated the majority of her enormous collection of manuscript scores and printed sheet music to the Singing Academy of Berlin. It was there, in 1829, that her great-nephew Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy staged his famous performance of J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion - the event that sparked the so-called "Bach revival" of the 19th century.

Sara was also a patron of new music. Some of the keyboard fantasies of W.F. Bach are preserved only in manuscripts associated with Levy and her circle, suggesting that she or her family may have commissioned them, heard the composer play them, and played them themselves. It's thought she may also have commissioned the late quartets of C.P.E. Bach.

Lucie Skeaping looks at the life and music of John Wilbye, who spent the majority of his career in the service of the Cornwallis family of Hengrave Hall in his home county of Suffolk.

Hannah French delves into the battle between the two opera companies in London in the 1730s - King George II's Royal Academy of Music with its musical director Handel - and the Prince of Wales' Opera of the Nobility under the guidance of Nicola Porpora. After four seasons of in-fighting and warring between the two factions, expensive set and costume designs and overpaid starry performers, both companies went bankrupt in 1737.

Lucie Skeaping marks the 350th anniversary of the birth of François Couperin with a programme devoted to the four suites of chamber music he wrote for Louis XIV in 1715 - Les Concerts Royaux.

Lucie Skeaping talks to Prof Armand D'Angour of Jesus College Oxford about the music and poetry of ancient Greece, from Homer to Mesomedes via Sappho, Euripides, Pindar and Athenaeus.

Hannah French with music and stories from Les vingt-quatre violons du Roi - an ensemble based at the French court of Versailles but renowned throughout Europe during the 17th century, with music by Lully, Rebel, Delalande, Boesset, Aubert, Dumanoir and many others.

As part of the Spirit of Bach season, Dame Emma Kirkby shares some of her memories of singing Bach alongside some of her favourite recordings of other performers, including Christoph Prégardien, Barbara Schlick, Peter Kooi and Hana Blažíková.

Lucie Skeaping looks at the operas of Telemann. It's said he composed more than 50 works for the stage, although only 35 of them appear in his catalogue. Most of them were premiered in either Leipzig or Hamburg, where he made his home for the major part of his career.

Lucie Skeaping introduces music from the court of Catherine the Great in Russia. We hear how the queen, despite having personally little interest in music, but aware of its cultural importance, brought Italian composers to St Petersburg as she wanted to position Russia as a cultural powerhouse to compete with their European neighbours in the west. The programme focuses on opera and sacred works, some written especially for her court, some adapted, by composers such as Galuppi, Paisiello, Sarti and Traetta - but we hear how Catherine promoted local talent as well, like Dmytro Bortniansky, who wrote colourful choral works, and also a talented group of princesses, part of her inner circle, who composed mainly songs - some inspired by Russian folk music.

Lucie Skeaping celebrates 30 years of the Dufay Collective in conversation with the ensemble's Director William Lyons.

Hannah French marks the 250th anniversary of the death of Georg Philipp Telemann with a programme devoted to the composer's visit to Paris in 1737. Telemann was a huge star at this point in his career, so he was feted in France, where his celebrated Paris Quartets were performed.

Lucie Skeaping is joined by Gabriel Crouch, director of the vocal ensemble Gallicantus and Magnus Williamson, Professor of Early Music at Newcastle University, to discuss music surrounding the fascinating hopes and tragedies of Queen Mary I's "phantom pregnancy" of 1555.

Lucie Skeaping talks to violinist Bojan Cicic and musicologist Michael Talbot about the life and music of the Italian violinist and composer Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli who came to London and played in the orchestra for many of Handel's works, and had a second career as a vintner and purveyor of fine wines to the royal court.

In the fading light of December 1717, a carriage rumbles along the road to Cöthen. As the candlelit moated castle comes into view, the approaching family crane their necks to get a better look at their new home-town. The rural setting is a far cry from the hubbub of Weimar but there's promise in the air. The family are of course the Bachs, Johann Sebastian and his wife Maria Barbara, and four children: nine-year-old Catharina Dorothea, seven-year-old Wilhelm Friedman, three-year-old Carl Philipp Emanuel, and the toddler Johann Gottfried Bernhard. This journey, taken 300 years ago, marked a new and exciting development for the young family, and considerable promotion for Bach. Looking back on the moment, Sebastian would later write: a 'change in my fortunes... took me to Cöthen as Cappellmeister. There I had a gracious Prince, who both loved and knew music, and in his service I intended to spend the rest of my life. Hannah French delves into the history surrounding his move to Cöthen, his eventual departure, his relationship with the Prince Anhalt Cöthen, and the music he composed there.

Lucie Skeaping talks to lutenist and director Zak Ozmo about his project based on 18th-century Portuguese love songs, known as "modinhas".

In this programme we will explore the history of the 18th-century Portuguese modinha and myths that surround the creation of this fascinating genre. The themes are recognisable, the melodies haunting, and the genre is still able to stir the passions today as it did over two hundred years ago.

Harpsichordist Sophie Yates visits Westwood Manor in Wiltshire to look at a recently restored 1538 ottavino virginals and discusses the history of the instrument, which had cult-like status in Elizabethan and Jacobean society.

Lucie Skeaping presents highlights of the York Early Music Festival Young Artists' Competition, and announces this year's winners.

Hannah French delves into the history and musical detail of one of Handel's best-known pieces - his Water Music, first performed for King George I on the River Thames in July 1717.

A contemporary article from the Daily Courant reported the event thus:

"On Wednesday evening, 17 July 1717, at about 8 o'clock, the King took water at Whitehall in an open barge wherein were also the Duchess of Bolton, the Duchess of Newcastle, the Countess of Godolphin, Madam Kilmanseck, and the Earl of Orkney and went up the river towards Chelsea. Many other barges with "persons of quality" attended, and so great a number of boats, that the whole river in a manner was covered. A City Company's barge was employed for the music, wherein were 50 instruments of all sorts, who played all the way from Lambeth (while the barges drove with the tide without rowing, as far as Chelsea) the finest symphonies composed express for this occasion, by Mr Handel; which his Majesty liked so well, that he caused it to be played over three times in going and returning. At eleven his Majesty went ashore at Chelsea, where a supper was prepared and then there was another very fine consort of music, which lasted till 2, after which, his Majesty came again into his barge and returned the same way, the music continuing to play till he landed."

It has since become one of the most enduring compendiums of 18th-century dance music, beloved of Baroque orchestras and modern audiences alike. Hannah French explores the practicalities, conditions and acoustics of Georgian on-board entertainment and chooses some of the best recordings of the last 25 years.

As part of Radio 3's Canada 150 celebrations, Hannah French explores the vibrant early music scene in Montreal. Period performance is thriving in Canada, intriguingly more so than in the USA. Hannah visits some of Montreal's prestigious early music venues and chats to some of the scene's biggest names in the lead-up to the 15th Montreal Baroque Festival. Featuring gamba player Susie Napper - artistic director of Les Voix Humaines; soprano Suzie Leblanc - founder and director of Le Nouvel Opéra; and vocal ensemble conductor Andrew McAnerney.

CANADA 150: a week of programmes from across Canada, marking the 150th anniversary of the founding of the nation and exploring the range and diversity of Canadian music and arts.

Lucie Skeaping visits the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace to take a look at the current exhibition of works by Canaletto, in the context of some of the music from the Venice of that period, including works by Vivaldi, Albinoni, Marcello, Lotti and Galuppi.

Monteverdi 450: Lucie Skeaping looks at the collection of late sacred works by Monteverdi, entitled 'Selva Morale e Spirituale'.

As part of Radio 3's Breaking Free: Martin Luther's Revolution season marking the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in Germany in 1517, Lucie Skeaping looks at music written for the Catholic church as a result of the reforms at the Council of Trent, with music by Palestrina and Giaches de Wert, and also music written by later catholic composers such as Jacobus Handl, Charpentier and Carissimi.

As part of Radio 3's Breaking Free: Martin Luther's Revolution, Lucie Skeaping looks ahead to the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation in northern Europe, and some of the composers active in the very early years of the 16th Century.

500 years ago, in October 1517, the German cleric Martin Luther published what became known as his '95 theses', in which he attacked the common church practice of selling 'Indulgences' - people being led to buy their way out of God's punishment for having sinned and enriching the church in the process. To Luther, salvation was a personal matter; it came direct from the Scriptures, not from the trappings of ceremony and all the corruption that went with it. He didn't want to split from the church but to reform it - to draw in ordinary people to the faith in which he profoundly believed. And whilst this wasn't exactly a new idea, his defiant act lit the fuse for a Protestant Reformation that would have a profound effect upon all of Europe.

Part of it meant encouraging people not only to come to church but to participate more in its services by joining in the singing. Luther himself was a fine musician: he sang and played both the flute and lute and was no mean composer. The poet Hans Sachs (of Meistersinger fame) described Luther's reforming work as 'the singing of the Wittenberg nightingale'. Luther also valued his friendship with many important composers of his day, among them Ludwig Senfl, composer to Emperor Maximilian I, and Josquin des Prez whose music Luther declared 'as free as the song of the finch', embodying the freedom of the gospel, as it were, in contrast to the constraint of church law.

Luther and his colleagues began writing, revising, composing and arranging hymns for their new style of worship. Many appeared on broadsheets - not in Latin but in German ('for the sake of the unlearned folk'); some even (shock horror) used popular tunes! He also commissioned new polyphonic works for use in schools 'to wean the young away from love ballads and carnal songs'. Things didn't change overnight of course, but by around 1600 it was becoming customary for the organ to play all the parts while the congregation sang the tune - think of the chorales in the great masses by Bach a century later.

Hannah French presents a programme dedicated to the Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman. He was not only one of his country's most celebrated Baroque composers and leader of the Swedish opera through the Age of Liberty, but also something of a traveller. Roman spent time in London, where he performed for Handel and Geminiani, before setting off across Europe where he met some of the leading musicians of his day, including Pepusch and Johann Jacob Bach.

Lucie Skeaping discusses the role of Mary Magdalen at Easter with Susan Haskins (cultural historian and author of the book Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor) who chose the music to celebrate this day. The programme includes pieces by Bach, Crecquillon, Mazzocchi, Gabrieli and excerpts from the medieval Carmina Burana.

Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of The European Union Baroque Orchestra.

Lucie Skeaping celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the ground-breaking vocal group I Fagiolini, in conversation with their founder and director Robert Hollingworth.

Director of The Dufay Collective, William Lyons, celebrates the life and work of one of his musical heroes - early music specialist, historian, multi-instrumentalist, broadcaster and pioneer David Munrow, who took his own life in 1976 during a state of depression at the age of just 33.

Munrow perhaps did more than anyone else in the second half of the 20th century to popularise early music in Great Britain, despite a career lasting barely ten years. This was underscored when the Voyager space probe committee selected one of his recordings to be carried on it as part of the Voyager Golden Record. He left behind him not only his recordings but a large collection of musical instruments. The Munrow Archive at the Royal Academy of Music holds a collection of his letters, papers, TV scripts, scores, musical compositions and books, which is accessible to the public.

Lucie Skeaping marks the 450th anniversary of the birth of English composer, poet and physician Thomas Campion.

Hannah French looks in depth at JS Bach's four orchestral suites, which play something of a Cinderella role to the Brandenburg Concertos. Though they are some of Bach's most festive works, they remain an incomplete set, never published, or even considered a collection in his lifetime. Basically, they are suites of dance-pieces in French Baroque style preceded by an ouverture. This genre was extremely popular in Germany during Bach's day, and he showed far less interest in it than was usual. Telemann left us with 135 examples, Graupner 85 and Fasch a neat 100, so why did such a prolific and accomplished composer as Bach shun the genre? Hannah delves into some of the many recordings of the pieces to find out.

Lucie Skeaping marks the 350th anniversary of Italian composer Antonio Lotti's birth with some of his famous choral works alongside lesser known pieces of chamber music and opera.

Lucie Skeaping joins in the New Year festivities from Vienna with a programme looking at the city's early musical history, including works by the 13th-century minnesinger Neidhart von Reuental along with composers from Ludwig Senfl and Heinrich Isaac all the way to Fux, Schmelzer and Haydn.

Lucie Skeaping talks to Radio 3's embedded composer Matthew Kaner, New York-based composer Caroline Shaw and viola da gamba player Liam Byrne about how early music pieces and performance practice influence their styles as contemporary composers and performers.

Fiona Talkington looks at the legacy of Carlo Gesualdo and the fascination that his life and music held for certain 20th-century cultural figures, including composers Igor Stravinsky and Peter Maxwell Davies, novelist Aldous Huxley and film maker Werner Herzog. The programme includes an interview with Professor Glenn Watkins, who has written extensively about Gesualdo's life, work and influence.

Fiona Talkington looks at the life and music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799) - the son of a French plantation owner and his slave mistress - who became a virtuoso violinist and composer, close friend of Queen Marie Antoinette, and was known in 18th-century Paris as "The Black Mozart".

