Early Music

French soprano Gwendoline Blondeel's incandescent voice embodies warmth as well as reserve, excitement but also resignation – emotions across the gamut.

An Italian early-music vocal ensemble that specializes in madrigals explores the music of a great composer and word-painter.

We may not know what the real-life mother of Jesus of Nazareth was like, but she would surely have been amazed by the honors bestowed upon her through music like this.

Inspired by the music of Mongolia and Taiwan, these pieces feature the Brentano, JACK, Formosa, and Mivos quartets.

With all its art, Matthew Martin's new piece creates an impression of voices speaking directly to the listener. The subject may be the Virgin Mary, but what we hear seems devilishly knowing.

With 1,024 parts, the individual lines blend into what we hear as one prolonged chord. Listening to it out of context you'd likely think it was a piece of avant-garde conceptual art.

The Norwegian lutenist makes this 400-year-old music sound vital through a mature, warmly expressive sensibility, even as he explicates these old "texts" through a prism of meticulous technique.

This collaboration between vocal ensemble Blue Heron and composer Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol is as beautiful as it is tricky to describe.

Music from the court of Charles XI of Sweden, "a deliberate crossroads of European music and musicians."

The music on this fun and rewarding album illustrates the cross-cultural world of the 1700s. Many of the tracks call to mind Celtic (and by extension Appalachian) folk music.