Early Music Show

As part of the BBC's 18th Century Season, Lucie Skeaping looks at the life and music of the German composer Carl Friedrich Abel, who spent most of his career in London.

As part of Radio 3's 18th Century season, Lucie Skeaping takes three celebrated pictures of 18th-century life by Hogarth, and considers their musical references. Lucie is joined by Jeremy Barlow, an authority on music in the 18th Century, who has made several recordings with the Broadside Band and has written about music and Hogarth.

Lucie Skeaping looks at the music from Gluck's fifth operatic masterpiece, Iphigénie en Tauride - based on Euripides' play, and first performed in Paris in 1779.

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and works of Pietro Antonio Locatelli, who died 250 years ago.

Lucie Skeaping takes a look at some of the composers who lived and worked in Salzburg, before it became the Mozartean shrine we know it as today!

Lucie Skeaping looks at Jean Philippe Rameau's comic masterpiece, the baroque opera Platée. Rameau wrote the opera when he was in his sixties, for an entertainment at a court wedding at Versailles. The story tells of a foolish and ugly nymph who believes she is loved by Jupiter. The sense of the absurd permeates Rameau's score, with the composer and his librettist managing to create a wonderfully imaginative and colourful piece which turn many of the operatic conventions of the time on their head.

Piers Adams celebrates the 300th anniversary of the birth of CPE Bach with tracks from new CDs released to mark the occasion. In his time, CPE Bach was one of Europe's most famous and popular composers: a friend of English music scholar Charles Burney wrote to him in 1774, "I find the Carlophilipemanuelbachomania grow upon me so, that almost every thing else is insipid to me". He is now all but overshadowed by his more celebrated father, and so this anniversary year (he was born on 8th March 1714) is an opportunity to hear his music afresh.

Multi-instrumentalist Clare Salaman presents a programme all about a once popular early instrument with Swedish origins that has all but dropped off the musical landscape in this country. However, the nyckelharpa (or 'keyed fiddle') makes a sound that delights audiences. Clare has delved into the best and most rare recordings of the instrument to cast some light on the nyckelharpa's beautiful and mysterious sound-world.

Lucie Skeaping plays recordings of the Cardinall's Musick and talks to its director Andrew Carwood as the group celebrates its 25th anniversary. Music played includes works by Byrd, Fayrfax, Ludford and Sheppard.

At the end of his life Johann Sebastian Bach set out to create a great summary of his thoughts and ideas about an intellectual musical form he'd made very much his own - the fugue. The result is the "Art of Fugue" which he left unfinished at his death. But how should we regard this work? Was it intended for performance and if so, how? Who was it written for? Lucie Skeaping pulls together various recordings of the work and, in conversation with Bach expert Simon Heighes, unpicks some of the thinking behind this extraordinary composition.

The birth of Henry Purcell coincided with a hugely turbulent time in English political history, and went almost completely unnoticed. There are no baptismal records and we're not absolutely sure who his parents were, although it's likely that he was born in a house just a few hundred yards from Westminster Abbey, the place were he would eventually make much of his career and reputation. During his early years, the young Purcell came under the influence of several composers and church musicians, who were to shape his musical future. Lucie Skeaping traces the schoolboy years of the man who would grow to be England's greatest composer.

Lucie Skeaping presents recordings of music by the 13th-century European composer Perotin, including performances by the Hilliard Ensemble, The Orlando Consort and Ensemble Organum. Probably French in origin, Perotin's music embodies the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style.

Primarily remembered today as the teacher of Handel, the German musician FW Zachow was a renowned composer in his own right. Lucie Skeaping explores his life and influence on Handel's music alongside a variety of Zachow's works.

Lucie Skeaping presents a concert of music by Bach, Rameau and Leclair given by the European Union Baroque Orchestra and director Lars Ulrik Mortensen at MediaCityUK in Salford.

Lucie Skeaping talks to lutenist Elizabeth Kenny about two of the performers who most inspired her: Robert Spencer and Nigel North.