The Early Music Show

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 o...

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 a...

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 somethin...

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....

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...

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 hi...

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 uni...

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 Eur...

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 Pu...

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 mus...

Hannah French explores Heinrich Schutz's 26 psalm settings, which were one of the first major collections of choral music in the German language. To listen to this programme using most smart speakers, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play The Early Music Show".

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 i...

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 pi...