The Early Music Show

Lucie Skeaping introduces music written for this day by J.S. Bach - music composed for the 27th December, the Third Day of Christmas and the First Sunday after Christmas - including the six-voice Santus composed for the Christmas service in 1724, during second year of Bach's tenure in Leipzig, which eventually became part of the B minor Mass; music from the Christmas Oratorio; and Cantatas BWV 122...

Sophie Yates talks to Benjamin Narvey about the relationship between lutes harpsichords.

Fiona Talkington introduces a performance of Bach's 'Wedding Cantata,' Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten and finds out whether Anna Magdalena might have sung this very cantata at her wedding to JS Bach in 1721. The cantata's central aria: 'To practise sweet courtship, to cuddle joyously,' features a solo oboe. Today's programme also includes an oboe concerto and a suite for seven instruments written...

Lucie Skeaping and Dr James Porter of Aberdeen University investigate the musical world of Huguenot composer Jean Servin, and find out what he was doing in 1579 at the Edinburgh court of King James VI of Scotland (later to be King James I of England), with lovingly bound copies of his Psalmi Davidis in his luggage. With music by Servin, Lassus, David Peebles, Andrew Blackhall and others in perform...

Fiona Talkington presents a profile of Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike and his group Barokksolistene.

Lucie Skeaping marks the 450th anniversary of the Portuguese Renaissance composer, Duarte Lobo. She is joined by scholar and performer Professor Owen Rees of Queen's College, Oxford, who has edited, performed and recorded music by Duarte Lobo. Duarte Lobo was among the foremost Portuguese composers of the early 17th century. He spent most of his life in Lisbon where he became a renowned teacher. H...

Lucie Skeaping talks to Rosemary Southey of Newcastle University about the musical scene in the north east of England in the eighteenth century, with works by Charles Avison, John Garth and William Herschel.

As part of the BBC's current focus on Dance, Lucie Skeaping is joined by choreographer and early dance expert Darren Royston to discover some of the delights of medieval dance moves.

The Bach-Abel Concerts. Lucie Skeaping talks to the music historian, Simon Heighes about a famous concert series which began two hundred and fifty years ago this year and which lit up London's concert life following the death of Handel. The Bach-Abel series continued for thirty years and with it J.C Bach and his compatriot, Carl Friedrich Abel introduced their opera and concert arias, symphonies a...

Lucie Skeaping explores Artaserse, one of the most popular opera libretti by Metastasio, the great 18th century dramatist, featuring Artaxerxes I, King of Persia. The libretto was originally written for and first set to music by Leonardo Vinci in 1730 for Rome, and it was subsequently set by dozens of later composers. In England, Thomas Arne's 1762 Artaxerxes is set to an English libretto that is...

Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of the career of the British tenor Nigel Rogers, who celebrates his 80th birthday this week.

Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars have specialised in the performance of Renaissance polyphony for over thirty years. They have built a reputation for bringing some of the greatest European church music of the 16th and 17th centuries onto the concert platform. So what has prompted such an enthusiasm? Lucie Skeaping explores with Peter and the group some of the qualities and the ethos of Renai...

International Women's Day, celebrating female composers: Barbara Strozzi Lucie Skeaping is joined by Laurie Stras to profile the life and music of the prolific 17th Century Venetian composer and singer Barbara Strozzi. @bbcradio3 #womensday Born in 1617, the daughter of a servant girl Barbara was brought up and educated by the poet Giulio Strozzi, who was probably her father. She first tasted fame...

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and musical legacy of the 17th Century French harpsichordist, organist and composer Louis Couperin, with contributions from Christophe Rousset and performances by Rousset, Bob van Asperen, Davitt Moroney and Glen Wilson.

Lucie Skeaping investigates the music of 18th- and early 19th-century Cuba in the company of Andrew McGregor and musicologist Miriam Escudero. Includes music by Esteban Salas, Juan Paris and Cayetano Pagueras, and performances by Ensemble Ars Longa La Havana.

Lucie Skeaping explores the life of Johann Georg Pisendel, a virtuoso German violinist in the late 17th & early 18th Centuries to whom composers like Vivaldi and Telemann dedicated works and whose own solo violin compositions are said to have provided the inspiration for JS Bach's own solo Sonatas and Partitas.

Lucie Skeaping looks at the life and music of the Viennese composer Georg Christoph Wagenseil. Although today he's largely relegated to the footnotes of musical history, in his day he was internationally admired, not least in the Mozart household. His tercentenary year gives cause for a fresh look at this founding father of the Viennese Classical style.

"East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." So wrote Rudyard Kipling, but in the world of early music at least, the artistry of the Middle East exerted a huge influence on the instruments and compositions of Europe. From Greek music theory to wandering minstrels, and poetic song-forms to filigree melodies, Lucie Skeaping surveys the musical legacy of this lively contact, visit...

Sophie Yates presents a profile of the French harpsichordist and composer Jacques Duphly, the tercentenary of whose birth falls this month.

Lucie Skeaping visits Hampton Court Palace to find out about the music written during the short, but eventful reign of King Edward VI. She traces Edward's story from cradle to grave with guest contributor Michele Price - manager of the choral foundation at Hampton Court Palace.

Lucie Skeaping visits the Scilly Isles to learn about the actress and singer Ann Cargill, who drowned in a dramatic shipwreck there in 1784, and whose ghost is said to have haunted Rosevear Island ever since. Ann made her London stage debut in 1771 at the tender age of eleven in Thomas Arne's opera "The Fairy Prince" at Covent Garden. Later she eloped with a married man eighteen years her senior,...

Lucie Skeaping investigates an ancient musical tradition whereby people went from door to door singing carols and were rewarded with hot mulled cider. Wassailing can be traced back possibly as far as Anglo-Saxon times and has evolved over time to become associated with Christmas. Lucie Skeaping introduces some of the music that has been associated with the wassailing tradition and her guests inclu...

A special repeat of Catherine Bott's interview with the distinguished conductor, keyboardist and musicologist, Christopher Hogwood, who died earlier this year. Catherine chats to him about his career as one of the major proponents of the early music movement, including Christopher's early work with David Munrow in the Early Music Consort of London and the orchestra he founded in 1973 - The Academy...

Catherine Bott presents a profile of Bach's eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, who despite being renowned as an organist and composer during his lifetime, died in poverty.

As part of Decameron Nights, Lucie Skeaping talks to David Fallows, Emeritus Professor of Musicology at the University of Manchester, about music in Italy in the time of Boccaccio.