Carolyn Sampson captured the audience's imagination, displaying the whole gamut of the composers' emotional palettes. Sampson was by turns willfully seductive (in Purcell's bawdy 'Man is for the woman made'), mysterious (in Purcell's 'See, even the Night herself is here'), jubilant (in Handel's 'Let the Bright Seraphim'), a fiery Medusa (Purcell's 'When I have often heard', Handel's 'Destero dall'empia dite' and 'Ma quando tornerai'), and chillingly grief-stricken (in Purcell's Dido's lament and Handel's 'Lassa! Ch'io t'ho perduta').

Following his July praise for the AAM's Handel Op.1 discs, BBC Music Magazine reviewer George Pratt gave the latest AAM Handel release five stars, and again awarded it the BBC Music Editor's Choice for the month.

He wrote:

We're thrilled to be teaming up with two world-renowned choirs, Polyphony and the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, and to be working in partnership with the Cambridge Film Festival to bring you an evening of baroque concertos used in movie soundtracks. It's a particular pleasure to welcome back so many superb soloists and guest directors: audience favourites including Giuliano Carmignola and Carolyn Sampson will be joined by rising stars including the brilliant young soprano Aleksandra Anisimowicz."

The Op.2 are the more reserved - four-movement church sonatas with no named dance movements despite the irrepressible gigue ending No.6. They include movements steeped in drama; the heavenly 'sleep aria' Largo of No.1, a love duet opening No.2, suspension climbing above suspension between the solo violins.

The seven sonatas of Op.5 are strangely undervalued. Richard Egarr suggests that they are 'music to be played, not X-rayed and analysed' and their dance movements in particular are irresistible: the dreamy drone of the Musette alternating with a bounding rustic allegro in No.2; a gentle Sarabande, perfectly formed in all its simplicity in No.3; a fine, inventive 'Passacaille' in No.4, the longest movement of all 37 in the set. These are outstanding accounts with impeccable intonation and consistently warm tone at every dynamic level, and excellent balance across a wide stereo spectrum."

Introducing the season, Richard Egarr said:

"2009-2010 will be a year of variety for the AAM. We'll be shedding new light on music spanning four centuries, from glittering early seventeenth-century Venetian works for strings and dulcian to the wartime sound-world of Britten's Serenade for tenor, horn and strings. Our repertoire ranges in scale from intimate chamber music by Henry Purcell and John Blow to great choral masterpieces by JS Bach, Handel and Haydn.

We're thrilled to be teaming up with two world-renowned choirs, Polyphony and the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, and to be working in partnership with the Cambridge Film Festival to bring you an evening of baroque concertos used in movie soundtracks. It's a particular pleasure to welcome back so many superb soloists and guest directors: audience favourites including Giuliano Carmignola and Carolyn Sampson will be joined by rising stars including the brilliant young soprano Aleksandra Anisimowicz."

In a five-star BBC Music Magazine review, George Pratt wrote:

"The soloists here are stylish and imaginative. Decorations are a delight in slow movements; the Adagio from No.8 is positively dripping with them. The playing is highly expressive; Rachel Brown opens the Largo of No.9 with heart-rending pathos. Fast movements are so technically secure that they retain a sense of spaciousness, though there are sparkling moments of virtuosity. Egarr works his magic in the keyboard realisations, finding a remarkable range of colours and textures while never threatening the primacy of the soloist.

Highly recommended as both the complete Op.1 package and as deeply satisfying performances."

Handel's last great published set of instrumental concertos arrived posthumously in 1761. Played here on a chamber organ with real-time improvisations and enlarged continuo support, these magnificent concertos (including the beloved The Cuckoo and the Nightingale) show Handel at his glorious best, and allow a concentrated view of the style he developed in the last twenty years of his life.

The Edison Classical Award has been presented annually since 1960, and is the oldest and most prestigious Dutch music prize.

The recording of the Organ Concertos was made possible through the exceptionally generous support of the Michael Marks Charitable Trust.

The recording is part of the AAM's ongoing project to release recordings of Handel's complete instrumental music Op.1-7.

With its varied scoring and its exploration of instrumental combinations sometimes reminiscent of JS Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, this set of 12 sonatas has nothing of an opus 1 about it, whatever the title page says! On the contrary it is the work of a mature Handel in full command of his compositional resources.

This release has been made possible through the generous support of the John S. Cohen Foundation and Stephen Thomas, to whom all at the AAM are most grateful.

In the preceding week we had continued our Haydn anniversary commemorations by travelling to Esterhazy Palace in Austria to perform a programme of Haydn symphonies under the baton of conductor Paul Goodwin. Haydn spent most of his working life in the service of the Esterhazy family, and lived for many years at the Palace and in nearby Eisenstadt.

