The Early Music Show

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".

On 14 May 1610, France fell into a month and a half of mourning. Le bon roi Henri, King Henri IV of France was dead. Catherine Bott explores the life of the King they called the Green Gallant and the music which accompanied both his life and his death.

Catherine Bott presents a profile of the great Spanish composer, Tomás Luis de Victoria, who died in 1611. He dedicated his musical life to the Church, working both in his native Spain and in Italy; all his compositions are vocal, sacred and in Latin. Although he was not as prolific a composer as some of his contemporaries, Victoria is now generally regarded as one of the greatest of Renaissance composers, his music characterised by its emotional intensity. Catherine Bott celebrates the genius of his music, and plays recordings of some of Victoria's powerfully moving music, including settings of Marian antiphons and Mass settings.

Lucie Skeaping examines the background and music to Handel's moving 'Easter Oratorio' - La Resurrezione - which he wrote in his early twenties during his formative years in Rome.Composed for Easter Day 1708, for a gala performance at the opulent Ruspoli Palace, featuring the finest musicians to hand, including an orchestra led by Archangelo Corelli, La Resurrezione (The Resurrection) is a dramatic recollection of events following Christ's crucifixion. In recent years Handel's "Easter Oratorio" as it's sometimes referred to, has attracted renewed interest and spawned several recordings.Lucie relates the background and story of this youthful Handelian masterpiece, and illustrates the programme with a cross-section of performances taken from CD.

Catherine Bott talks to Tony Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet about the extraordinary travels of Thomas Coryate. Coryate was an English eccentric who as well as being credited with introducing the table fork and the umbrella to England, journeyed to Venice and back mainly on foot, and whose travel writings provide music historians with invaluable details of the activities of the Venetian school.First broadcast in July 2011.

Lucie Skeaping plays a selection of music by Niccolo Jommelli. Considered a pathfinder, steering music from the traditions of Baroque opera to the immediacy of Mozart's stage works, Jommelli's operatic reforms in the mid-eighteenth century made him a widely regarded figure in his day - ground-breaking and influential. His true significance is only now starting to be valued.

Lucie Skeaping presents a programme exploring Purcell's semi-opera, The Fairy Queen, based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Purcell did not set any of Shakespeare's original text, and instead added self-contained masques in each of the acts, which include some of Purcell's finest music. Lucie plays musical extracts from each of the masques from various recordings, directed by Ton Koopman, Roger Norrington, Harry Christophers and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

Music at the Russian Imperial Court in the mid 18th century was largely provided by itinerant Italian masters like Paisiello, Galuppi & Manfredini, but by the end of the century a group of three talented Ukrainians began to take St Petersburg by storm. Maxim Berezovsky, Artemy Vedel and Dimitri Bortniansky became known as The Golden Three, and provided four successive monarchs with chamber music, choruses and operatic entertainments. Lucie Skeaping looks at the lives and music of these three, now uncelebrated composers, alongside the music of some of their western European teachers.

Henry Desmarest was obviously a talented musican and composer, first boy page and then musician in Louis XIV's court, he began ghost-writing Grands Motets for one of the chapel directors Nicholas Goupillet when he was in his early twenties. After a decade, this scandal was uncovered, but it was not the last of Desmarest's woes! A few years later, he fell in love with one of his pupils, who also happened to be the daughter of a wealthy and powerful man who managed to get the composer sentenced to death, forcing Desmarest to spend the rest of his days in exile. Lucie Skeaping explores the extraordinary life and music of Henry Desmarest.

Lucie Skeaping explores the music of the 16th century Flemish composer Jacobus Clemens non Papa. In the hierarchy of the Flemish school, you could say that Clemens was of the fourth generation - if Dufay is taken as the first, Ockeghem as the second, Josquin the third, with Orlando di Lassus still to come. He was one of the few successful Flemish musicians not to travel to Italy, he spent his entire life in Flanders, working in towns such as Bruges, Dordrecht and Ypres. Also unlike most other composers of that period, Clemens non Papa seems never to have been employed by the church - at least not on a permanent basis. It's unclear as to how Jacobus Clemens came to adopt the epithet "non Papa" - in fact, it has been the subject of much conjecture. The most widely accepted version is that it meant "not the Pope" Clement - presumably because Pope Clement VII was in the Vatican at the time. Pope Clement VII died in 1534, though, so it's possible that he may have been given the nickname in childhood and it simply stuck with him for the rest of his life! Certainly, the Antwerp-based publisher Tielman Susato, with whom he had a lucrative business partnership, seemed to find the papal suffix amusing! His name is much less well known now, but in the late 1500s, Clemens non Papa was one of the most frequently published composers of the time.

Lucie Skeaping explores the extraordinary story behind the earliest known medieval composer for whom a compositional autograph survives: Adémar de Chabannes and his 11th Century Mass for St Martial.

Lucie Skeaping visits the Baroque Theatre of Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic, where she is given a guided tour of the auditorium, backstage areas and museum by the theatre historian Iain Mackintosh. The theatre - part of Cesky Krumlov castle - was built in 1766 to celebrate the wedding of Prince Adam von Schwarzenburg, and is recognised as arguably the best-preserved example of baroque theatre spaces in Europe. The original trompe l'oeil painting throughout is quite breathtaking, and the detailed set designs, costumes and working machinery are remarkable. Music is taken from disc, and includes works by Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Rameau, Zach, Myslivecek, Tuma and Mozart.First broadcast in March 2009.

Lucie Skeaping looks in detail at one of Handel's most popular and enduring works: Acis & Galatea. With extracts from recordings by Trevor Pinnock, John Eliot Gardiner and Adrian Boult, among others.