Lucie Skeaping is joined by guests Delma Tomlin (Director of the National Centre for Early Music in York), Steven Devine (keyboard player and Professor at Trinity Laban College of Music in London), Greg Skidmore (academic and singer with ensembles such as The Sixteen, Ex Cathedra and Alamire) and Tabea Debus (recorder player, recently graduated from the Royal Academy of Music) to discuss how the early music scene is likely to develop and change in coming years in terms of performance practice, education and academic research.

Lucie Skeaping is joined by guests, violinist Catherine Mackintosh, director Peter Holman and Nick Wilson from King's College London to discuss how Radio 3 helped to support and shape the Early Music movement in its early years from the 1950s through to the 1990s.

Part of Radio 3's 70th season, celebrating seven decades of pioneering music and culture since the founding of the Third Programme.

Photo courtesy of Will Dyson.

Hannah French is in Toronto to meet members of the Canadian ensemble Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra about their projects and recordings since the early 1980s, including contributions from their long-serving artistic director, Jeanne Lamon. Music includes pieces by Bach, Purcell, Geminiani, Telemann, Beethoven, Zelenka and Leonardo Leo.

Hannah French looks at the tradition of Tafelmusik. Musique de Table. Table Music. It's music composed to divert, entertain, and yes, be performed around a table.

Hannah visits the British Library to talk to the Curator of Music Manuscripts Andra Patterson about an incredible manuscript of Table Music held there: a 'booke of In nomines and other solfainge songs of 5, 6, 7 and 8 parts for voyces or Instruments'.

The programme includes pieces by William Byrd, Johann Schein, Michael Praetorius, Vivaldi and Telemann. Telemann is undoubtedly the most celebrated composer of Tafelmusik. His 1733 collection is a substantial portfolio of about four-and-a-half hours of music which is rated alongside Vivaldi's L'Estro Armonico and Bach's Brandenburg Concertos in terms of breadth of ideas and creative use of form. It's arranged into three parts or 'productions', each containing a suite, a quartet, a concerto, a trio, a sonata, and a conclusion. Telemann had the knack of keeping up with the latest musical trends and giving people what they wanted to hear. He knew he was on the money with his Tafelmusik, announcing: 'This work will make me famous one day'...

Hannah French presents a profile of the hugely influential Flemish composer Cipriano de Rore, marking the 500th anniversary of his birth this year. The programme includes recordings by Bruce Dickey, The Huelgas Ensemble, The Tallis Scholars, the Brabant Ensembleand Cinquecento Renaissance Vokal.

In the second of her two programmes from New York city, Hannah French meets Jeffrey Grossman - harpsichordist and artistic director of The Sebastians, Wen Yang of New York Baroque Incorporated and Jolle Greenleaf from the vocal ensemble Tenet, and she visits the Julliard School of Music to hear about the early music education programme there from violinist Robert Mealy.

Hannah French visits New York for the first of two programmes, in which she learns about the vibrant early music scene in the city. She meets Gene Murrow of the Gotham Early Music Scene, Julian Wachner - music director of Trinity Wall Street, and Gwendolyn Toth of the ensemble Artek, and she chats to violinist Robert Mealy about his work with the ensemble Quicksilver.

Lucie Skeaping looks at the plot, history, performances and recordings of one of Handel’s most enduring operas, Giulio Cesare - first performed at London's Haymarket Theatre in 1724.

The libretto was written by Nicola Francesco Haym who used an earlier libretto by Giacomo Francesco Bussani. The opera, which starred two of Europe's most famous performers - the castrato Senesino and soprano Francesca Cuzzoni - was an immediate success at its first performances, and was frequently revived by Handel in his subsequent opera seasons for King George I's Royal Academy.

Robert Hollingworth introduces specially made recordings of music from the Medici Codex - a music book prepared for Pope Leo X in 1518. Leo was the second son of Lorenzo "The Magnificent" of the Medici family, who was Pope from 1513 to 1521. The codex contains 53 motets and was presented to Leo's nephew, the Duke of Urbino at his wedding to a French princess in 1518. In discussion with Tim Shepherd of Sheffield University.

Harpsichordist Sophie Yates looks at the life and music of the German keyboard virtuoso Johann Jakob Froberger, who was born 400 years ago this month.

Lucie Skeaping chats to the award-winning flautist and recorder player Ashley Solomon, professor and Head of Historical Performance at the Royal College of Music and director of the ensemble Florilegium. The group, founded in 1991, celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. In the last quarter of a century, Florilegium has toured worldwide, released an impressive number of recordings and embarked on a fascinating (and ongoing) project working with native Indians in Bolivia. The programme includes excerpts from some of Florilegium's recordings including music by Bach, Telemann, Haydn, Monteclair, Couperin, Pergolesi and the Bolivian composer Roque Jacinto de Chavarria.

As part of the BBC's current focus on Dance, Lucie Skeaping is joined by dance historian Barbara Segal to discuss the finer points of Renaissance terpsichore. European theatrical extravaganzas - Italian Intermedi, French Ballet de Cour and English Masques swirl effortlessly alongside traditional Branles and even Morris Dances. Meanwhile, to the accompaniment of The City Waites, Lucie tries out some of the dances herself, under Barbara Segal's expert guidance, of course!

As part of the BBC's current focus on Dance, baroque dance specialist Philippa Waite looks at the styles and affects of various dances, illustrating with music by composers such as Lully, who was an excellent dancer himself, JS Bach, Handel, Weiss, Rebel and Rameau.

Lucie Skeaping looks at some of the music penned at the court of Mannheim in the latter half of the 18th century, which had such a thriving and influential orchestra. Composers such as Johann Stamitz, Franz Xaver Richter, Christian Cannabich, Carl Stamitz and Franz Danzi really took the symphonic genre by the horns, helped to shape it into what we now think of as the Classical symphony, and, as such, were a huge influence on the likes of Mozart and Haydn.

Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of the blind Spanish renaissance organist and composer Antonio de Cabezon, marking the 450th anniversary of his death in 1566.

No-one knows for sure the birth-date of Tudor composer John Sheppard, but it is thought to have been around 500 years ago in 1515-16. Lucie Skeaping is joined by singer and musicologist Sally Dunkley to explore the life and work of one of England's finest composers, with performances by The Sixteen, The Tallis Scholars, Stile Antico, the Gabrieli Consort, The Clerkes of Oxenford and the Choir of Westminster Abbey.

John Sheppard: Libera nos I The Sixteen Harry Christophers (director)

John Sheppard: Verbum caro (excerpt) The Clerkes of Oxenford David Wulstan (director)

John Sheppard: The Lord's Prayer Stile Antico

John Sheppard: Magnificat (from Second Service) The Choir of Westminster Abbey James O'Donnell (director)

John Sheppard: Agnus Dei (from Missa Cantate) Gabrieli Consort Paul McCreesh (director)

John Sheppard: Libera nos II The Sixteen Harry Christophers (director)

John Sheppard: Media vita The Tallis Scholars Peter Phillips (director).

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and music of the lesser-known Scarlatti: Francesco – brother of Alessandro and uncle of Domenico, who spent much of his later career in Dublin.

Stevie Wishart presents a special New Year New Music programme. She takes a look at how early music resonates through the contemporary music of our time as "Echoes of the Past in the Present". Stevie features her own performances and compositions as well as music by early music exponents such as Garth Knox and Philippe Malfeyt and performances by Voice, St Catharine's Girls' Choir Cambridge and the ensemble, Tied & Nycklet.

Lucie Skeaping introduces music written for this day by J.S. Bach - music composed for the 27th December, the Third Day of Christmas and the First Sunday after Christmas - including the six-voice Santus composed for the Christmas service in 1724, during second year of Bach's tenure in Leipzig, which eventually became part of the B minor Mass; music from the Christmas Oratorio; and Cantatas BWV 122, Das neugeborne Kindelein (The new-born little babe), and BWV 133, Ich freue mich in dir (I find my joy in thee).

Sophie Yates talks to Benjamin Narvey about the relationship between lutes harpsichords.

Fiona Talkington introduces a performance of Bach's 'Wedding Cantata,' Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten and finds out whether Anna Magdalena might have sung this very cantata at her wedding to JS Bach in 1721. The cantata's central aria: 'To practise sweet courtship, to cuddle joyously,' features a solo oboe. Today's programme also includes an oboe concerto and a suite for seven instruments written a few years after Bach's cantata.

Telemann Oboe Concerto in D minor, TWV 51:d1

Bach Cantata: Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten, BWV 202

Zelenka Overture a 7 in F, ZWV 188

Carolyn Sampson (soprano) Katharina Arfken (oboe) Freiburg Baroque Orchestra Gottfried von der Goltz (conductor).

Lucie Skeaping and Dr James Porter of Aberdeen University investigate the musical world of Huguenot composer Jean Servin, and find out what he was doing in 1579 at the Edinburgh court of King James VI of Scotland (later to be King James I of England), with lovingly bound copies of his Psalmi Davidis in his luggage. With music by Servin, Lassus, David Peebles, Andrew Blackhall and others in performances by Cappella Nova, Ensemble Clément Janequin and Sang Scule.

Fiona Talkington presents a profile of Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike and his group Barokksolistene.

Lucie Skeaping marks the 450th anniversary of the Portuguese Renaissance composer, Duarte Lobo. She is joined by scholar and performer Professor Owen Rees of Queen's College, Oxford, who has edited, performed and recorded music by Duarte Lobo. Duarte Lobo was among the foremost Portuguese composers of the early 17th century. He spent most of his life in Lisbon where he became a renowned teacher. He became maestro de capilla at the Hospital Real, Lisbon, and from about 1591 until at least 1639 and was maestro de capilla at Lisbon Cathedral. He was also director of the Seminário de S Bartolomeu, Lisbon. Most Lisbon repertory was destroyed during the great earthquake of 1755, but Duarte Lobo's work survived because four collections of his works were issued by Plantin, one of the prestigious music publishing houses in Antwerp. One of the collections, Liber missarum, made its way to the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 1659, and so works by Duarte Lobo were performed by English enthusiasts of "ancient" music during the 18th and 19th centuries in London. Today's programme will feature recordings by the Choir of Queen's College Oxford directed by Owen Rees, The Sixteen directed by Harry Christophers, and The Tallis Scholars directed by Peter Philips.

Lucie Skeaping talks to Rosemary Southey of Newcastle University about the musical scene in the north east of England in the eighteenth century, with works by Charles Avison, John Garth and William Herschel.

As part of the BBC's current focus on Dance, Lucie Skeaping is joined by choreographer and early dance expert Darren Royston to discover some of the delights of medieval dance moves.

The Bach-Abel Concerts. Lucie Skeaping talks to the music historian, Simon Heighes about a famous concert series which began two hundred and fifty years ago this year and which lit up London's concert life following the death of Handel. The Bach-Abel series continued for thirty years and with it J.C Bach and his compatriot, Carl Friedrich Abel introduced their opera and concert arias, symphonies and keyboard works to Georgian London.

Lucie Skeaping explores Artaserse, one of the most popular opera libretti by Metastasio, the great 18th century dramatist, featuring Artaxerxes I, King of Persia.

The libretto was originally written for and first set to music by Leonardo Vinci in 1730 for Rome, and it was subsequently set by dozens of later composers. In England, Thomas Arne's 1762 Artaxerxes is set to an English libretto that is based on Metastasio's. Lucie Skeaping introduces extracts from a few of the 90 known settings of Metastasio's text.

Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of the career of the British tenor Nigel Rogers, who celebrates his 80th birthday this week.

Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars have specialised in the performance of Renaissance polyphony for over thirty years. They have built a reputation for bringing some of the greatest European church music of the 16th and 17th centuries onto the concert platform. So what has prompted such an enthusiasm? Lucie Skeaping explores with Peter and the group some of the qualities and the ethos of Renaissance polyphony. She learns how working with this music has encouraged the group to find a distinctive sound and performing methodology. The programme includes extracts from some of the Tallis Scholars' many recordings.

First broadcast 03/10/2009.

International Women's Day, celebrating female composers: Barbara Strozzi

Lucie Skeaping is joined by Laurie Stras to profile the life and music of the prolific 17th Century Venetian composer and singer Barbara Strozzi. @bbcradio3 #womensday

Born in 1617, the daughter of a servant girl Barbara was brought up and educated by the poet Giulio Strozzi, who was probably her father. She first tasted fame at her father's 'Academies' in Venice for her 'bold and graceful manner' before going on to publish eight volumes of music, mostly for solo voice. But, despite her remarkable achievements as a singer and composer, she appears to have died in poverty around 1677.

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and musical legacy of the 17th Century French harpsichordist, organist and composer Louis Couperin, with contributions from Christophe Rousset and performances by Rousset, Bob van Asperen, Davitt Moroney and Glen Wilson.

Lucie Skeaping investigates the music of 18th- and early 19th-century Cuba in the company of Andrew McGregor and musicologist Miriam Escudero. Includes music by Esteban Salas, Juan Paris and Cayetano Pagueras, and performances by Ensemble Ars Longa La Havana.

