This is vintage, classic Koopman: Tempi that never linger, orchestral textures that accord privilege to clarity and insight over effect and superb, beautifully articulated, solo vocal lines. Koopman's lucidity might appear a little too detached or cool for some listeners who are used to responding to the emotional charge of Bach's Passions. One of Koopman's greatest strengths is his grasp of architecture: of the unfolding of the passion events; of the relative roles and interactions of the soloists and 'crowds'; of the inevitability of events in a musical - as opposed to a Biblical - sense.

It is usually the big nineteenth-century opera sets that are bought for their singers; but with a line-up of principals such as we have here Handel too is swept into the golden net. Lucia Popp, two years into her career after her Vienna debut, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, Walter Berry: that is a quartet which in its time may have seemed no more than standard stuff, but at this date looks starry indeed. […] The Orfeo, for one thing, is sung in German instead of Italian; it has cuts, though many fewer than the Mackerras recording in English with Dame Janet Baker; it has the solo voices recorded very close indeed (those that are supposedly off-stage are just about where many modern recordings would have them except when off-stage); and the orchestra sounds, to our re-trained ears, big and thick, with the heavy bass-line that used to seem as proper to Handel as gravy from the roast was to Yorkshire pudding. The roles of Caesar and Sextus, moreover, are taken by men, and there is not a countertenor in sight.

Pinchas Steinberg on Naxos proves a warmly sympathetic Wagnerian. More than most rivals, he brings out the light and shade o this earliest of the regular Wagner canon, helped by the refined, well-balanced recording, and by brilliant, sharply dramatic playing from the orchestra. The chorus too sings with a bite and precision to match any rival. Alfred Muff as the Dutchman attacks the notes cleanly, with vibrato only occasionally intrusive. The vibrato of Ingrid Haubold is more of a problem but, except under pressure, it is well controlled, and she begins Senta’s Ballad with a meditative pianissimo.

After Arthur Brown briefly ascended to stardom via the Crazy World of Arthur Brown's only album, it was a long three-year gap until the release of the next LP bearing his lead vocals, Kingdom Come's Galactic Zoo Dossier. (Although the material on Brown's Strangelands had been recorded in the interim, that record wasn't released until the late '80s.) And if not for Brown's immediately recognizable vocal histrionics, it could be the work of an entirely different artist. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's exhilaratingly jazzy, madcap psychedelia had been jettisoned for far darker excursions into mordant early progressive rock. While there was still a carnivalesque classical-jazz-rock organ base to the arrangements, guitar also took a prominent role, and the melodies were far gloomier and more obtuse.

Gottfried August Homilius, now considered the greatest cantor of Dresden's Kreuzchor, was, for a while a student of Johann Sebastian Bach. A composer of music for the church, and a great organist, he was described, in 1790, as 'one of the greatest and worthiest organists alive.' While Homilius's name is found on only one score for this passion, stylistic criteria make it almost certain that he wrote this music. This St. Matthew Passion closely resembles Bach's passions - it contains choral movements, recitatives and arias with orchestral accompaniment, and tells the story of the Passion in the same way as was done in churches all over Germany in the 18th century. However, Homilius uses many more short sections with recitative (a total of 89 pieces altogether - most less than one minute long), but his arias are generally much longer than those in Bach's passions and cantatas.

Here is another fine recording of Telemann’s magnificent Thunder Ode, a work inspired by the catastrophic earthquake that destroyed Lisbon in 1755. It is coupled with one of the composer’s most jubilant cantatas, and both still impress as works that should be heard much more often, perhaps in lieu of an overplayed composition by Handel or Bach. They are surely in that league. This CD, re-issued in Chandos’ “Chaconne” line, faces inevitable comparison with the performances on Capriccio, conducted by Hermann Max, although the couplings are different. Max’s Thunder Ode is given a whole CD to itself, while his cantata recording contains two additional, and magnificent, Telemann compositions.

Around the middle of it 18th century began a basic stylistic A radical change in the history of music: the Baroque took its farewell and classical music made its entrance. Georg Philipp Telemann was one of the first to perceive and enthusiastically take up the new, fresh wind. At an age at which others have long since retired, a second creative spring almost began for him: the German Singspiel had just been launched by composers of the young generation, such as Hiller and Dittersdorf, the 80-year-old Telemann sits down with a 20-year-old librettist and sets the story of "Don Quixote at the Marriage of Comacho" to music full of wit and grace.

Throughout these sessions, Michel Corboz defended a clear, fluid vision of Mendelssohn's choral music. Without exaggerating, he underscored the references to J. S. Bach or Handel, of whom the composer was so fond – the beginning of Psalm 115, with its colours, distinctly evokes the Cantor's Passions. As for the chorus ‘Kommt herzu’ from Psalm 95, it attests to the thoroughly religious fervour and solemn grandeur that incontestably innervate the Swiss conductor's interpretations.

As one of the most legendary champions of Bach Karl Richter's many (and in some instances multiple) recordings of the composers Cantata's arguably is his greatest achievement. Richter enlisted many of the finest vocalists in their prime during the 1950's through the early 70's for these recordings elevating the neglected form at the time to the level of Grand Opera. His conducting, especially for his day as well remains remarkably animated and fluent yet always respectful of Bach's underlying powerful architectural components. These recordings set the standard and for many today remain the benchmark performances by which all new ones continue to be judged.