With Ólafsson and Mozart, pianists and their programs are rarely as engrossing.

Baldassare Galuppi is one of those unfortunate composers who were hailed in their lifetimes as being among the finest music-makers…and then promptly forgotten. Galuppi’s writing is in the galant style, essentially the precursor to the Classical era – his melodies might be simple, but they’re never simplistic. This sort of music, so full of elegance and warmth, can sound a tad trite if it’s not played with panache. However, that’s not a concern in this case! Andrea Chezzi brings brilliance to these sonatas when required, but most enjoyably, a definite sense of playfulness. For example, the opening Sonata No 1 in C Major, Op. 1, is given some additional tonal shifts from some well-timed use of the harpsichord’s stops, cheekily jumping from a dark sound to something more nasal in an echoed phrase. On the more reflective side of things, the slower movements are given a lovingly rounded sense of melody. The liner notes point out that this collection of sonatas was never composed as a set but was collated by Galuppi from various works. As a result, some of the sonatas are in three movements, while others are a single movement. While this might sound like a negative, it’s…

Italian mezzo Cecilia Bartoli will be remembered in years to come not only for her formidable, many would say matchless, talent as a singer but also for her ability to uncover lost or neglected treasures from the Baroque and early Classical eras. Starting with her Vivaldi album, then with the Salieri and Sacrificium projects to the dazzling Steffani series, the Roman diva has been stamping her considerable personality on a rich vein of musical gold and bringing ‘new’ old music to the wider public. Now, with St Petersburg, she turns her attention to a fascinating period in Russian history, the 18th century when, under three empresses, the nation’s culture and politics were wrenched from the dark ages and brought into the sunshine of western European enlightenment. The troika of Tsaritsas – Anna who reigned from 1730-40, Elizabeth (1741-61) and Catherine the Great (1762-96) – imported Italian musicians and composers and commissioned the first Russian operas. Once performed, though, the scores languished in the archives of St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre until Bartoli came along and set them free. Five composers feature on 11 tracks in this treasure trove of delights, opening appropriately with Neapolitan Francesco Araja, the first of the court…