Lucie Skeaping explores the life of Johann Georg Pisendel, a virtuoso German violinist in the late 17th & early 18th Centuries to whom composers like Vivaldi and Telemann dedicated works and whose own solo violin compositions are said to have provided the inspiration for JS Bach's own solo Sonatas and Partitas.

Lucie Skeaping looks at the life and music of the Viennese composer Georg Christoph Wagenseil. Although today he's largely relegated to the footnotes of musical history, in his day he was internationally admired, not least in the Mozart household. His tercentenary year gives cause for a fresh look at this founding father of the Viennese Classical style.

"East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." So wrote Rudyard Kipling, but in the world of early music at least, the artistry of the Middle East exerted a huge influence on the instruments and compositions of Europe. From Greek music theory to wandering minstrels, and poetic song-forms to filigree melodies, Lucie Skeaping surveys the musical legacy of this lively contact, visiting medieval dance-music, Sephardic song and plainchant along the way.

Sophie Yates presents a profile of the French harpsichordist and composer Jacques Duphly, the tercentenary of whose birth falls this month.

Lucie Skeaping visits Hampton Court Palace to find out about the music written during the short, but eventful reign of King Edward VI. She traces Edward's story from cradle to grave with guest contributor Michele Price - manager of the choral foundation at Hampton Court Palace.

Lucie Skeaping visits the Scilly Isles to learn about the actress and singer Ann Cargill, who drowned in a dramatic shipwreck there in 1784, and whose ghost is said to have haunted Rosevear Island ever since. Ann made her London stage debut in 1771 at the tender age of eleven in Thomas Arne's opera "The Fairy Prince" at Covent Garden. Later she eloped with a married man eighteen years her senior, and her father washed his hands of her. She continued to be a popular draw at Drury Lane, in productions of John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera" and Thomas Linley's "The Duenna", but her love-life became more scandalous. Eventually, she fell in love with a merchant seaman and, carrying his illegitimate child, left London to start a new life with him in India. In Bombay she received a mixed reception and some were distinctly unimpressed that an "English strumpet" was bringing shame and embarrassment to the nation. One such was the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, who demanded her return to Britain forthwith. So in December 1783, Ann and her husband boarded a ship - the Nancy Packet - and set sail for London. They arrived in British waters in February 1784 amidst a horrific gale, and the ship struck one of the many treacherous rocks off the western reaches of Scilly. Ann scrambled into a lifeboat with her infant son, while The Nancy Packet sank in the tumult. The locals later discovered the upturned lifeboat just off a small bay on Rosevear Island, and underneath found Ann, floating in her nightgown with her head resting on her baby's, as if in sleep.

Lucie Skeaping meets Todd Stevens, a wreck-diver and treasure hunter, who found the wreck of the Nancy Packet in 2007, and has since written a book about his findings and the life and death of Ann Cargill. (REPEAT).

Lucie Skeaping investigates an ancient musical tradition whereby people went from door to door singing carols and were rewarded with hot mulled cider. Wassailing can be traced back possibly as far as Anglo-Saxon times and has evolved over time to become associated with Christmas. Lucie Skeaping introduces some of the music that has been associated with the wassailing tradition and her guests include the historian Joanna Crosby, from Essex Univeristy, who has a particular interest in apples.

A special repeat of Catherine Bott's interview with the distinguished conductor, keyboardist and musicologist, Christopher Hogwood, who died earlier this year. Catherine chats to him about his career as one of the major proponents of the early music movement, including Christopher's early work with David Munrow in the Early Music Consort of London and the orchestra he founded in 1973 - The Academy of Ancient Music. The music on the programme comes from his choice of some of his own favourite recordings, including a work from Byrd's My Ladye Nevells Booke, vocal music by Purcell, a keyboard fantasia by CPE Bach and part of Handel's opera Rinaldo.

Catherine Bott presents a profile of Bach's eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, who despite being renowned as an organist and composer during his lifetime, died in poverty.

As part of Decameron Nights, Lucie Skeaping talks to David Fallows, Emeritus Professor of Musicology at the University of Manchester, about music in Italy in the time of Boccaccio.

Clare Salaman on forgotten instruments which were once part of everyday musical life.

Clare considers why instruments which were once part of musical life - such as the vielle, the bray harp, the hurdy gurdy and the viola organista - are now rarely heard. Some were particularly suited to certain styles of music and unable to keep up when fashions changed. Others, while astonishing, intriguing and even beautiful in their design proved totally impractical for everyday use. Clare chooses recordings of some of these lost instruments, which create sounds which are very rarely heard today.

Lucie Skeaping presents the second of two tributes to Frans Bruggen looking at the conducting years, she is joined by flautist Lisa Beznosiuk of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the clarinettist Eric Hoeprich, from Bruggne's own Orchestra of the 18th Century.

In the first of two tribute programmes to the late Frans Bruggen, the recorder player Piers Adams reflects on Bruggen's career as a recorder virtuoso.

The programme features recordings by Frans Bruggen performing music by Handel, Vivaldi, De Lavigne, Telemann, Walter, Sammartini, Hotteterre and JS Bach.

Piers Adams celebrates CPE Bach's 300th anniversary year with a visit to the city of Hamburg, where the 54-year-old Emanuel Bach began a new career as music director to the city's churches. Dutch keyboard player Pieter Jan Belder samples the vast collection of fortepianos and clavichords at the Museum of Decorative Arts, and there is a visit to the crypt of the Michaeliskirche where Emanuel Bach is buried.

CPE Bach's three decades in Hamburg were the happiest and most productive of his career. He arrived there following many frustrating years at the Berlin court of Frederick the Great, who, he felt, never appreciated his talents. Emanuel took over the job previously occupied by his godfather Telemann in 1768, looking after the music of Hamburg's five main churches. He also found time to launch a series of subscription concerts, as well as leading a lively social life, as the English music historian Charles Burney noted when he paid him a visit. According to Burney, the best of CPE Bach's music is to be found in his keyboard works, and Pieter Jan Belder plays pieces written both for the new Hammerklavier, and for Emanuel's favourite instrument, the clavichord. Hamburg loved CPE Bach: one obituary praised his style as being so much superior to the 'kling-klang' of his contemporaries.

Lucie Skeaping is joined by Sir Nicholas Kenyon in a tribute to conductor and musicologist Christopher Hogwood, who died last Wednesday. They consider the extraordinary impact he made in early, baroque and classical music performance, and introduce some of his iconic and groundbreaking recordings.

'Christopher Hogwood was one of the true pioneers of early music performance. It is not an exaggeration to say that he changed our musical taste, and changed the sound of baroque and classical music for ever.' That's Nicholas Kenyon's assessment of the achievement and influence of Christopher Hogwood. He first made his name as co-founder with David Munrow of the Early Music Consort of London, who were best known for their work on the music for the TV series The Six Wives of Henry the Eighth. In 1973 he founded the pioneering period instrument orchestra the Academy of Ancient Music, and went on to record more than 200 albums with them, including highly-acclaimed recordings of Handel, Haydn and Mozart. He died at home in Cambridge at the age of 73.

Lucie Skeaping and conductor Stephen Rice explore the music of the Franco-Flemish composer Pierre de Manchicourt, who died 450 years ago today.

Lucie Skeaping is joined by harpsichordist Martin Perkins to explore the music 18th-century audiences in Birmingham and the Midlands would have known. The programme includes rarely heard works by John Pixell, Richard Mudge, Joseph Harris, Barnabas Gunn, Jeremiah Clark of Worcester and Capel Bond.

John Pixell: An Invitation to the Red-Breast Louise Wayman (soprano) Musical and Amicable Society Martin Perkins (director)

Richard Mudge: Concerto No. 2 in D minor Barockorchester Capriccio Basel Dominik Kiefer (concertmaster)

Joseph Harris: Invocation (O Muse beloved, Calliope divine!) Louise Wayman (soprano) Musical and Amicable Society Martin Perkins (director)

Barnabas Gunn: Solo No. 4 in B minor for flute and basso continuo Rachel Latham (flute) Musical and Amicable Society Martin Perkins (director)

Jeremiah Clark: To Myra Louise Wayman (soprano) Musical and Amicable Society Martin Perkins (director)

Capel Bond: Concerto No. 1 in D major Crispian Steele-Perkins (trumpet) The Parley of Instruments Baroque Orchestra Roy Goodman (conductor).

Lucie Skeaping explores the origins of Klezmer, a musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe, with musicologist Dr Alexander Knapp. Played by professional musicians called 'klezmorim', the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations. Compared with most other European folk music styles, little is known about the history of klezmer music, but research now traces it back to medieval times through synagogue chant and modes.

Lucie Skeaping presents a programme which looks at the development of the Baroque bassoon, from its forerunner - the curtel, dulcian or bajon. With the help of the historian and author Maggie Kilbey and The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's Andrew Watts, they chart the spread and popularity of the instrument throughout Europe and the New World, for use in church music and in chamber ensembles. The music is a very diverse selection, including works by Vivaldi, Schütz, Padilla, Salazar, Bertoli, Marini, Handel and Telemann.

First broadcast in August 2008.

In the second of our three programmes marking the 250th anniversary of the death of Jean Philippe Rameau, Sophie Yates visits the Royal Academy of Music in London to explore Rameau's mastery of dance music in his works for the theatre. She's joined by the art historian Clare Hornsby, the dancer and choreographer Christopher Tudor and the composer and harpsichordist David Gordon, to examine an engraving which boasts a fascinating genesis and which has an intriguing link to Rameau's opera Castor and Pollux.

Clare Salaman is fascinated by the continuing debate about authenticity - or Historically Informed Practice (H.I.P) - in Early Music. How can we be sure that performances are historically accurate, and how important is it that they are?

Clare talks to Catherine Mackintosh about early developments in performance practice pioneered by David Munrow and his contemporaries, and about Catherine's own work with the Academy of Ancient Music and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. The baroque violinist Bjarte Eike tells her about his unique approach with his group Barokksolistene. And Clare talks to David McGuinness about his eclectic and sometimes surprising work with Concerto Caledonia.

In 1702, the 19-year-old Philip V of Spain came from his native France to Naples for a month. For this occasion, the Neopolitan based composer Alessandro Scarlatti was joined by the other great Italian composer of the day, Arcangelo Corelli, with mixed results! On the 350th anniversary of Scarlatti's birth, Catherine Bott explores the stories that surround the music and entertainments put on for this occasion.

Sophie Yates visits The Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments in Edinburgh to play extracts from Rameau's Pièces de clavecin on three extraordinary double-manual French harpsichords made in the late 1700s and fully restored to playing condition. She talks to the museum's curator, Darryl Martin, about the history of the instruments, and to harpsichord maker Andrew Garlick about how they each produce their own unique sound.

Piers Adams continues to celebrate CPE Bach's 300th anniversary year with a visit to Berlin's Charlottenburg Palace, where Emanuel Bach arrived as an optimistic 26 year old to join the court of Prussia's flute-playing King Frederick the Great.

In a guided tour though the palace we hear how Emanuel Bach's adventurous musical style was not to the King's conservative tastes, and so he spent much of the next 28 years trying to leave the court - but not before he had established himself as Europe's most famous keyboard player and teacher. Emanuel also found a valuable friend in Frederick's sister Anna Amalia, herself an accomplished musician and also something of a court outcast, having secretly married and become pregnant against the King's wishes. We hear movements from CPE Bach's String Symphonies and from his Prussian Sonatas, from new recordings issued to celebrate the anniversary.

Lucie Skeaping celebrates the life and music of English composer Robert Fayrfax who flourished in the early 1500s and was born 550 years ago. More of Fayrfax's music survives than of any other English composer of the period, largely due to the existence of two large Tudor choir books in which his works were collected. Lucie Skeaping takes a look at one of these choir books housed in Lambeth Palace library with the help of musicologist David Skinner and plays recordings of some of the music featured in it.

Producer Helen Garrison.

Guillaume Dufay was one of the most famous and successful composers of the mid 15th century. Born in Cambrai in what is now northern France, he spent most of his career touring Europe, working in some of the most important and influential centres of his day. He found himself in the middle of many of the major political struggles comfronting the 15th century which inevitably had a profound impact both on his life and music. Lucie Skeaping reflects on Dufay's Europe.

In July 1772 Dr Charles Burney set off on his second European journey to gather information for his proposed mighty publication of A History of Music. Lucie Skeaping interviews musician and publisher Ian Gammie about Burney's musical perambulations through Germany and The Netherlands, and chooses music by some of the composers he met along the way, including Gluck, Hasse and Quantz.

Lucie Skeaping talks to members of the Hilliard Ensemble as they celebrate their 40th anniversary, and plays a selection of their many recordings.

