The Early Music Show

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/166Additional 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.dkThanks 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 ancient Greek concept of the four elements – symbolic forces that inspired Renaissance and Baroque composers with the essences of creation out of chaos: earth, air, water, and today, fire. Today's programme focuses on all things fiery, with music by Vivaldi, Rameau, Araujo, Corette, Rebel and JS Bach.

Hannah French continues her series of programmes associated with the ancient Greek concept of the four elements - symbolic forces that inspired Renaissance and Baroque composers with the essences of creation out of chaos: earth, water, fire, and today air. Today's programme focuses on all things to do with the air and 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, Francea Falernian (made from Aglianico grapes) from Campania, Italya sweet Malvasia from Sicilyanda 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 andRueda 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 years, 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 Greek concept of the four elements - symbolic forces that inspired Renaissance and Baroque composers with the essences of creation out of chaos: air, water, fire, and today earth. 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 today1440 - 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.