BBC Radio 3 New Generation Baroque Ensemble (2025-27), the Bellot Ensemble presents ‘Cupid’s Ground Bass’. A prevailing feature of music of the 16th century and earlier was a split between the deployment of voices and instruments: occasionally replacing each other, or used in alternation – a more concerted effort in writing dedicated instrumental music with increasing degrees of complexity and virtuosity was taking place.The penchant for writing stories about love in its many forms continued, finding a new home in the developing operatic works as well as the ever popular madrigal genre, as composers continued to find ways to describe the joy, grief, despair and ecstasy of the human experience of love. Cupid’s Ground Bass is a celebration of these developing musical aesthetics of early 17th century Italy, focusing particularly on the composers’ language of love in all its forms