The Hilliard Ensemble established a reputation as an early music ensemble with a series of successful recordings in the 1980s, but it was when they began also to focus on new music that the world began to sit up and take notice. The 1988 recording of Arvo Pärt's "Passio" began a fruitful relationship with the Estonian composer, and the group has recently commissioned other composers from the Baltic States, including Veljo Tormis and Erkki-Sven Tüür, adding to a rich repertoire of new music from Gavin Bryars, Heinz Holliger, John Casken, James MacMillan, Elena Firsova and many others. The Hilliard Ensemble's popularity crossed musical boundaries when their collaboration with the Norwegian Saxophonist Jan Garbareck sent their ECM recording "Officium" soaring up both classical and pop charts in several countries. Equally at home with Perotin, Palestrina and Pärt, the four members of the Hilliard Ensemble describe some of the many musical experiences they have had in concert halls and recording studios around the world, and select some of their favourite tracks from their extensive CD catalogue.

Catherine Bott visits Bath to mark the bicentenary of the death of one of its most famous adopted sons - the celebrated 18th century singer, teacher and composer, Venanzio Rauzzini. Rauzzini was born near Rome, and spent the early part of his career wowing audiences in Venice, Munich and Vienna. When the 16-year old Mozart heard Rauzzini sing for the first time, he was so dazzled by its beauty and by his acting ability that he decided to write the lead role in his new opera for him. Rauzzini gave the premiere of Lucio Silla in Milan in 1772, and took the audiences there by storm - so much so, that Mozart wrote his now famous Exsultate Jubilate for him as a thankyou gift.

After several successful seasons at the King's Theatre in London, Rauzzini settled in Bath, where he remained for the last 30 years of his life, running the city's musical life, virtually single-handed. Rauzzini was incredibly good-looking and charming - in fact he was quite a hit with the ladies, especially those of the nobility. It's said that one Lady Gooch offered him a vast some of money to go off with her...which, incidentally, he declined!

The bass-baritone Raimund Herincx, who is something of a Rauzzini expert, believes that Rauzzini's prowess in the bedroom might suggest that he wasn't actually a castrato at all, but a natural male soprano - rather like Radu Marian and Michael Maniaci, whose voices both feature in the programme.

Catherine and Raimund visit Bath Abbey - the site of Rauzzini's grave and memorial plaque - and his beautiful house in the suburb of Widcombe, where Joseph Haydn visited him in 1794.

As part of the BBC's 18th Century Season, Lucie Skeaping looks at the life and music of the German composer Carl Friedrich Abel, who spent most of his career in London.

Abel arrived in London in 1754 as a virtuoso viola-da-gamba player, and soon became one of the biggest names on the London music scene. Along with his fellow German musician JC Bach, Abel set up England's first subscription concerts, which allowed them to promote not only their own pieces, but also those of other composers - including Joseph Haydn.

He composed many pieces for his own instrument, the viola da gamba, as well as trio sonatas, concertos for the new-fangled square piano and early forays into the classical-style symphony which were a huge influence on the young Mozart.

18th-century life by Hogarth, and considers their musical references.

Lucie is joined by Jeremy Barlow, an authority on music in the 18th Century, who has made several recordings with the Broadside Band and has written about music and Hogarth.

The three featured pictures by Hogarth are:

"The Enraged Musician"

The 2nd picture from the series of "The Rakes Progress"

"The Beggar's Opera"

BBC18C.

Lucie Skeaping looks at the music from Gluck's fifth operatic masterpiece, Iphigénie en Tauride - based on Euripides' play, and first performed in Paris in 1779.

With Iphigénie, Gluck took his operatic reform to its logical conclusion. The recitatives are shorter and accompanied by strings and other instruments (not just traditional continuo). The normal dance movements found in earlier French tragédie en musique are almost entirely absent. The drama is ultimately based on the play Iphigenia in Tauris by the ancient Greek dramatist Euripides which deals with stories concerning the family of Agamemnon in the aftermath of the Trojan War.

Live at Southbank Centre.

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and works of Pietro Antonio Locatelli, who died 250 years ago.

One of the violin giants of the eighteenth century, Locatelli was born in Bergamo in 1695, but by the age of sixteen had moved to Rome, perhaps to study with the famous but ailing Arcangelo Corelli, but more likely with another prominent virtuoso, Giuseppe Valentini. His growing reputation as a violinist soon began to take him further afield, however, and we know of concert appearances during the 1720s in Mantua and Venice (both places in which he might have met Vivaldi), as well Munich, Kassel, Dresden, Frankfurt and Berlin. His playing was noted particularly for its power and brilliance; 'He plays with so much Fury upon his Fiddle, that in my humble opinion, he must wear out some Dozens of them in a year', wrote one English observer, and indeed his most famous concertos, the Op. 3 set entitled L'Arte del Violino, show a fearsome difficulty that has led to latter-day comparisons with Paganini. In 1729 Locatelli moved to Amsterdam, where he stayed for the rest of his life, making a living as an 'Italiaansch musiekmeester', publishing his own music, giving private concerts, teaching, and selling imported Italian violin strings.

Radio 3 is broadcasting live from a pop-up studio at London's Southbank Centre all day every day for the last two weeks of March. If you're in the area, visit the Radio 3 studio and performance space in the Royal Festival Hall Riverside Café to listen to Radio 3, ask questions and enjoy the special events.

Lucie Skeaping takes a look at some of the composers who lived and worked in Salzburg, before it became the Mozartean shrine we know it as today! The city itself is the fourth largest in modern-day Austria, and sits neatly on the banks of the river Salzach, at the northern boundary of the Alps. The name Salzburg - literally "Salt Castle" - comes from the salt mines in the area that helped start the regeneration of the city in the 7th century. It was a holy man - Saint Rupert - who saw its potential - and founded the city on what was the ruined Roman settlement of Iuvavum. A hundred or so years later, barges carrying salt along the river, were subject to a toll, and as a result, the city began to flourish. Rupert was also the founder of Christianity in the region, and the cathedral which was begun there during his lifetime, now bears both his name, and his relics - although there has been a lot of building and rebuilding over the 13-hundred or so years since his demise! In the 17th & 18th centuries, Salzburg was also an important seat in the Holy Roman Empire, and for a time was even an independent state within it. The cathedral and its surroundings naturally attracted all sorts of people, including craftsmen, artists and musicians such as Heinrich Finck, Paul Hofhaimer, Johann Stadlmayr, Abraham Megerle, Heinrich Biber, Georg Muffat, Michael Haydn and Leopold Mozart.

Lucie Skeaping looks at Jean Philippe Rameau's comic masterpiece, the baroque opera Platée.

Rameau wrote the opera when he was in his sixties, for an entertainment at a court wedding at Versailles. The story tells of a foolish and ugly nymph who believes she is loved by Jupiter. The sense of the absurd permeates Rameau's score, with the composer and his librettist managing to create a wonderfully imaginative and colourful piece which turn many of the operatic conventions of the time on their head.

Rameau's contemporary, Melchior Grimm, considered the piece "sublime" while for Jean Jacques Rousseau it was a "divine" work. Even today it succeeds in firing the imaginations of opera producers and conductors, not least the French conductor Marc Minkowski, who explains why in the programme.

Piers Adams celebrates the 300th anniversary of the birth of CPE Bach with tracks from new CDs released to mark the occasion. There are also interviews with musicians in Leipzig, Hamburg and other cities around Bach's native Germany who reveal how they will be celebrating the year.

In his time, CPE Bach was one of Europe's most famous and popular composers: a friend of English music scholar Charles Burney wrote to him in 1774, "I find the Carlophilipemanuelbachomania grow upon me so, that almost every thing else is insipid to me". He is now all but overshadowed by his more celebrated father, and so this anniversary year (he was born on 8th March 1714) is an opportunity to hear his music afresh. This is the first of three Early Music Show tributes to CPE Bach during this anniversary year.

The multi-instrumentalist Clare Salaman presents a programme all about a once popular early instrument with Swedish origins that has all but dropped off the musical landscape in this country. However, the nyckelharpa (or 'keyed fiddle') makes a sound that delights audiences. Clare has delved into the best and most rare recordings of the instrument to cast some light on the nyckelharpa's beautiful and mysterious sound-world.

Lucie Skeaping plays recordings of the Cardinall's Musick and talks to its director Andrew Carwood as the group celebrates its 25th anniversary. Music played includes works by Byrd, Fayrfax, Ludford and Sheppard.

(photo: Dmitri Gutjahr).

Lucie Skeaping takes expert advice from Simon Heighes to explore the background, purpose and music of JS Bach's last great masterpiece - The Art of Fugue.

At the end of his life Johann Sebastian Bach set out to create a great summary of his thoughts and ideas about an intellectual musical form he'd made very much his own - the fugue. The result is the "Art of Fugue" which he left unfinished at his death - or did he? How should we regard this work? Was it intended for performance and if so, how? Who was it written for?

Lucie pulls together various recordings of the work and, in conversation with Bach expert Simon Heighes, unpicks some of the thinking behind this extraordinary composition.

The birth of Henry Purcell coincided with a hugely turbulent time in English political history, and went almost completely unnoticed. There are no baptismal records and we're not absolutely sure who his parents were, although it's likely that he was born in a house just a few hundred yards from Westminster Abbey, the place were he would eventually make much of his career and reputation. During his early years, the young Purcell came under the influence of several composers and church musicians, who were to shape his musical future. Lucie Skeaping traces the schoolboy years of the man who would grow to be England's greatest composer.

Lucie Skeaping presents recordings of music by the 13th-century European composer Perotin, including performances by the Hilliard Ensemble, The Orlando Consort and Ensemble Organum. Probably French in origin, Perotin's music embodies the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style.

Lucie Skeaping presents a concert of music by Bach, Rameau and Leclair given by the European Union Baroque Orchestra and director Lars Ulrik Mortensen at MediaCityUK in Salford.

JS Bach: Suite No 2 in B minor, BWV.1067 (flute soloist Anne Freitag) Leclair: Concerto for Flute in C major, Op.7 No.3 (flute soloist Anne Freitag) Rameau: Suite from Acanthe et Céphise.

Lucie Skeaping talks to lutenist Elizabeth Kenny about two of the performers who most inspired her: Robert Spencer and Nigel North. Music is taken from recordings by both performers, including works by composers such as John Dowland and J.S Bach.

(Photo: Richard Haughton).

Lucie Skeaping explores the story of the virtuoso German violinist Thomas Baltzar, nicknamed "The Incomparable Lubicer". He caused a storm in 17th-century England and was acclaimed as the greatest violinist in the world.

Early music stalwart, the soprano Dame Emma Kirkby is today's guest presenter of The Early Music Show, and chooses some of her favourite seasonal music from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque.

(photo: Bibi Basch).

Another chance to hear Lucie Skeaping in conversation with the late cook Clarissa Dickson-Wright about Handel's love of food. Contemporary pictures and biographers depicted Handel as being over-interested in food, having a "great appetite". From the famous London chop houses, and al fresco picnics along the Thames to new spices and curries, Lucie and Clarissa explore the eating and drinking habits in Handel's day.

First broadcast in November 2009.

In 1609, one of the "most eccentric characters in an age of professed eccentics", one Thomas Ravenscroft edited Pammelia, the earliest English printed collection of rounds and catches. Lucie Skeaping explores the life and music of the man who wanted to produce "Harmony to please, varietie to delight".

Lucie Skeaping celebrates the 40th anniversary of the UK's pioneering period orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music, in the company of Music Director Richard Egarr. Together they look back over the orchestra's history and listen to some of its most important recordings.

As part of Radio 3's Baroque Spring season and in the second of this weekend's Early Music Shows dedicated to French Baroque music, Lucie Skeaping explores the relationship between Jean-Philippe Rameau and his main patron Alexandre Le Riche de la Poupelinière.

Lucie Skeaping's guest is Peter Phillips, director of the Renaissance choral group the Tallis Scholars, which maintains its world wide popularity 40 years after it was founded. Over the years, many of their 60 or so CD recordings have reached iconic status and Peter will be choosing some of the highlights as he talks about the group's history, the important part it played in the early music revival during the 70s and 80s, and how they are now broadening their horizons by commissioning and performing works by contemporary composers. This programme will also launch the 2014 National Centre for Early Music's Composers' Competition in partnership with The Tallis Scholars and BBC Radio 3.

Chorales, or German hymn tunes, played a central role in the sacred music of German composers right from the time of Martin Luther (who wrote some of them himself) up to that of JS Bach. Lucie Skeaping explores some of the ways in which these composers used them, with examples from Praetorius, Pachelbel and Bach, including a complete performance of Bach's Advent cantata Nun komm, der heiden Heiland, BWV62, by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.

Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of one of the earliest and best-known English operas - Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas", the love story of the Queen of Carthage and her Trojan hero. Set to a libretto by Nahum Tate, Dido and Aeneas was first performed in Chelsea in July 1688, and although it wasn't staged again in the composer's lifetime, it received a brief revival in 1700 and then disappeared completely as a staged work, with only sporadic concert performances until 1895 when the first staged version in modern times was performed by students of the Royal College of Music at London's Lyceum Theatre to mark the bicentenary of Purcell's death. It has since become one of the most frequently staged operas all over the world.

Lucie Skeaping talks to musicologist Ian Gammie about the life and travels of the inimitable Charles Burney. Burney, the 18th-century music-writer, teacher, organist and composer was well known for having opinions on just about everything, and, during his extensive travels through Europe, met some of the great musical luminaries of his day, including Padre Martini, Scarlatti and even the young Mozart.

