A celebration of the Royal Philharmonic Society's 175th Season as 'An Evening with the Philharmonic' with music from concerts recreating original programmes between 1813 and 1837.

For the first time it is possible to present the orchestra music os Beethoven to the listening public of today in a form which he would recognise. For the Hanover Band is an orchestra of 29 specialist performers on late 18th-century instruments, a classical orchestra modelled in size and type on the Burgtheater orchestra in theVienna of 1800.

For all the charges of unacceptable schematicism levelled at Vivaldi and his kind, Monica Huggett, as supremely imaginative as well as technically and stylistically accomplished an exponent of the baroque violin as any, demonstrates clearly that this music benefits from the guiding hand of a charismatic interpreter: her delivery of Vivaldi’s exuberant, even manic, inspiration is never less than involving and, in the slow movements, never less than touching.

A transformative force in historically informed performance, Ton Koopman is renowned as a conductor, harpsichordist and organist. In 1979, aged 35, he founded the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in the city where he had studied with the great Dutch harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt. Drawing on an international pool of players, the ensemble soon gained a reputation for flexibility, colour and expressivity as it explored the music of such composers as the Bach family, Handel, Telemann and Buxtehude.

Ensemble Marsyas’ debut recording on Linn features three of the extraordinary trio sonatas by the Bohemian composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) for violin, two oboes, bassoon and continuo on period instruments. These sonatas represent the most spectacularly challenging music ever written for wind instruments in terms of their utopian demands on the technique of the players, their musical integrity and their breathtaking scale. This repertoire saw the ensemble awarded both first prize and the audience prize at the 2007 Brugge International Competition. The Edinburgh based chamber group comprises the best of a new generation of musicians specialising in early music from across Europe. Ensemble Marsyas is Peter Whelan - bassoon, Josep Domènech Lafont - oboe, Molly Marsh - oboe, Thomas Dunford - theorbo, Philippe Grisvard - harpsichord/organ, Christine Sticher - violone. They are joined for this recording by Baroque violinist Monica Huggett who is a multiple Gramophone Award winner and Grammy nominee. The members of Ensemble Marsyas have been awarded accolades by both critics and the recording industry alike - the most recent including a 2010 Gramophone Award for a recording featuring Peter Whelan.

Here's a CD that lives up to its name and more. The Italian chamber repertory of the 17th century receives occasional performances, but it has rarely been as convincingly explored as it is here by veteran Baroque violinist Monica Huggett, leading small ensembles drawn from the Irish Baroque Orchestra. Huggett's biggest coup is simply her selection of unknown but superb repertoire. The Partia VI from the collection of trio sonatas titled Harmonia Artificiosa by Heinrich Biber (the "Italian" label for the music includes examples of Italian style from German lands) is sometimes played, although not as often as the composer's solo violin music; it is a rigorous but colorful exercise in scordatura (the use of unorthodox tunings).

Anyone interested in a high-quality performance of Mozart's violin concertos on period instruments needs to look no further than this inexpensive set. All the youthful exuberance of the music comes through brilliantly in this interpretation, enhanced by the transparent texture of period instruments. Everything from tempi to dynamics is well-chosen and well-rendered, and nothing stands out as being out of place.

Sonata for three violins from Book 6 (1636) deservedly most popular. She opens Galatea’s disc and immediately you know you’re in for a treat: a fabulously fantastical disputation between three flighty fiddles, dispatched here with a voluble virtuosity and gesturing grandiloquence the Italians tried to kid us they alone possess. The dance movements have got rhythm, too, especially the galliards; and the continuo’s a sheer pluckfest.

If Michel Corrette was a little over-enthusiastic in crediting Corelli with the invention of both sonata and concerto form as it was known and understood in the mid-eighteenth century, Roger North had only to judge by the enormous popularity of the Italian master's works in England in the 1720s to deduce that they would be immortal… Monica Huggett…brings a sweetness of tone and a perfection of technical control that cannot but inspire admiration on their own count, but in combination with such unerring musical insight as is to be found here makes these into quite masterly interpretations… The continuo members of Trio Sonnerie are unerringly tasteful in their playing, while Nigel North on theorbo and other plucked instruments is quite stunningly imaginative.

This delightful pair of CDs contains music from three collections published in northern Italy between 1610 and 1641. The earliest is a volume published in Milan in 1610, Concerti ecclesiastici, which is made up of music by the two brothers Giovanni Paolo Cima and Andrea Cima and contains the ‘Sei sonate, per instrumenti à due, tre e quarto’ recorded here; the next, chronologically speaking, is the Madrigali, libro II of Francesco Turini, published in Venice in 1624, from which six sonatas for two violins and continuo have here been extracted. The last is another Venetian publication (of 1641) the Sonate a 12.2.3. per il violono or cornetto, fagotto, chitarone, violoncino o simile altro istrumento of Giovanni Battista Fontana.

Of all the recordings now available of Biber…this [is] by far and away the most spectacular, exuberant, colourful and downright ravishing of them all. Huggett positively revels in the virtuosity of Biber’s original…Huggett’s beautifully crafted performance of the complex and, at times, profoundly moving solo Passacaglia rounds off what is a matchless recording from every perspective.

In 1747 Bach wrote a note to go with the piece on this disc: "To Your Majesty [Frederick the Great] I dedicate herewith, in deepest submissiveness, a Musical Offering . . . This undertaking has now been accomplished to the best of my ability, and it has no other object than exalting, if even in only a small degree, the fame of a Monarch whose greatness and power in all the arts both of war and of peace, but especially in music, everyone must admire and honor." And composers today complain about having to fill out NEA grant applications! Here we have a warm and carefully-crafted performance by the original group of instruments, Ensemble Sonnerie, made up of some of the most prominent musicians in the British early music scene.

With the tonal sweetness of Huggett’s three violins resonating pleasingly through the many double- and multiple-stoppings and her bowing demonstrating a delicious lightness and freedom, she admirably displays her eloquent command of Biber’s sublime and richly symbolic language. Huggett’s [approach] is ravishing in its sonorities, her supporting cast adding significantly to the exotic sounds of the various scordaturas and the overall effect of her intelligent, stylish and expressive playing.