The Early Music Show

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. #BBCSoundofCinemaLucie 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.