Venue: Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe, London

Jordi Savall and Dimitri Psonis display virtuosity and thoughtfulness in bringing us music from the glory days of the Ottoman Empire.

Arcangelo and three excellent singers performed 17th-century music inspired by Shakespeare in a vivid and amusing performance. Lipstick and pashmina anyone?

Not quite a song cycle and not quite a song recital, but the words and music format triumphed in the end at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

Mark Padmore gives a matchless demonstration of English singing as he and the English Concert follow 18th century historian Charles Burney on his travels around Europe.

A somewhat overly manic production of Luigi Rossi's version of the Orpheus tale, originally written for the French court in 1647, is lit up by some great singing and a show-stealing comic performance by Graeme Broadbent.

Performed chronologically in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, The Globe’s candlelit Jacobean theatre, the 15 Shostakovich string quartets made an astonishing impression in such concentrated form. 

At carnival time, Cavalli’s mission was to make his audience laugh, wow them with a bit of vocal gymnastics, butter up their romantic feelings with a few delicate cadences, and maybe leave a tear or two in their eye. It’s a potent formula, and it still works.

On entering the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe Theatre, you feel like you are stepping back in time with its painted ceiling, cushioned benches (a modern luxury) and a candlelit bare stage.