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The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and soprano Julia Bullock invite us to listen to familiar pieces with fresh ears in invigorating performances at New York's 92NY.

Sometimes streaming a concert unadorned with context or contrast is not enough.

A disappointing pairing of Berlioz and Mendelssohn from a conductorless Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. 

The Baroque credentials of St John's Smith Square were thoroughly endorsed in a beautifully proportioned concert by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment directed by the doyenne of British Baroque violinists, Rachel Podger.

A recreation of the choral sound Vivaldi may have experienced at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice doesn't quite come off. 

According to the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, “Not all orchestras are the same”. I’m not sure who doubts this rather obvious statement; but I’m certain I’m not alone in thinking the OAE to be a unique ensemble, and not just for the eccentricity of its name.

Bach, Biber, St. John's Smith Square. Clever juxtapositions, and they worked. The programmer of this concert - by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Solists under Sir John Eliot Gardiner - had a neat thought, to place Bach's six Motets (BWV 225-230) into the former church in SW1. The building and the motets date from the same decade, the 1720's.