The popularity of old music among record collectors owes a huge debt to Das Alte Werk. The series, which had its first release in 1958, pioneered the early music movement in recordings. In 1963, the then little-known Harnoncourt made his recording debut with Music from the Court of Mannheim, the first recording ever of music performed in period style on authentic instruments. Harnoncourt went on to make more than two hundred recordings for the series with the Concentus musicus Wien. The label included contributions by other luminaries of the early music movement as well, including Gustav Leonhardt, Frans Bruggen, and Japp Schröder.

       This year, the legendary label is being relaunched in style, making available such gems as Karl Richter's Bach cantatas and the Pro Cantione Antiqua's revelatory recordings of old English songs. Not every recording is old, however; among the brightest new groups to join the roster is Il Giardino Armonico, Italy's first authentic-instrument ensemble and the hottest Vivaldi interpreters since Harnoncourt shocked the world with his Four Seasons about thirty years ago.

       Das Alte Werk, by fortunate accident as much as by visionary design, has been a gathering point for congenial musical minds opposed to dogma. Now on compact disc, the Teldec series brings together ground-breaking recordings of the 1960s and early '70s, like Harnoncourt's versions of the Christmas Oratorio by Bach and the Messiah by Handel, with his 1993 first-time releases on the cutting edge in Baroque recordings. "What we have to discover," says Frans Bruggen, another pillar of the record label, "is what the composer wanted, and not what he had to be satisfied with."