As part of the BBC's Sound of Cinema season, Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of the harpsichord in film scores. #BBCSoundofCinema

Lucie looks back on the pioneering work of Wanda Landowska in stimulating a renewed interest in the instrument in the first third of the 20th Century, and how the distinctive sound of the instrument quickly found a use in the cinema. She considers how the harpsichord has been used in film to suggest a sense of the past; a sense of the present; and how its created a particularly effective colour in the world of horror films.

Featured film scores include: "Wuthering Heights"; "Papillon"; "Restoration"; "Henry V"; "Love Story"; "Rosemary's Baby"; "The Vampire Lovers"; "Pirates of Caribbean"; "The Corpse Bride" and "Amelie".

From the early years of the Renaissance, composers portrayed subjects from Greek mythology. These stories provided particular inspiration as the new operatic genre took hold in the early 17th century. The 18th century saw the philosophical revolution of the Enlightenment spread throughout Europe and accompanied by a certain reaction against Greek myth, there was a tendency to insist on the scientific and philosophical achievements of Ancient Greece. The myths, however, continued to provide an important source of raw material for dramatists and composers. Lucie Skeaping introduces a diverse selection of early music inspired by these Greek myths, including works by Monteverdi, Handel, Purcell, Cavalli, Rameau and Gluck.

First broadcast in June 2012.

Virtually unknown a few decades ago, Georg Philipp Telemann's orchestral suite 'Hamburger Ebb' und Fluth' (Hamburg Ebb and Flow) is fast becoming a rival to Handel's 'Water Music'. Written in 1723 to celebrate the centenary of the Hamburg Admiralty it tackles watery subjects such as the sea deities Thetis, Neptune and Triton, sporting Naiads and even the city's drainage channels! Lucie Skeaping explores the work and its musical context.

Contains a complete performance of the suite by Ensemble Zefiro, directed by Alberto Bernardini.

Catherine Bott looks at the vocal and choral music of Domenico Scarlatti, best known today for his 555 keyboard sonatas. Having grown up in Italy with a rather domineering opera composer as a father, it was inevitable that Scarlatti should have picked up some of his musical influences from the stage, and from the church. By the time Scarlatti settled in Lisbon in the 1720s to work for the Portuguese royal family, he was already one of the best-known opera composers in Europe and had a reputation for his sacred works, approved by the Vatican. Now, most of his vocal and choral music is lost (a good deal of it in the disastrous earthquake which hit Lisbon in 1755), and his reputation rests on the more than five hundred keyboard sonatas he wrote for his famous pupil, Princess Maria Barbara of Portugal. This programme includes excerpts from Scarlatti's operas "La Dirindina" and "La Constesa delle Stagione", and from his Stabat Mater, Salve Regina and Te Deum.

As part of the Sound of Cinema season, Catherine Bott looks at the story and the soundtrack of the 1994 film "Farinelli" - a biopic of the great 18th century castrato and his colourful relationships with women, with his older brother and with the composers Handel and Porpora.

It's been a long time since we had a real life castrato singer in our midst, and the only recording we have of one is Alessandro Moreschi, who died in 1922 and was already at the end of his performing career when the rather primitive recordings were made. No-one today really possesses the vocal range of a castrato ? which could be as much as three and a half octaves, so, when Belgian film director Gerard Corbiau decided to turn Farinelli's colourful life into a full-length biopic, he charged music director Christophe Rousset with coming up with a way to create as near to the castrato sound as he could.

The solution was to combine the voices of Polish soprano Ewa Mallas-Godlewska and American countertenor Derek Lee Ragin, so that Derek would sing the lower passages and Ewa the highest. During the precision editing, the voices of the two singers were relayed, from the notes to the highest, in order to cover the tessitura and also demonstrate the castrato's virtuosity. The resulting tape included nearly 3000 editing points. It was then necessary to "homogenise" the two singers' timbres in order to give Farinelli his own voice, both new and, at the same time, respectful of the original voices.

The film soundtrack includes performances by the "combined" voices with Christophe Rousset's own ensemble Les Talens Lyriques, in glorious music by Handel, Porpora, Hasse, Pergolesi and Farinelli's own older brother (and protagonist of the film), Riccardo Broschi.

Catherine Bott gives us a whistle-stop A-Z tour of how early music has been featured in mainstream films to both poignant and ironic effect; from Allegri and Albinoni to Zadok and Zoolander.

BBCSoundofCinema.

The infamous life of the Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo is full of drama, intrigue and death. Among accusations of a double murder, witchcraft and masochism stands an extraordinary body of music with its own tortured chromatic sound world. To mark the 400th anniversary of the composer's death, Catherine Bott talks with renowned Gesualdo expert Professor Glenn Watkins to explore whether an understanding of the time in which the isolated Prince lived can cast any further light on his seemingly bizarre life.

The singer Donald Greig has established a long career performing with groups such as the Tallis Scholars and the Orlando Consort, of which he is a founder member. Last year he wrote his first novel - Time Will Tell - which recently came out in paperback. It tells parallel stories set in the 1990s world of modern early music performance, and in the 16th century world of Franco-Flemish composers and musicians including Josquin and Ockeghem. Donald Greig talks to Catherine Bott about his novel and selects music featured in the story.

At the Hermitage in St Petersburg hangs one of Caravaggio's most famous paintings: the Lute Player. An androgynous young man looks out at us as he plucks the strings of this most iconic of Renaissance instruments, and a music book lies in front of him. Close inspection reveals that not only has Caravaggio carefully painted a real piece of lute music, but we can even identify its composer - Jacques Arcadelt.

Today Lucie Skeaping explores the life of Jacques Arcadelt, one of the most mysterious, fascinating, and significant figures in 16th century music. Many biographical details of his life are sketchy; but from being born in what we now know as Belgium, in the first decade of the 16th century, Arcadelt found his way to Italy where he became a driving force in the rise and popularity of the madrigal.

Arcadelt's several books of madrigals were among the most prolifically-published books of the entire Renaissance - the soundtrack to a film about the period's many great artists would unquestionably need to feature a great deal of music by him. Michelangelo's paintings were barely dry when Arcadelt began singing in the Sistine Chapel, and there's every suggestion that being at the heart of the Renaissance must have been a vital source of his creative inspiration.

All of Arcadelt's music is vocal, and covers a vast range of styles, from light songs to entire Masses, and also a setting of the epic Lamentations of Jeremiah. In this programme Lucie focuses on madrigals performed by the Hilliard Ensemble, the Orlando Consort, the Fires of Love; and religious music performed by the Josquin Capella from a disc released just last year. Lucie also reflects on an intriguing aspect of Arcadelt's work, namely that although he wrote no instrumental music, other composers of the period were all too ready to adapt it for instrumental performance.

The picture of Arcadelt that emerges is of a musician whose senses of enterprise and adventure led to a stellar career as composer and performer, reflected both in his service of distinguished patrons including the Medici family and the Vatican, and also in the huge popular esteem in which he was so obviously held.

Catherine Bott presents a profile of the German composer and organist Matthias Weckmann, who flourished in Dresden and Hamburg during the 17th century. Weckmann was a pupil of Henirich Schütz, and the organist and composer Praetorius, and who made a major contribution to the musical life in Protestant Germany. Although few compositions survive, Weckmann wrote some exceptional music, including several beautiful sacred vocal concertos, settings of devotional texts for voices and instruments: Catherine Bott plays a recording by the Ricercar Consort of a couple of these concertos, in addition to a selection of other organ and ensemble works.

To celebrate the 850th anniversary of the first stone of Notre Dame de Paris being laid, Catherine Bott explores the beginnings of music in the great cathedral.

The Renaissance English composer John Dowland was a prolific writer of songs accompanied by the lute, and the performance of those songs has sustained and informed the careers of many great singers and lute players over the decades. Lucie Skeaping takes a look back at how the interpretation and performance style of Dowland songs has evolved over the last century and plays a selection of recordings from singers and lute players past and present. To help her are studio guests Jacob Heringman, currently one of Britain's foremost lutenists, and the singer Emma Kirkby, whose seminal recordings and performances of Dowland songs have enchanted audiences for many years.

Catherine Bott presents a programme of music by the 17th century Italian composer and virtuoso violinist, Giuseppe Torelli. Most famous for his trumpet concertos, Torelli also wrote many wonderful pieces for his own instrument and was at the forefront of the early development of the Concerto Grosso.

Lucie Skeaping enlists the expertise of Baroque flautist and recorder player Peter Holtslag to celebrate the life and music of Jacques-Martin Hotteterre "Le Romain"; performer, writer and pedagogue who died 250 years ago this week and did more than any other to enhance the popularity of the "new" transverse flute. Hotteterre's music reflects his career, achievements and enthusiasms and we'll hear performances of complete works alongside demonstrations of the instrumental techniques and ornamentation he pioneered.

Lucie Skeaping recreates a possible day in the life of King Louis XIV. Upon waking in his sumptuous bedchamber, the king follows a busy schedule before entertaining guests at supper and retiring late in the evening. At every part of the day, musicians were on hand to entertain him, to soothe him or to trumpet his arrival. Olivier Baumont - harpsichordist and expert on French Baroque music - guides Lucie through the palace of Versailles to illustrate some of the music the king may have heard.

The National Gallery's exhibition of paintings by Vermeer and his Dutch 17th-century contemporaries - every one of which depicts musicmaking of one kind or another - opened earlier this week. Lucie Skeaping takes a tour of the exhibition with curator Marjorie E. Wieseman, and chooses music to go with it, including works by Sweelinck, Van Eyck and Johann Schop.

Lucie Skeaping and musicologist David Skinner consider the music that might have been heard by Richard III.

In September last year archeologists from Leicester University made the exciting discovery in a car park of a Medieval skeleton which was later proved to be that of King Richard III. Thanks largely to Shakespeare's portrayal of Richard as a dysfunctional, ambitious and murderous villain, the character of the Yorkist king has been much discussed over the centuries, in spite of the fact that he was only on the English throne for two years before being killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

For this edition of The Early Music Show, the Cambridge musicologist and director of the vocal ensemble Alamire - David Skinner - takes Lucie Skeaping to the Northamptonshire village of Fotheringhay, where Richard III was born, and talks about the kind of music he might have heard during his lifetime, which spans an exciting and fast moving period in the history of musical composition in England.

As part of Radio 3 Celebrating British Music, Catherine Bott presents a comprehensive profile of the composer William Byrd and some of his most glorious music, in conversation with conductor Andrew Carwood.

David McGuinness visits Stirling Castle and the Palace of Holyrood House in Edinburgh, to trace the story of Mary Queen of Scots' reign, and the music which surrounded her. From the devotional masses and motets by Robert Carver - so popular with Mary's father, King James V, to the jolly French dances she would have enjoyed during her first marriage to Francis Dauphin of France, Mary remained a music lover throughout her short life. Queen Mary's favourite attendant and confidante during her second marriage to her cousin, Lord Henry Darnley, was an Italian musician called David Rizzio. Darnley and David Rizzio spent long hours together on the tennis court at Falkland Palace, but Darnley's jealousy grew at the Italian's familiarity with his new wife, and he planned to do away with Rizzio at the earliest opportunity. The political assassination that followed was carefully staged, with 500 armed men keeping the Palace of Holyrood House secure while Lord Ruthven and his accomplices burst in to Mary's chamber, where she and Rizzio were sharing supper with guests. Rizzio was dragged from the dinner table and stabbed more than 50 times in front of the Queen.

Celebrating British music, Lucie Skeaping samples the sounds that would have been heard in the inner circles of the English royal courts from Henry VIII to George III. Includes works by Henry VIII himself, plus Lawes, Purcell and JC Bach.

The Villa d'Este's gardens are a triumph of Baroque architecture and design. Catherine Bott travels to Tivoli to explore the many fountains there and the music connected with the gardens and the man who commissioned them: Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este, patron of many composers, among them a no lesser figure than Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.

First broadcast in March 2009.

Immortalised by Wagner in his famous opera, Lucie Skeaping looks back on the life and music of the real Hans Sachs and his fellow Mastersingers in 16th Century Germany.

First broadcast in March 2007.

On today's Early Music Show Catherine Bott talks to David Wulstan, a pioneering figure in the understanding and interpretation of early music in general, and of music of the Tudor period in particular.

In the 1960s and 1970s David Wulstan created The Clerkes of Oxenford. With this group of singers he worked tirelessly to produce revelatory recordings of the music of Tallis, Sheppard, Gibbons, Tye, White, and others, which revolutionized the way it was interpreted, and the way we now hear it today.

The debt owed to David Wulstan by many of today's performers and practitioners of early music is immense, and many important figures, such as Harry Christophers, began their careers studying or performing with him. One of those people joins in today's conversation: Sally Dunkley, the singer and scholar who first encountered David Wulstan at a University of Oxford entrance interview, studied with him, and has continued to work with him and share his friendship until today.

