MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Mozart: Zaide K344 (Complete opera)

This recording presents the complete music Mozart wrote - without posthumous additions or dialogue. An exotic tale of escape from slavery, set in a Turkish sultan's palace, it contains glorious arias ranging in style from bel canto ("Ruhe sanft") to opera buffa and closes with a masterful quartet.

The original Academy of Ancient Music was established in 1726 for the purpose of performing 'old' music - defined initially as anything composed at least a century earlier, but soon expanded to include more contemporary composers, most notably Handel. Its performances, known as the King's Concerts, were well patronised by London society and continued until 1848.

The modern revival of The Academy was founded by Christopher Hogwood in 1973 to give audiences an experience of music as it might have sounded at the time it was written. The world-renowned ensemble brings together specialists in every branch of Baroque and Classical performance style, playing instruments of the appropriate period in appropriate numbers. It expands from the four musicians who performed Purcell's trio sonatas of l683 up to the 180 members of the orchestra and chorus who recorded Haydn's Creation for CD and video, using the same forces Haydn had at his first public performance in the Burgtheater in Vienna.

In 1996, the artistic directorship of The AAM was extended with the appointment of Paul Goodwin as Associate Conductor and Andrew Manze as Associate Director, both partnerships recording exclusively for harmonia mundi usa. The Academy of Ancient Music thrives on diversity; its activities are global and range from concerts to sound recordings and videos.