The Early Music Show

Lucie Skeaping marks the 350th anniversary of the birth of François Couperin with a programme devoted to the four suites of chamber music he wrote for Louis XIV in 1715 - Les Concerts Royaux.

Lucie Skeaping talks to Prof Armand D'Angour of Jesus College Oxford about the music and poetry of ancient Greece, from Homer to Mesomedes via Sappho, Euripides, Pindar and Athenaeus.

Hannah French with music and stories from Les vingt-quatre violons du Roi - an ensemble based at the French court of Versailles but renowned throughout Europe during the 17th century, with music by Lully, Rebel, Delalande, Boesset, Aubert, Dumanoir and many others.

As part of the Spirit of Bach season, Dame Emma Kirkby shares some of her memories of singing Bach alongside some of her favourite recordings of other performers, including Christoph Prégardien, Barbara Schlick, Peter Kooi and Hana Blažíková.

Lucie Skeaping looks at the operas of Telemann. It's said he composed more than 50 works for the stage, although only 35 of them appear in his catalogue. Most of them were premiered in either Leipzig or Hamburg, where he made his home for the major part of his career.

Lucie Skeaping introduces music from the court of Catherine the Great in Russia. We hear how the queen, despite having personally little interest in music, but aware of its cultural importance, brought Italian composers to St Petersburg as she wanted to position Russia as a cultural powerhouse to compete with their European neighbours in the west. The programme focuses on opera and sacred works, s...

Lucie Skeaping celebrates 30 years of the Dufay Collective in conversation with the ensemble's Director William Lyons.

Hannah French marks the 250th anniversary of the death of Georg Philipp Telemann with a programme devoted to the composer's visit to Paris in 1737. Telemann was a huge star at this point in his career, so he was feted in France, where his celebrated Paris Quartets were performed.

Lucie Skeaping is joined by Gabriel Crouch, director of the vocal ensemble Gallicantus and Magnus Williamson, Professor of Early Music at Newcastle University, to discuss music surrounding the fascinating hopes and tragedies of Queen Mary I's "phantom pregnancy" of 1555.

Lucie Skeaping talks to violinist Bojan Cicic and musicologist Michael Talbot about the life and music of the Italian violinist and composer Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli who came to London and played in the orchestra for many of Handel's works, and had a second career as a vintner and purveyor of fine wines to the royal court.

In the fading light of December 1717, a carriage rumbles along the road to Cöthen. As the candlelit moated castle comes into view, the approaching family crane their necks to get a better look at their new home-town. The rural setting is a far cry from the hubbub of Weimar but there's promise in the air. The family are of course the Bachs, Johann Sebastian and his wife Maria Barbara, and four chil...

Lucie Skeaping talks to lutenist and director Zak Ozmo about his project based on 18th-century Portuguese love songs, known as "modinhas". In this programme we will explore the history of the 18th-century Portuguese modinha and myths that surround the creation of this fascinating genre. The themes are recognisable, the melodies haunting, and the genre is still able to stir the passions today as it...

Harpsichordist Sophie Yates visits Westwood Manor in Wiltshire to look at a recently restored 1538 ottavino virginals and discusses the history of the instrument, which had cult-like status in Elizabethan and Jacobean society.

Lucie Skeaping presents highlights of the York Early Music Festival Young Artists' Competition, and announces this year's winners.

Hannah French delves into the history and musical detail of one of Handel's best-known pieces - his Water Music, first performed for King George I on the River Thames in July 1717. A contemporary article from the Daily Courant reported the event thus: "On Wednesday evening, 17 July 1717, at about 8 o'clock, the King took water at Whitehall in an open barge wherein were also the Duchess of Bolton,...

As part of Radio 3's Canada 150 celebrations, Hannah French explores the vibrant early music scene in Montreal. Period performance is thriving in Canada, intriguingly more so than in the USA. Hannah visits some of Montreal's prestigious early music venues and chats to some of the scene's biggest names in the lead-up to the 15th Montreal Baroque Festival. Featuring gamba player Susie Napper - artis...

Lucie Skeaping visits the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace to take a look at the current exhibition of works by Canaletto, in the context of some of the music from the Venice of that period, including works by Vivaldi, Albinoni, Marcello, Lotti and Galuppi.

Monteverdi 450: Lucie Skeaping looks at the collection of late sacred works by Monteverdi, entitled 'Selva Morale e Spirituale'.

As part of Radio 3's Breaking Free: Martin Luther's Revolution season marking the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in Germany in 1517, Lucie Skeaping looks at music written for the Catholic church as a result of the reforms at the Council of Trent, with music by Palestrina and Giaches de Wert, and also music written by later catholic composers such as Jacobus Handl, Charpentier and...

As part of Radio 3's Breaking Free: Martin Luther's Revolution, Lucie Skeaping looks ahead to the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation in northern Europe, and some of the composers active in the very early years of the 16th Century. 500 years ago, in October 1517, the German cleric Martin Luther published what became known as his '95 theses', in which he attacked the common church practice of...

Hannah French presents a programme dedicated to the Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman. He was not only one of his country's most celebrated Baroque composers and leader of the Swedish opera through the Age of Liberty, but also something of a traveller. Roman spent time in London, where he performed for Handel and Geminiani, before setting off across Europe where he met some of the leading music...

Lucie Skeaping discusses the role of Mary Magdalen at Easter with Susan Haskins (cultural historian and author of the book Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor) who chose the music to celebrate this day. The programme includes pieces by Bach, Crecquillon, Mazzocchi, Gabrieli and excerpts from the medieval Carmina Burana.

Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of The European Union Baroque Orchestra.

Lucie Skeaping celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the ground-breaking vocal group I Fagiolini, in conversation with their founder and director Robert Hollingworth.

Director of The Dufay Collective, William Lyons, celebrates the life and work of one of his musical heroes - early music specialist, historian, multi-instrumentalist, broadcaster and pioneer David Munrow, who took his own life in 1976 during a state of depression at the age of just 33. Munrow perhaps did more than anyone else in the second half of the 20th century to popularise early music in Grea...