Rare recordings of two settings of Mary’s passionate Easter lament. For their second L’Oiseau Lyre disc, Il Giardino Armonico, again under their director Giovanni Antonini, are joined by celebrated mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink, for a project exploring the Passion of Christ as seen through the eyes of the Virgin Mary. The two central works are both vocal settings of the Virgin’s lament.

Dimitry Sinkovsky is a dazzlingly multi-talented artist a brilliant violinist, countertenor, conductor, and founder in 2011 of the ensemble La Voce Strumentale. In Virtuosissimo, his fifth venture with Naïve, he has teamed up again with the ensemble Il Pomo dOro, his partners in numerous recordings and concerts, to cast more light on Pisendel, a celebrated violinist and composer who led the prestigious Dresden Court Orchestra, and a Vivaldi devotee who copied out several of the Venetian masters concertos for performance in Dresden.

Johannes’ debut CD focuses on the music of one of the most celebrated orchestras at Bach’s time: the Dresden court orchestra. No other orchestra was as cosmopolitan in terms of its makeup, as familiar with all the current styles, or as skilled in dealing with difficult scores as the group led by Johann Georg Pisendel. He was also responsible for making the Dresden music archive into one of the most extensive in Europe. Fortunately the so-called Schrank II collection – preserved today in the Saxon State Library – with its inexhaustible trove of acoustical treasures survived the turmoil of a number of devastating wars.

La Serenissima explore the network of friendships and collaborations that helped bring together German and Italian styles during the Baroque, with concertos by Telemann, Pisendel, Brescianello and others.