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. Pho...

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...

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....

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...

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, Ma...

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, Palest...

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,...

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, wh...

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 bo...

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 devotio...

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 an...

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...

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...

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 a...

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, Perg...