David Wulstan is a fascinating, erudite and colourful contributor to the appreciation of early music. When the word musicologist is mentioned, he threatens to make use of his martial arts skills. How will Catherine Bott fare...?

(photography of David Wulstan by Lyndon Jones)

Lucie Skeaping looks at music and the 18th-century French painter Antoine Watteau. No fewer than a third of Watteau's canvases depict musical scenes. The Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels is currently running an exhibition of Watteau's work "underscored" by musical items chosen by the great French Early Music specialist, William Christie. With this in mind, this programme examines the "musical" world of the 18th-century's artistic master of evocative sensuality and the fete galante.

Catherine Bott presents a profile of Andre Campra - a musical innovator, and something of a rebel at the turn of the 18th Century. His stint as Music Director of Notre Dame Cathedral was wracked with controversy, thanks to Campra's wishes to branch out into music for the theatre...a pastime which was abhorred by the ecclesiastical authorities.

When Campra produced the first ever opera-ballet in 1697, he did so under a thinly-disguised pseudonym, but the acclaim he received as a result of the success of "L'Europe Galante" catapulted him into Parisian celebrity and set him up for a glittering operatic career which lasted for another 40 years.

Recordings of Campra's motets and operatic dances are played from Paul Agnew, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants.

Lucie Skeaping considers the importance of wind music in the middle ages, through the work of one of today's award winning period ensembles.

The ensemble of shawms, bombards and trumpet or sackbut (trombone), known as the alta capella, was one of the most striking and influential ensembles of the middle ages. It was the ensemble most often heard in mediaeval cities, and one of the first ensembles to be placed on the civic payroll. The alta capella was the nearest that the middle ages had to our symphony orchestra. Lucie Skeaping reflects on the work and music of the alta capella, focusing on one of today's foremost ensembles in this field - Les haulz et les bas.

The multi national ensemble, Les haulz et les bas, are:

David Yacus (USA/Italy) - buisine, slide trumpet, sackbut Andrea Piccioni (Italy) - tamburello Gesine BÃnfer (Germany) - shawm, bombard, bagpipe Michael Metzler (Germany) - percussion Ian Harrison (GB) - shawm, bombard, bagpipe Christian Braun (Swiss) - buisine, slide trumpet, sackbut.

Catherine Bott looks at music marking the ceremonial signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, with celebration pieces by Handel and William Croft.

Handel's "Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate" was written to celebrate the Treaty of Utrecht, which established the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, ending the War of the Spanish Succession. The treaties between several European states, including Spain, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Savoy and the Dutch Republic, helped end the war. The treaties were concluded between the representatives of Louis XIV of France and Philip V of Spain on the one hand, and representatives of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, the Duke of Savoy, the King of Portugal and the United Provinces on the other.

Catherine Bott explores the diverse music associated with the Medieval texts of the Carmina Burana. She talks about the difficulty of turning the original manuscript into music and the variety of interpretations that have ensued. Although commonly associated with drinking and bawdiness the Carmina Burana also contains religious texts. Marcel Peres's extensive research into these has resulted in some deeply emotive music that is not to be missed.

In today's edition of the Early Music Show, and as part of Radio 3's Baroque Spring season, Catherine Bott goes in search of the unknown baroque. Vivaldi, Handel, Bach and the Scarlattis are familiar names to us, composers synonymous with one of the richest periods in musical history. But Venice, Leipzig, and London weren't the only places experiencing the ear-shock of baroque music - Prague, Warsaw, and Ljubljana were home to composers whose names haven't had quite the same impact on posterity, but who were also playing a key part in shaping this musical revolution. So today familiar names give way to others such as Erlebach, Pekiel, Posch and Zarewutius, as Catherine Bott looks to eastern Europe in search some of the baroque's hidden musical riches. The programme includes an interview with Eamonn Dougan, Associate Conductor of the Sixteen, about the choir's new disc featuring the music of Bartlomiej Pekiel.

As part of Baroque Spring Catherine Bott uses the themes of gods and monsters to look at the brilliant characterisation in Monteverdi's operas. Looking specifically at L'Orfeo and L'Incoronazione di Poppea Catherine shows how Monteverdi treats works of mythological stories with very modern dramatic devices.

Broadcast as part of Radio 3's "Baroque Spring".

As part of Radio 3's Baroque Spring season, Lucie Skeaping introduces the first of two Early Music Shows this weekend dedicated to French Baroque music. Today, Lucie explores the relationship between King Louis XIV and his favourite composer - Jean-Baptiste Lully.

Catherine Bott explores the idea of Telemann the Everyman: how he absorbed and excelled at so many musical styles, and purposely made his music available and appealing to the widest possible audience. She's joined by musicologist, flautist and all-round Telemann expert Steven Zohn.

Lucie Skeaping finds out how the Marian hymn "Salve Regina" fascinated European composers throughout the Renaissance era. The original chant is itself an exquisitely beautiful melody and it inspired several generations of composers to write soaring polyphonic settings around it, including Guerrero, Ockeghem, Victoria, Lassus and many others. As well as the chant itself, Lucie Skeaping introduces a selection of these settings and talks to Dr Owen Rees, Reader in Music at Oxford University, about how the chant became popular, its liturtigal significance and its musical legacy.

Lucie Skeaping explores the wedding of Princess Elizabeth Stuart and Frederick V, Elector Palatine, which took place in Whitehall 400 years ago this Valentine's Day. The celebrations were organised by Sir Francis Bacon, and included over a week of lavish entertainments including music by, among others Robert Johnson, Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Campion and John Coperario, their contributions heard alongside popular ballads, catches and toe-tapping dance tunes.

Catherine Bott visits the Handel House in London where Ruth Smith has curated an imaginative exhibition on the life of Handel's librettist, Charles Jennens. It was Jennens who created the libretto for Handel's Messiah, he might even have suggested the idea to Handel, and he also furnished the composer with words for several other of his oratorios including Saul, Belshazzar, L'Allegro and perhaps Israel in Egypt. As such, Jennens often features as a footnote in Handel's biography, but the academic and author Ruth Smith believes more credit should be given to Jennens for the contribution he made to 18th century artistic life in this country. Not only did he provide Handel with libretti, he was also one of the first to faithfully edit the works of Shakespeare. Ruth Smith has curated an exhibition about Jennens at the Handel House in London and Catherine Bott visits and Dr Smith to find out more about the man and his achievements.

For centuries it's been widely accepted that the composer Daniel Purcell was the younger brother of the more celebrated Henry. Now, though, it's thought that they may actually have been cousins rather than brothers. Apart from a much loved Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis, Daniel Purcell's music has remained largely in the shadow of his older relative, but thanks to a handful of recent recordings, it's now being considered much more on its own merits. Lucie Skeaping looks at the life and music of Daniel Purcell, with performances from the Parnassian Ensemble, Chichester Cathedral Chor, and violinist Hazel Brooks and harpsichordist David Pollock, who have recently released some of Purcell's previously unrecorded chamber music.

The revered French actor Gerard Depardieu is frequently in the news these days and not always for his acting. In the early 1990s Depardieu gave a brilliantly nuanced performance as the 17th/18th Century composer and viol player Marin Marais. The acclaimed film "Tous Les Matins du Monde" was one of the few movies to celebrate and popularise early music. Lucie Skeaping remembers the film and considers some of the music.

Lucie Skeaping explores the Accademia di Arcadia, a literary academy founded in the late 17th Century which boasted musician members including Corelli, Scarlatti and Pasquini.

The Baroque era saw some of the most significant developments in the history of western musical instruments, not least the appearance of the modern violin family which superseded the viols as the dominant string group. Not all the developments were as long lasting as the violin though. Catherine Bott looks back on the story and the music of the viola d'amore - or the "love viol" - an instrument much loved in the baroque for its distinctive tonal colours.

Catherine Bott talks about some of the composers who worked at the court of the colourful Christian IV of Denmark. The music includes works by imports to the court including Dowland, Bertolusi and Schutz, but also homegrown composers such as Hans Nielsen, Mogens Pederson and Soren Terkelsen.

Catherine Bott is in Cambridge for a look at the Trinity Carol Roll, one of the earliest sources of English polyphonic carols. She visits the Wren Library where the manuscript is kept and talks about the music and the significance of the collection with David Skinner who has recently recorded it all with his group Alamire. The thirteen works preserved in this manuscript include the patriotic 'Agincourt' carol, celebrating Henry V's victory over the French in 1415, and the most famous of all early English carols 'Ther is no rose'.

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and work of Cristóbal de Morales, by all accounts a difficult man to work with, but the greatest Spanish composer of his age, and the first Spanish composer of international renown.

Catherine Bott explores the life and musical settings of the work of the Italian poet Torquato Tasso, who was one of the most widely read writers in 16th Century Europe. His words were set by the great composers of the day and for many centuries after his death, but he was a troubled man who suffered from mental illness and died just days before he was due to be crowned as the king of poets by the Pope. Featuring Tasso settings from Monteverdi, Gesualdo and Handel among others.

On the first Sunday of Advent, Catherine Bott introduces a selection of early music for the Advent season. Including music from Bach, Charpentier and Praetorius and lesser known composers Vaclav Karel Holan Rovensky and Thomas Stoltzer.

Lucie Skeaping explores the tender art of the lullaby, from ancient melody to Elizabethan song, and discovers how this most intimate of forms offers inspiration to the world of early music.

The act of rocking a child to sleep with a gentle tune is one of our most simple and natural forms of music-making. They are common to all cultures and ages, and though they are varied, they all share remarkable similarities. Their words are soothing, using onomatopoeic and nonsense sounds, like the 'ninna nanna' of Italy and the English 'lulla lulla'.

Often these lullabies are passed down from generation to generation and are known throughout regions and countries. But they are also transformed by this oral transmission. Many look outward to nocturnal themes, or to daily chores and the baby itself.

Religious themes are also widespread. By its very nature, the lullaby has a certain gentle spirituality and its serenity is particularly suited to the Nativity. It reminds us of Mary's pure devotion to the baby Jesus, her gentle care and the universality of this particular kind of miracle. Many Christmas carols incorporate gentle rocking rhythms, simple structures, repetitive motifs or common phrases, like the 'Lully Lullay' of the well-known Coventry Carol. Many were also well-known secular tunes that were given devotional subjects in an attempt to lead audiences away from profane subjects. Others depict holy figures in easily-recognised scenes from daily life - Joseph rocking the cradle or Mary washing nappies.

As well as featuring traditional music, and anonymous composers from around the world, the programme features pieces by English composers Anthony Holborne, William Byrd and John Bennet.

Catherine Bott talks to the vocalist, harpist and scholar, Benjamin Bagby, about his career that has spanned more than 30 years. He founded the ensemble Sequentia with the late Barbara Thornton in 1977, a versatile group specialising in the performance and recording of Western European music from the period before 1300. They discuss his many projects with the ensemble and play music from his recordings including Hildegard of Bingen, Philippe le Chancelier and the 'Lost Songs' project - a collection of anonymous Latin and German songs copied into a manuscript a thousand years ago.

The Muiderkring or Muider Circle was a group of contributors to the arts and sciences in the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, when Dutch trade, science and art was among the most important in the world. Chief among this group was the historian, poet and playwright Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, who was appointed as Sheriff and Bailiff for the Gooiland, the area around Hilversum, in 1609, and was given a medieval moated castle to live in, the Muiderslot.

Over the next four decades, he spent his summers there, entertaining house parties of distinguished friends from the worlds of art, music and philosophy. They discussed current affairs, read their poetry to each other, debated philosophical and moral issues and of course, made music.

Hooft seems to have had impeccable taste and his guestlist reads like a who's who of the Dutch cultural elite: with the poets Caspar Barlaeus and Hooft's great friend Joost van den Vondel, the wealthy merchant and poet Pieter Roemers Visscher and Constantijn Huygens among the castlist.

In today's Early Music Show, Catherine Bott investigates this mysterious cultural group.

Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of the Baroque group Florilegium with their director Ashley Solomon and takes a look at the character and nature of the baroque dance suite.

Florilegium have a reputation as one of this country's most outstanding early music groups. Founded in 1991 by the recorder player and flautist Ashley Solomon, the group specialises in baroque music and they have appeared in some of the most prestigious concert halls around the world.

Lucie joins Ashley Solomon for a look at the group's work and ethos, and together they explore a major form of the baroque era, the dance suite, in preparation for the launch of the 2013 NCEM/Radio 3 Young Composers' Award.

*** Lucie Skeaping appears on BBC Radio 2's Jools Holland show this coming Monday, 5th November at 23:00.

'One night I dreamed I had made a pact with the devil; he was my servant and anticipated my every wish. I had the idea of giving him my violin to see if he might play me some pretty tunes...'. Lucie Skeaping explores the life and works of Giuseppe Tartini, one of the great violin virtuosos of the 18th century and composer of one of its most celebrated and demonic instrumental works, yet also of some of its sweetest melodies.

As part of the Piano Season on the BBC, Lucie Skeaping presents the second of two programmes about the development of the piano during the eighteenth century.

Lucie continues her survey of the development of the period piano, ending in the early nineteenth century with instruments for which Beethoven and Haydn wrote music which were recognisable precursors of the modern concert grand piano.

