Radical, daring and extremely refined: that’s how Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach saw his new path for the Oratorio, after his father’s Passions had marked the climax of the baroque era. Encouraged by his godfather Telemann and liberated from the yoke of the capricious Frederick of Prussia, he found himself in Hamburg with an audience hungry for new music. And he brought them his oratorios, no longer in churches but in concert halls, where he demanded the listener’s undivided attention for sudden changes of mood and colour.

Handel's Dixit Dominus HWV 232 (1707) is certainly one of the most impressive compositions of his several years in Italy. With this extremely effective piece, the only 22-year-old obviously wanted to demonstrate all of his compositional skills. Il Gardellino and Bart Van Reyn accompany him on their recording with the breathtaking cantata Il Pianto di Maria, which was long attributed to Handel until recent research has shown that it was penned by the Italian composer Giovanni Battista Ferrandini (1710-1791).

Johannes Brahms is an icon. Say Johannes, and you know you are talking about Brahms. The successor to Beethoven, the sober man who valued seriousness, the champion of classical traditions, a close friend of the Schumanns. But how well do we really know Brahms? How close does he let us get to him in his music? In his Requiem we go in search of the human Brahms and in the music of his mentor and good friend Robert Schumann.