In a five star review, The Independent wrote "Christopher Hogwood's production of Arianna in Creta was the first major British one in living memory, and the Barbican was packed. Such is the draw of Handel - and of the Academy... No praise can be too high for the instrumental support." Hugh Canning of The Sunday Times wrote "this was the third in three years of Christopher Hogwood's rare Handel operas in concert, which are the finest things I have heard him do in London". The Times' Geoff Brown described the orchestra's playing as "a joy to hear". It was the soloists who stood out for The Guardian: Erica Jeal wrote "what lifts this from the dozens of other similar Handel concerts is the casting... it is Marina de Liso who dispatches Tauris's big aria, her contralto firm amid a blaze of horns. Even better is Sonia Prina, who brings such gravitas to the sacrificial virgin Carilda that one wonders why it is Ariadne and not she who has the title role - until Miah Persson's aria about love and disdain, full of silences and contrasts, persuades us of Ariadne's interest".

John Marks wrote: "Even I, Bach worshiper that I am, must confess that when I zipped open the padded envelope from Harmonia Mundi and saw within Richard Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music's new SACD set of Brandenburg Concertos, I indeed rolled my eyes and muttered that my readers needed to hear a new set of Brandenburgs like they needed holes in their heads. Then I listened to it... a person who sends out a demo or new release has about 10 seconds to make the sale.

Well I'm here to tell you that the new Egarr-AAM Brandenbugs really blow. In a good way. They blow centuries of library dust off these pieces, and they blow fantastic horn and trumpet lines. Egarr & Co. are in it to win it. Whew. The first disc hardly played 10 seconds when I was grabbing for the remote control to play again the most amazing horn parts I have ever heard - wild, outdoorsy, jazzy, almost bepop horn parts. As the six concertos unfolded, there was no sense of letdown, just continuing pleasant surprises... So, yes, a very strong recommendation from me - regardless of whether you don't yet own a set of Brandenburgs, or have half a dozen."

This unique project marked the 250th anniversary of Handel's death and also celebrated the 800th anniversary of the University of Cambridge. Messiah gained rapid popularity following its premiere performance in Dublin in 1742, and to this day it remains one of the most celebrated works of the baroque period. Reflecting on the performance, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams said "The work's undying popularity is not only a measure of its sheer musical energy; it is also something to do with this inescapable sense of being drawn into a whole world of meaning... the depth and scale of it remain utterly compelling".

EMI are today releasing a recording of the performance online and in record stores worldwide. A DVD will be released on the Royal Opera House's Opus Arte label later in 2009.

The AAM and Richard Egarr have launched their much-anticipated new recording of JS Bach's complete Brandenburg Concertos with a major tour of North America.

Over three weeks the orchestra gave fourteen performances of the concertos, reaching audiences from Vancouver to Florida and from Los Angeles to New York. The Seattle Times declared the Benaroya Hall performance a "remarkable experience" and praised the AAM's "sheer joy in music and music making", while in New York -- where the orchestra performed at Carnegie Hall -- the New York Times hailed "Richard Egarr and his superb period instrument band". The Washington Post wrote "The natural horns whooped and twittered to charming effect in the first concerto, the flauto traverso was a mellow, avian presence in the fifth, the twin recorders held a chipper dialogue in the fourth, and the valve-less trumpet of the second was crisp and yet not too dominant. Egarr sparkled in the harpsichord solos of the fifth concerto, earning an ovation after the cadenza and again at the end of the first movement."

The new recording has been made at the unusually low "French baroque" pitch of A=392 -- a whole tone lower than modern concert pitch -- with specially commissioned or adapted wind instruments. As Egarr explains in his programme note, "This choice is suggested by the French-model (indeed French-played) wind instruments that dominated Bach's area of Germany at the time the Brandenburgs were written. This has an extraordinary effect on the 'richesse' of sound in the music." The new interpretation is also notable for using just one player per part. Egarr explains "These concertos are arguably some of the best chamber music ever penned. We have chosen to present them with one player per part, which certainly highlights the chamber aspect of the music. It also allows for a balanced dialogue between 'soloists' and 'tutti', which is extremely important".

The new recording was CD of the week in the Chicago Tribune, which noted that "The chamber-like intimacy is wonderfully bracing. Among the many hundreds of Brandenburgs on disc, this new version occupies a special niche". The Independent's Anna Picard welcomed "a fiesty addition to the catalogue" and continued "the Academy of Ancient Music's playing is vivacious". The discs have been praised as a "zestily played, beautifully recorded account" in the New York Times and an "energised new recording" in the Los Angeles Times. BBC Music Magazine wrote that it is "a recording you must hear... the playing is ravishing".

The Choir of the AAM has won "Chorus of the Year" in the prestigious Classical Elites Beijing awards for its performance of Handel's Messiah at the Beijing Music Festival in October 2008. The concert was the AAM's debut performance in China.

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