With contributions from Steven Devine Professor of Fortepiano at Trinity College of Music, and Robert Levin.

As part of the Piano Season on the BBC, Lucie Skeaping presents the first of two programmes about the development of the piano during the eighteenth century.

Lucie looks at the development of the piano from its origins in Florence with Bartolomeo Cristofori.

With contributions from the period instrument restorer Kerstin Schwarz, and Steven Devine, Professor of Fortepiano at Trinity College of Music.

Jan Ladislav Dussek was a Bohemian composer and pianist of the late 18th Century. He was the first great touring piano virtuoso paving the way for the likes of Franz Liszt. It was Dussek who first thought of playing the piano sideways on to the audience - the better to show off his noble profile.

Lucie Skeaping looks back on his life and music - much of which seems to anticipate the innovations and ideas of Beethoven and Schubert.

Broadcast as part of the Piano Season on the BBC.

We may think of talent contests as a modern day phenomenon, but in 1683, King Louis XIV instituted an extraordinary competition to find four new composers suitable for his Chapelle Royal in Versailles. The successful applicants would each be given a season of the year to compose for the Chapel and the contest was advertised in a French gazette of the time. It attracted applications from the greatest French composers of the day, but ended in controversy with some sections of the press accusing Louis' court composer Lully of influencing the results. Lucie Skeaping investigates the competition and the composers involved.

Catherine Bott chats to Fiona Maddocks about the remarkable life of the German abbess, visionary, poet and composer Hildegard of Bingen who died on 17th September 1179. Hildegard wrote that she experienced visions from an early age and as a child entered the monastery at Disibodenberg on the Rhine; Hildegard was later to found monasteries in Rupertsburg and later in Eibingen. Throughout her life, Hildegard continued to have visions and later began to record what she experienced, 'Scivias', which contains 14 lyric texts that appeared with music. Hildegard extensive musical settings of her own poetry dated back at least to the 1140's, and totals over 70 songs, antiphons, responses, sequences, and her 'Ordo virtutum', possibly the oldest surviving morality play. Catherine Bott and writer Fiona Maddocks discuss this fascinating character, whose Saint's Day falls on September 17th.

Catherine Bott presents a portrait of the intriguing Spanish monk and composer, Padre Antonio Soler. A disciple of Domenico Scarlatti, Soler entered the monastery at El Escorial, near Madrid, in 1752, where he remained for the last 31 years of his life, composing keyboard sonatas, chamber music and choral works.

Catherine Bott profiles harpsichordist & conductor Harry Bicket - regular at Glyndebourne & the New York Metropolitan Opera, and current musical director of The English Concert - about his career and his recordings. Music includes works by Handel, Bach, Pergolesi and Gluck in performances by Renée Fleming, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Susan Graham, Andreas Scholl and Elizabeth Watts.

Catherine Bott explores the life and music of the once celebrated but now forgotten 18th Century Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi, with the help of writer, critic and self-confessed Galuppi enthusiast Jonathan Keates.

Primarily remembered today as the teacher of Handel, the German musician FW Zachow was a renowned composer in his own right. In the first of a weekend of early music shows exploring some of his music, Lucie Skeaping explores his life and influence on Handel's music alongside a variety of Zachow's works.

Lucie Skeaping presents a programme featuring music by one of the most engaging and important Venetian composers, Giovanni Gabrieli, who died in August 400 years ago in 1612. Gabrieli spent his life working in Venice and held the esteemed position of organist at both St. Marks and San Rocco, so some of the musicians and singers must have worked in both establishments too. It is unclear exactly what compositions Gabrieli wrote specifically for the Scuole di San Rocco, but there are some interesting clues left to us by the English traveller Thomas Coryat (featured in yesterday's Early Music Show). Lucie Skeaping introduces a selection of Giovanni Gabrieli's music including the 10-part 'Jubilate Deo' from his Symphoniae Sacrae, 'In Ecclesiis' in 14 parts, and some instrumental works including canzonas and the Sonata con tre violini.

A journey through the multi-faceted solo keyboard music that the 18th Century Jean-Philippe Rameau composed in his long career, introduced by Lucie Skeaping.

Rameau's first compositions were for the harpsichord and throughout his life he produced a rich and varied collection of short works for the instrument, many of which represent some of the greatest solo keyboard music of the French Baroque. Some of the pieces are dances; others are explorations of compositional and keyboard techniques; while others again are "character pieces" with colourful titles such as "The Wild", "The Lame" and "The Indifferent".

Lucie Skeaping looks back over the music, explaining a little about the ideas and background to the pieces, and introduces a range of recordings from Sophie Yates, Christophe Rousset, Celine Frisch and Alexandre Tharaud amongst others.

Catherine Bott looks at the tradition of music making pre-1700 in Wales with a feature on the 17th century Robert ap Huw manuscript - one of the most important collections of Welsh early music. With contributions from Bangor University's Sally Harper, and harpists Bill Taylor and Paul Dooley.

Lucie Skeaping explores the Abbey of St Gall, its role in the development of medieval chant, and how one of the Abbey's most famous sons - a young monk named "Notker the Stammerer" - came to write a revolutionary kind of music there.

Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of the 16th Century German composer Michael Praetorius, most famous for his many Lutheran chorales and song arrangements, and for his compendium of more than 300 instrumental dances: "Terpsichore". Music includes recordings by David Munrow's Early Music Consort of London, Paul van Nevel's Huelgas Ensemble and Philip Pickett's New London Consort.

First broadcast in June 2012.

"Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains" - words made famous by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. But Rousseau was more than just a writer of philosophy. He was also a keen composer and musician; amongst his musical output are seven operas. He also wrote about music and at times earned his living as a music copyist. Catherine Bott explores his intriguing musical life in the week of the 300th anniversary of his birth.

Catherine Bott talks to Owen Rees about the musical legacy of King Joao IV of Portugal and the so-called Golden Age of Portuguese polyphony. In 1578, the young king of Portugal, Sebastian led an ill-considered crusade against the Moors of Morocco. He was routed at the battle of Alcazar-Quivir and disappeared without trace, leaving his succession and the fate of his nation on a knife-edge. Of the six claimants to the Portuguese monarchy, the most powerful was Philip II of Spain, whose invading army conquered the country in 1581. Neither Philip nor his two successors acknowledged Portugal's cultural or ethnic independence and treated her as nothing more than a province of Spain. Portugal's considerable foreign revenue enriched the Spanish treasury, while her dominance in trade and sea power was successfully challenged by the English and the Dutch, thus loosening her grip on her colonies in Africa, Asia and South America. This period of external domination and subsequent economic decline lasted for nearly 60 years until the Portuguese nobility reached the end of its tether and led a revolt against their oppressors in 1640, as a result of which, the Duke of Braganza was declared the new and rightful king of Portugal and the Algarves. One of King Joao IV's first actions was to lead his countrymen in a protracted war of restoration against the Spanish, whose armies were finally driven out of Portuguese lands after four more years of fierce fighting. Joao o Restaurador - John the Restorer - was not just a successful troop-leader, though. He was also a generous supporter of the arts, and a considerably talented musician and composer himself. And, by the time of his death in 1656 he had amassed the biggest music library in the world.

Lucie Skeaping presents a programme exploring JS Bach's musical ancestors. Music by some of JS Bach's sons is often heard these days, but today, Lucie traces the Bach family tree back to his great-great grandfather, Veit Bach, who was a baker in Wechmar and whose son Johann in turn produced 3 musical sons. The programme includes motets and instrumental music by some of the composers in this great musical dynasty.

When Queen Elizabeth came to the throne in 1952 it sparked a wave of creative interest in the first Queen Elizabeth and her times. Catherine Bott looks at how this coincided with the work of the early music movement in this country. In particular she looks at the work of some of the great early music pioneers of the time such as Thurston Dart, Robert Donington and Walter Bergmann.

Catherine Bott presents a programme to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the pioneering countertenor, Alfred Deller, who was born May 31st 1912. Catherine is joined in the studio by 3 countertenors, James Bowman, Robin Blaze and Alfred's son Mark, to discuss some of the many facets of Alfred's art. They play a selection of Alfred's many recordings dating from the 1950s, including some from the early days of Alfred's Deller Consort, one of his most important contributions to the early music movement. Catherine and Mark also chat about Stour Music, the Festival which Alfred founded and which celebrates its 50th anniversary this June. Music in the programme includes lute songs by Dowland and Campion, a scene from Handel's opera Orlando, and the 50 year old recording of father and son, Alfred and Mark, singing Purcell's Sound the Trumpet.

Lucie Skeaping presents a focus on the "stylus fantasticus" genre of programmatic music which flourished in Bohemia during the 17th Century. It was the style favoured by the Bishop of Olomouc-Kromeriz, in what's now the Czech Republic. An enormously sociable fellow - and also a Prince - he spent his summers entertaining friends and relations in the fabulous Kromeriz Castle where he laid on for them lavish feasts, plays, ballets and concerts. The root of the music was the ground-breaking toccatas by the Venetian organist & composer Claudio Merulo, and through him, other keyboard composers such as Girolamo Frescobaldi and Johann Jakob Froberger who took the style further. The stylus fantasticus or "fantasy style" developed under the Prince Bishop's patronage and was perfect for the light-hearted summer entertainments at the Kromeriz Castle parties. The most famous practitioner of the "stylus fantsaticus" was Heinrich Biber, whose colourful "Battalia" invokes a military encampment by means of trumpet and drum motifs - full of imagination and wit. We hear eight drunken musketeers singing their native songs, officers engaging in elegant fencing, horses and cavalry, a battle complete with trumpet flourishes and shots, and finally the lament of the wounded musketeers.

In the month of 450th anniversary of the composer's birth, Catherine Bott explores the extensive vocal compositions of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, known as the "Orpheus of Amsterdam". Although perhaps best known for his keyboard works, Sweelinck wrote over 250 vocal works and, surprisingly for a composer so associated with his homeland, none of these settings are in his native tongue. Instead, the language which predominates in his vocal output is French.

Thomas Gainsborough had a deep love of music and many of his portraits include musical themes. He was himself a keen amateur player of the gamba and he had many musicians as friends, and feautured them as subjects for his portraits. Catherine Bott meets art historian and author of several books on the artist, Michael Rosenthal of Warwick University, for an exploration of what the Gainsborough portraits tell us about the role of music in the late 18th Century. The programme includes comment about Gainsborough's portraits of Karl Friedrich Abel; Johann Christian Bach; and the Linley family, as well as paintings of some notable amateurs from the English gentry such as William Wollaston and the redoubtable Anne Ford.

Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of music in Prague - a political, cultural and economic focus of central Europe for more than 1100 years, and home to composers such as Brixi, Regnart, Myslivecek and Brentner; as well as many famous musical visitors like Machaut, Mozart and Gluck.

First broadcast in April 2012.

Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of the Renaissance wind ensemble Piffaro, based in Philadelphia. This wonderfully colourful, virtuosic ensemble have been together for over 25 years. During the programme Lucie talks to the two artistic directors, Joan Kimball and Robert Wiemken about their work. The music in the programme is from the ensemble's many recordings, using a wide variety of instruments and repertoire, and includes arrangements of French chansons and Flemish dances, and music inspired by the ensemble's recent trip to Bolivia.

Giovanni Battista Guarini's Il Pastor Fido was one of the most famous plays of the 17th Century and 300 years ago London saw the premiere of Handel's Opera based on Guarini's text. However, Handel was far from the first to use this play as inspiration for his music. Il Pastor Fido had already sparked the imaginations of numerous composers. Catherine Bott explores the play and some of it's musical offsprings, including music by Monterverdi, Schütz and and Sigismondo d'India.

Handel's "Il Pastor Fido" is one of the featured works at this year's London Handel Festival which runs from 15th March to 24th April.

Concluding the Early Music Show’s journey through the musical alphabet with the letters N-Z. Presented by Lucie Skeaping, Catherine Bott and Andrew Manze. This podcast contains lewd lyrics and bawdy ballads.

A whistle-stop tour of the alphabet according to Early Music, presented by Lucie Skeaping, Andrew Manze and Catherine Bott. In Part 1, the letters A-M.

After his time working for Prince Leopold of Anhalt in Cöthen, Johann Sebastian Bach took a substantial drop in salary and public standing to work as Cantor in Leipzig. The role primarily involved teaching at St Thomas School, but also meant that Bach was responsible for the music in the German town's four churches. Lucie Skeaping takes a closer look at Bach's time in the German town, where Bach remained from 1723 until his death in 1750.

Catherine Bott talks to harpist Andrew-Lawrence King about Catalan soprano and early music specialist Montserrat Figueras, who passed away late last year. Featuring some of the best of her many recordings.

Lucie Skeaping traces the history and development of the dance-based form, from its origins in Iberian street music to the great organ works by Bach.

