First Hand Records

•• 'A GERMAN IN VENICE' WAS OUR FEATURED ALBUM FOR OCTOBER 2024 •• Click here to read our blog about this release! One of the key German composers before Bach with more than 500 surviving individual pieces, Heinrich Schütz wrote mainly church music, and is credited with bringing the Italian style to Germany and continuing its evolution from the Renaissance into the early Baroque. Although he lived most of his long life in Germany, in his twenties Schütz made two visits to Venice. The first was between 1609 and 1613 when he was taught by Giovanni Gabrieli; and the second in the late 1620s to meet and possibly study under Monteverdi. The two trips greatly influenced Schütz’s music as he absorbed and began to combine the ornate and theatrical Venetian style with the more understated Lutheran tradition in which he grew up. This album explores his solo cantatas alongside examples of the brilliant and virtuosic Venetian style instrumental music. Disc includes by Schütz, Monteverdi, Rossi, Sances, Grandi & Cavalli. David de Winter tenor The Brook Street Band Rachel Harris violin Kathryn Parry violin Tatty Theo cello Carolyn Gibley harpsichord & organ Lynda Sayce theorbo & lute Lisete da Silva Bull recorder Emily Bannister recorder FHR145 • Released 2024

18th century music inspired and informed by period mechanical musical instruments. This recording is the culmination of 10 years of research by Dr Emily Baines , and it brings to dazzling life the fascinating and effervescent performance style found in eighteenth-century mechanical musical instruments. It contains never before heard transcriptions of music, found in eighteenth-century barrel organs and musical clocks. Dr Emily Baines is a recorder player, lecturer and musical director working throughout Europe, also specialising in a wide variety of historical woodwinds. She trained at the University of Hull, the Koninklijk Conservatorium (The Hague) and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she wrote her doctoral thesis on the role of mechanical musical instruments as sources for 18th-century performance practice. Baines performs regularly for many period instrument ensembles, contemporary groups, music festivals and theatres across Europe. Theatre work has included musician and musical director roles for Jericho House, English Touring Theatre, Barbican BITE, the RSC, the National Theatre and Shakespeare's Globe, including the Globe's première Broadway transfers of Twelfth Night and Richard III in 2013 starring Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry. Her playing is regularly featured on Radio, TV and Film. In addition to her performing schedule, Baines is a lecturer in Music at Brunel University London, Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Shakespeare's Globe Higher Education department, and is regularly invited to other H.E. institutions for guest lectures and practical workshops. FHR113 • Released 2021

We know that key influences on Flamenco date back to Islamic Iberia or the Al- Andalusian era of Spain between the 8th-15th centuries. Yet the first mention of Flamenco by name is not until 1774, where it appears in an epistolary novel, Cartas Marruecas, by the playwright and soldier, Jose de Cadalso y Vazquez. What happened in these intervening centuries? In collaboration with soprano Victoria Couper, kanun player, Konstantinos Glynos, and oud/Flamenco guitarist, Ignacio Lusardi Monteverde, this album seeks to explore this question by tracing the influences on Flamenco through Arabic music alongside Sephardic song and the Spanish composers of the late-16th to 18th centuries. Lux Musicae London Sophie Creaner, Mirjam-Luise Münze l recorder * Roberta Diamond soprano Daniel Thomson tenor Aileen Henry baroque harp Toby Carr baroque guitar, lute Harry Buckoke viola da gamba with ** Victoria Couper soprano Konstantinos Glynos kanun Ignacio Lusardi Monteverde flamenco guitar, oud Press Quotes ‘An enjoyable excursion through Southern Spain across three hundred years – The singers are perfect for this repertoire… The instrumental work is neat and full of character.’ (MusicWeb International) FHR157 • Released 2025

NEW RELEASE! •• 'VESTIVA' WAS OUR FEATURED ALBUM FOR FEBRUARY 2024 •• Click here to read our blog about this release! Vestiva features virtuosic diminutions and embellishments practices of the 16th and 17th centuries, both historical and brand new ones written and improvised by the performers, based on historical treatises. The programme includes famous and hidden treasures by composers such as Cipriano de Rore, John Bennet, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Philippe Verdelot, Pieter de Vois, Orlando di Lassus and more... Formed in 2014, Lux Musicae London is dedicated to exploring and recreating the performance practices that were developing across Europe in the 16th and early 17th centuries. With their diverse instrumentation and rhetorically-driven approach to performance, Lux Musicae London’s programmes seek to recreate music from this time while tracing the patterns of musical influences from different sources. Their unique programmes have ranged from Irish influences in John Dowland’s Denmark to the emergence of Flamenco from Moorish and Spanish music. AILEEN HENRY harp MIRJAM-LUISE MÜNZEL recorder TOBY CARR lute FHR137 • Released 2024

Celebrating The Flautadors ' 20th anniversary with a programme of contemporary and traditional music. Scottish TRADITIONAL (arr. Ian Wilson) 1. Ca the yowes 2. Dandy Dancer Maki ISHII (1936-2003) 3. Black Intention IV (1980) Arvo PÄRT (1935-) 4. Arbos (1977) (7 recorders & 3 triangles) David MURPHY (1970-) 5. Bavardage (2002, rev. 2016) Scottish TRADITIONAL (arr. Ian Wilson) 6. Brose and Butter Ryōhei HIROSE (1930-2008) 7. Idyll 1 (1976) Leo CHADBURN (1978-) 8. De la Salle (2001) Scottish TRADITIONAL (arr. Ian Wilson) 9. Niel Gow’s Lament 10. The Deil Amang the Tailors Terry RILEY (1935) 11. In C (1964) Peter Maxwell DAVIES (1934-2016) (arr. Ian Wilson) 12. Farewell to Stromness (1980) with Sophie Creaner, Tabea Debus and Mirjam-Luise Münzel recorders (tracks 4 & 11) Matthew Frost, Megan Landeg, Elaine So triangles (track 4) FHR55 • Released 2017

Music from Elizabethan England featuring Fantasias by the great William Byrd, Anthony Holborne and Alfonso Ferrabosco II, the beautiful Lachrymæ Pavane by John Dowland, lively dance music by Thomas Morley alongside lesser known composers Elway Bevin and Hugh Aston. Performed by Catherine Fleming, Merlin Harrison, Celia Ireland, Ian Wilson and Leo Chadburn on a beautiful renaissance consort of recorders made by Thomas Prescott after 16th century instruments in the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum. This album gives a fascinating glimpse into courtly life during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. FHR36 • Released 2015

The Telling 's second release The Secret Life of Carols : their critically acclaimed Christmas tour on CD! The CD includes uplifting and intimate carols from the Middle Ages & lesser-known Traditional carols from around Europe (England, Finland, Catalonia, France, Germany, Austria) and some old favourites including their arrangement of Stille Nacht. Clare Norburn soprano Ariane Prüssner mezzo-soprano Kaisa Pulkkinen & Jean Kelly medieval, Celtic and baroque harps Produced and engineered by Adrian Hunter (who earned 5 stars from the BBC Music Magazine for Gardens of Delight ). Released via First Hand Records Artwork by Kate Anderson FHR094 • Released 2019