The orchestra, originally named "Banchetto Musicale", was renamed Boston Baroque in 1992, when
Telarc Records, in its first commitment to a period-instrument orchestra, signed the ensemble to produce a series of recordings of major Baroque and Classical repertoire for international commercial distribution.[3] In 2012, Boston Baroque became the first American orchestra to record with the highly-regarded UK audiophile label,
Linn Records. Boston Baroque’s 26 acclaimed commercial recordings are frequently heard by millions on classical radio stations in North America and Europe, as well as on Boston Baroque Radio, Boston Baroque’s streaming channel. Boston Baroque’s recordings have received six
GRAMMY® Award Nominations: its 1992 release of Handel’s Messiah, 1998 release of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, 2000 release of Bach’s Mass in B Minor, 2014 release of Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (two nominations), and 2017 release of Biber’s Mystery Sonatas.
Notable performances
Boston's period-instrument premiere of
Handel's Messiah in 1981.
Modern world premiere of Der Stein der Weisen (The Philosopher's Stone) in 1998, a
Singspiel collaboratively written by members of
Mozart's circle--with the likely participation of Mozart himself--which sheds new light on the composition of The Magic Flute one year later.
First professional Boston performances of
Luigi Cherubini's Requiem in C minor in 2005, a neglected work highly praised by leading composers of the day and favorably compared with Mozart's
Requiem.
Return to the Ludwig Van Beethoven Easter Festival in Poland in 2015, performing
Monteverdi’sVespers of 1610 and Handel’s Messiah.
Boston period instrument premiere of Beethoven’s Fidelio in 2018.
Boston Baroque has received the following
Grammy nominations
Handel’s Messiah, 1992: Best Performance of a Choral Work
Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, 1998: Best Performance of a Choral Work
Bach’s Mass in B Minor, 2000: Best Performance of a Choral Work
Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, 2015: Best Opera Recording)
Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, 2015: Best Engineered Album, Classical
Biber’s The Mystery Sonatas, 2018: Best Classical Instrumental Solo
Notable premiere recordings by Boston Baroque include:
First period instrument recording of Mozart's Requiem Mass in D minor in the completion by
Robert D. Levin, in which Levin addresses the issues of instrumentation, grammar and structure raised by the traditional
Sussmayr completion.
Lost Music of Early America, the first and sole professional CD recording of American
Moravian Church music—the first early American classical music. Martin Pearlman researched the music at the
Moravian Music Foundation in Salem, North Carolina, and chose and arranged the hymns into patterns appropriate for the Moravian
Lovefeast or Liebesmahl, primarily a song service with hymns, psalms and anthems. Included are Lovefeasts for Christmas, Lent and Thanksgiving.
The Philosopher's Stone, (Der Stein der Weisen), 1790, a collaboratively composed Singspiel with a story based on the same set of fairy-tales from which The Magic Flute was drawn, which attracted renewed attention in 1996, when musicologist
David J. Buch discovered a previously unknown copy. Besides numerous correlations with Mozart’s final operatic work, The Magic Flute, which was written for the same company a year later, this copy of The Philosopher’s Stone suggested the likelihood of Mozart's participation in the composition of more of the music than had been previously thought. Boston Baroque was chosen by David J. Buch to give the modern-day world premiere of The Philosopher's Stone. The work was presented in concert form in Boston's
Jordan Hall (1999) and recorded for Telarc.
First period instrument recording of
Luigi Cherubini's long neglected Requiem in C minor, which premiered on January 21, 1817, in a memorial concert below the abbey church of St. Denis to commemorate the anniversary of the
executions of
Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette. Though held in the highest esteem by
Beethoven,
Brahms,
Berlioz and
Wagner, and performed widely in its own day, the piece fell into obscurity along with most of Cherubini's output by the end of the 19th century.
Boston Baroque performed Boston's first fully staged production of Alceste by
Christoph Willibald Gluck in a co-production with
Opera Boston at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in 2005
Boston Baroque performed Handel's Semele, in a fully staged production with Opera Boston at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in February 2008.