“Two households, both alike in dignity (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene).” So begins Shakespeare’s well-loved tragedy Romeo and Juliet. On Harmonia this week, music from Verona — from clever frottolas to masterfully set sacred texts to strange sonatas.

We’re continuing our series on music in and about the Americas during the first centuries of European colonization with a focus on Northern New Spain. Join us as we explore the musical legacies of Spanish outposts from modern-day California and Mexico through the Gulf Coast and Caribbean Islands.

This hour we’re all about that bass — the chaconne, to be specific. This harmonic-bass formula has had us singing, dancing, and strumming for more than four centuries. We’ll trace the chaconne from its mythical island origins through many delightful variations as it passed from musician to musician.

Convents, were among Early Modern Europe’s most musical spaces, and one of the few in which women could pursue higher education in a variety of fields. This week on Harmonia, we’re celebrating these under-sung cultural powerhouses with music written by and for nuns and other religious repertory performed by women over the centuries, featuring the latest by Musica Secreta.

Since 2018, Early Music America has hosted its Emerging Artists Showcase, a series presenting the rising stars of early music and historical performance. This hour, we’ll conclude our celebration of their 2025 laureates with Comtessa’s program entitled Florilegium: Songs of Medieval England from 1150 to 1300.

Since 2018, Early Music America has hosted its Emerging Artists Showcase, a series presenting the rising stars of early music and historical performance. This hour on Harmonia, we’ll hear a fifteenth century French program by ensemble Ars Poetica, one of three laureates to perform on the 2025 showcase.

Since 2018, Early Music America has hosted its Emerging Artists Showcase, a series presenting the rising stars of early music and historical performance. This hour on Harmonia, we’ll hear from 2025 laureate Charlotte Tang, whose program transports us to a fashionable drawing room in nineteenth-century England.

We're exploring medieval and Renaissance songs and dances collected by 18th-century “early music” aficionados in Britain. Plus, our featured recording by The Curious Bards explores Irish and Scottish identities through traditional music.

We’re celebrating the Internet’s fascination with amusing manuscript illuminations with a “Listening to Art” episode devoted to weird medieval animals. From cats with uncomfortably human faces to jousting snails, we’ll explore music from the times, places, and pages of their creation. On our featured release, violinist Cristina Prats Costa shares delights of the seventeenth-century Mediterranean.

While incarcerated at Fleet Prison, English composer William Cornysh wrote a long poem, "A Treatise between Information and Truth," which drew upon many musical metaphors to explain how and why he was falsely imprisoned. This week on Harmonia, we’ll explore the life and music of William Cornysh II, 500 years after his death.