The San Francisco Philharmonia Baroque was Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year” in 2004. Here, they perform Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony, “Eroica”. As the first Romantic symphony, it is often under consideration as the greatest piece of music ever written. Beethoven’s 8th symphony is shorter and lighthearted.

Of Cecilian Vespers, from AMG: “Scarlatti’s music here doesn’t sound much like Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, or any other familiar choral repertory of the early eighteenth century. He tends to use, and use inventively, individual or grouped soloists in impressively spacious, varied concerto-like structures, with the chorus sometimes fulfilling the role of the ritornello or refrain. His responses to the texts of the Vespers are vivid without being conventionally pictorial, and are all the more powerful for it. Check out the unique choral effect at “conquassabit capita in terra multuorum” ([The Lord] shall crush heads in the land of the many) in the Dixit Dominus section, the way the chorus expands on its percussive repetitions of the single word “sit” over the course of that same section…”

Because Magnatune only provides links for streaming their MP3s (128kbps) via M3U playlists, I’ve provided direct file links below to all 59 MP3 files. If you like this music, please support the artist and buy the albums in higher-quality files (including FLAC) or on CD.

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Beethoven - Symphony #3: 1 2 3
Beethoven - Symphony #8: 1 2 3 4
Scarlatti - Cecilian Vespers: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52