The word passacaglia derives from the Spanish 'pasar' and 'calle' - meaning 'to walk' and 'street'. The musical form probably originated as music performed whilst promenading, most likely with a guitar. With the rise in popularity of the 5 string Spanish guitar, the passacaglia quickly crossed Europe and was readily adopted into song, instrumental music and even into the theatre. Repertoire in the programme includes music from an opera by Lully, Monteverdi's lament par excellence "Lamento della Ninfa" and one of Bach's greatest works for organ.

Lucie Skeaping presents the first of two programmes this weekend, looking at the "Golden Age" of Polish music. The programme includes sacred works and lute miniatures by composers including Bartłomej Pękiel, Franciszek Lilius, Mikołaj Zieleński & Wojciech Długoraj as well as music by some of the Italian masters brought to Poland in the 17th Century by King Sigismund Augustus II.

In tomorrow's programme, there are highlights from a concert given at the 2011 Lufthansa Festival by Retrospect and Matthew Halls, with contributions from Polish expert Adrian Thomas.

Catherine Bott explores the life and music of the Spanish prodigy Francisco Guerrero, who worked in Spain and Portugal, and had a series of eventful trips abroad, including a journey to the Holy Land. He became one of the most renowned composers of the Spanish "Golden Age of Polyphony" alongside Victoria and Morales and his music remained popular for hundreds of years.

Catherine Bott explores the history of the Hanseatic League and the impact that it had for music from the 13th to the 18th centuries among the towns and ports around the Baltic. This programme provides the background to one of the main themes of this year's Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music, highlights from which will feature in the Early Music Show over the next two weeks.

Catherine Bott visits Lincoln to explore what it would have been like to be in a cathedral choir in the days of the "Father of English Music" William Byrd. Was the life of a 16th-century chorister so different to that of a 21st-century one?

Lucie Skeaping talks to musicologist Berta Joncus about the one of the 18th Century's colourful characters, the soprano Kitty Clive. Clive was born in London in the early 18th century, and rose to become London's top singer and comic actress, and a celebrity in her day. Berta Joncus is currently writing a book about Kitty Clive, and how she fascinated audiences for decades. The programme includes music she made famous, including Arne's 'Rule Britannia', and also music written for her by Handel.

First broadcast in January 2012.

A keen flautist himself, Frederich II of Prussia also patronised and employed some of the finest composers of the age. In the week of the 300th anniversary of his birth, Lucie Skeaping explores the musicians of Frederick the Great's court, including music by Agricola, Quantz, CPE Bach, Fasch, Graun and Frederick himself.

Lucie Skeaping presents a programme of music by members of the Ferrabosco family, Alfonso I and II - father and son. They were a family of Italian musicians who worked in England for many years at the Elizabethan court. Repertoire in the programme includes fantasias for viols performed by Phantasm, a setting of the Lamentations, and song settings of poems by John Donne and Ben Johnson.

Upon his death, the great English composer William Byrd was acclaimed as the "father of Musick". But what was his musical legacy? Catherine Bott explores the lives and music of some of the great composer's students, featuring music from Thomas Tomkins, Peter Philips, Thomas Morley and John Bull.

Lucie Skeaping looks at the life and works of the composer and teacher Nicola Porpora, whose early career was overshadowed by the successes of Alessandro Scarlatti in his native Naples.

Lucie Skeaping's thoughts turn to Marc Antoine Charpentier who wrote some of the most engaging Christmas music of the French Baroque including the celebrated Messe de Minuit - a midnight mass for Christmas Eve based on popular French carols.

A remarkably gifted composer from the reign of Louis XIV, Charpentier spent much of his life pushed into the shadows by the all-powerful and controlling Jean-Baptiste Lully. Much of his life was spent in the service of Mlle de Guise and for the Jesuit College in Paris for whom he wrote many of his wonderful Christmas pieces inspired by popular French carols.

Lucie Skeaping explores the history of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, founded in 1500. Lucie talks to two Past Masters, Paul Campion and Richard Crewdson. Richard has written a book, "Apollo's Swan and Lyre", which charts the history of the Musicians' Company. The programme looks back to the roots of the organisation, which provided protection for professional musicians in the City of London, and the Act of Incorporation of the Company in the 17th Century. The programme explores the world of London's medieval minstrels, and the guild's relationship between the Royal Household and the City Waits.

Guillaume de Machaut was one of the greatest composers and poets of the Middle Ages and Le Voir Dit is one of his most extraordinary works. Containing 9,094 lines of verse and 8 musical settings, it tells the tale of a blossoming love between the elderly Machaut and a young admirer: Péronne d' Armentières. Catherine Bott explores Machaut's "The True Story".

A profile of Maria Bárbara, the Portuguese Infanta and Spanish Queen, and the muse of Domenico Scarlatti, on the 300th anniversary of her birth.

Catherine Bott looks back on the life of one Europe's most musically talented royal figures, the inspirational Maria Madalena Bárbara Xavier Leonor Teresa Antónia Josefa (4 December 1711 - 27 August 1758), whose gifts as a keyboard player and great love for music inspired Domenico Scarlatti to devote the best part of his life serving her and prompted him to compose at least 550 sonatas for her to play.

Maria Bárbara's name often appears alongside Scarlatti's when talking about his music, but little is usually said about her, her court and her times. Catherine Bott takes the three hundredth anniversary of her birth to review the Scarlatti story from a different perspective.

Lucie Skeaping presents a programme about the 18thC Scottish composer James Oswald, who rose from humble beginnings in Fife to be the official chamber music composer to George III. The programme includes recordings by Concerto Caledonia, soprano Catherine Bott, tenor Iain Paton, the Broadside Band and guitarist Rob MacKillop.

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and extraordinary music of Salamone Rossi, a 17th-century Jewish composer based in Mantua. He wrote a collection of psalms and motets in Hebrew, for the Synagogue, drawing on the Italian polyphonic style of composition employed by the Christian Church. In a period of intense anti-Semitism, when the Jewish community in Italy were required by law to wear on their clothing a yellow 'badge of shame', Rossi's musical skills were highly regarded by the Mantuan court. His collection was not only the first of its kind; it would also remain unique for more than two hundred years.

First broadcast 19/11/2011.

As part of Radio 3's month long celebration of Symphony, the Early Music Show traces the early history. Catherine Bott reflects on the trail-blazing work of the pioneering symphonists of the 18th century such as Sammartini, the Stamitz family, Holzbauer, JC Bach, Monn and Wagenseil.

The 18th century saw a creative explosion in the development of instrumental music and in particular, one of the great innovations of the century was the orchestral symphony. Many of its origins can be traced to Italy but it quickly became a pan European phenomenon with every major cultural centre boasting its own symphonist or "school" of symphony composers, each of which was bursting with its own creative reponses to this new and exciting kind of music.

As part of the BBC "Symphony" season, Catherine Bott reflects on some of the major pioneering figures in the development of the symphony, casting her net across many of Europe's major cities - from Milan to Mannheim, Hamburg and Dresden, Paris, Berlin, London and Vienna. The programme considers some of the novel innovations that were introduced into the symphony as the century progressed and by dwelling on some of the music of lesser known composers it provides a context for the musical world that we've come to associate with Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

Many of the symphonists featured in this programme can also be heard in complete performances across the following week on Radio 3's Afternoon on 3.

The Early Music discovers the origins of Symphony, as part of Radio 3's month long celebration. We all know what is now called a Symphony, but the term has had many varied uses. Lucie Skeaping tracks down the origins of the Symphonie and encounters medieval hurdy-gurdys, spinets and virginals, a tale that the dulcimer is as old as the Bible and a royal wedding, not to mention a whole host of overtures, interludes, sonatas, canzonas and concertos.

Catherine Bott talks to scholar, musicologist and conductor Andrew Parrott about the complex process of reconstructions, including his most recent project: the reconstruction of JS Bach's Trauer-Music (Funeral Music). This work was composed in 1728 when Bach's patron, Prince Leopold of Cöthen, suddenly died at the age of 33, but the score has almost completely disappeared. Andrew talks to Catherine about how he reconstructed this work through various clues in other of Bach's works, and plays music from his new recording with his Taverner Consort and Players.

Catherine Bott explores the musical legacy of King Dinis I of Portugal. He was a remarkable man, born in the year 1261, and ruled Portugal for 46 years during which time he consolidated both his country's economy and its frontiers, limiting the powers of the aristocracy and resolving conflicts in the church. He was known for his wisdom, prudence and passion for justice, and not only was his court a refuge for poets and minstrels from all over the Iberian peninsula and beyond, he also joined them with his own poetry and music.

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and musical passions of one of the most important and influential women of the Italian Renaissance, Isabella d'Este. Featuring music from, amongst others, Ockeghem, Josquin, Cara and Tromboncino.

First broadcast in October 2011.

Catherine Bott takes a look at the Wode Psalter, a hugely significant collection of part books that give a fascinating insight into Scottish music-making in the 16th Century.

The collection was initially the work of Thomas Wode, a monk and cleric from St Andrews, who was commissioned to produce a series of harmonisations of psalm tunes for a protestant Scottish Psalter. Wode was more ambitious however, and he took it upon himself to gather as much of the music he then heard being played in Scotland, in the fear that otherwise music from the nation might be lost to us for ever.

The highly decorative series of part books, which make up the Wode Collection, has been scattered across the world for centuries, but the books have recently been brought back together for a special exhibition at Edinburgh University.

Catherine Bott visits the exhibition and is shown around by curator Dr Noel O'Regan. Music for the programme is taken from a recent recording of items from the Wode Collection by the Dunedin Consort.

In 1593 one of the great Tudor composers of keyboard music and vocal polyphony, Peter Philips found himself imprisoned in the Hague under allegations of being involved in a plot to kill Queen Elizabeth. In the composer's 450th anniversary year, Lucie Skeaping explores his life and work, and speculates on the allegations against him.

Lucie Skeaping examines the career and music of Shakespeare's regular musical collaborator, Robert Johnson, who famously created the music for The Tempest in 1611, as well as many other plays by the leading playwrights of his day.

King George III is now often remembered only as "the mad King", but he and his Queen Consort were passionate supporters of the arts and both loved music. In the second of two programmes, Catherine Bott continues her virtual tour of London, tracing the legacy of George's artistic patronage through his reign. Featuring music from Handel, Purcell and Steffani.

King George III is widely remembered as the British monarch who suffered a temporary, debilitating period of "madness" as depicted in the play and film by Alan Bennett, "The Madness of King George", but he was also a highly cultured man; he and his Queen Consort were passionate supporters of the arts and both loved music. In the first of two programmes, Catherine Bott begins a virtual tour of London to trace the legacy of George's artistic patronage through his reign. Featuring music from Handel, JC Bach and Mozart.

On the 300th anniversary of the birth of William Boyce, Lucie Skeaping and Jeremy Barlow explore some of the places in London where he lived and worked. Their journey takes them from a church in central London where he had his first job, to the public gardens in south London where his music was enjoyed by many.

Catherine Bott in conversation with the late Gustav Leonhardt: keyboardist, conductor, musicologist and teacher, who was one of the great pioneers of Early music.

With great sadness, we learn of the death of Gustav Leonhardt on 16th January. In a change to the schedule, we repeat an interview that Catherine Bott recorded with him last year about his life in music, his great love of Bach and about a variety of Early music issues whilst featuring some of his many recordings, including music by JS Bach, Louis Couperin, and Sweelinck. This is the last interview that Gustav Leonhardt gave to the BBC.

Catherine Bott explores the history of the Collegium Musicum, the amateur music ensembles whose performances in Germany under such illustrious directors as Telemann and Bach paved the way for public concert series.

First broadcast in August 2011.

Lucie Skeaping looks at Vivaldi's groundbreaking Op.3 set of concertos for one, two or four violins entitled "L'Estro Armonico", which were published 300 years ago.

Vivaldi had them published in Amsterdam, which meant they were readily available throughout northern Europe. The 8 partbooks even landed on the desk of JS Bach, who found them so inspirational he set about making transcriptions of some of them for keyboard instruments.

We'll hear some of Vivaldi's concertos in recordings by The English Concert and I Musici, as well as one of Bach's transcriptions - the Concerto for 4 Harpsichords in a performance by Bach Collegium Stuttgart conducted by Helmuth Rilling.

Giulio Caccini was one of the most successful composers and highly renowned singers of his age. But lesser known are his two daughters, Francesca and Settimia Caccini. Both women were highly accomplished singers in their own right, and composers as well, and they both rose to become the highest paid members of their respective courts. Francesca also holds another claim to fame, as the first ever female composer of an opera, and she has been lauded as the most important female composer between the 11th Century Hildegard of Bingen and the 19th Century. Lucie Skeaping investigates the lives of these two extraordinary women.

Podcast version of this programme available from Monday 15th August (follow the link to 'Podcast' from the Early Music Show home page)

Lucie Skeaping looks back on the life and music of the Jacobean prodigy, Orlando Gibbons. Should we be surprised that he was one of Canadian pianist, Glenn Gould's favourite composers? - the range and variety of Gibbons' remarkably accomplished output continues to inspire musicians from many different musical disciplines. Lucie Skeaping presents a cross-section of his works, not least his most famous piece, "The Silver Swan".