: Name of baroque formation with five musicians (soprano, recorder, violin, viola da gamba, lute)? I attended a (old) baroque music performance with an ensemble as follows: soprano, recorder, violin, viol (viola da gamba),

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As guidot pointed out, those pieces were more late Renaissance than early Baroque. Music of this era was often written out as separate parts that did not specify the instrumentation. So a performance could use different combinations of instruments selected by the performers. These pieces were probably written for singer, two treble solo instruments, and basso continuo. The basso continuo sheet music consists of nothing more than a bass line with chord symbols (called "figured bass"). So in this performance a viola da gamba played the bass line while the lute improvised a chordal accompaniment based on the chord symbols.

Music of this period could use different combinations of instruments to play the basso continuo. For instance, it could be done with harpsichord and cello, with viola da gamba and lute, with harp, or with the archlute, theorbo or chittarone, which were large guitar-like instruments that had extra harp bass strings. The important thing to realize is that the continuo player is expected to improvise the accompaniment, based on the figured-bass chord symbols. The continuo player never plays it quite the same way twice.

The idea of basso continuo accompaniment persisted through the time of Mozart and Beethoven, up to roughly 1815. Some of Beethoven's orchestral pieces had a basso continuo part that was meant to be played by upright basses and pipe organ accompanying the orchestra. After this period, basso continuo fell out of favor and was replaced by orchestral pieces and symphonies that did not have a keyboard accompaniment. If there was a piano part, it would be written out note-for-note by the composer.

During a lot of the 20th century, organists, pianists and classical guitarists were not trained in improvising basso continuo. If they performed something like Handel's Messiah, for instance, they would play from an arrangement written out note-for-note by an arranger who "realized" their arrangement from the figured-bass basso continuo original score.

In the last few decades there has been a renewed interest in "early music" and "historically-informed performance" and as a result, lute, harpsichord and organ players are rediscovering how to read the basso continuo figured bass chord charts and improvise their own accompaniment.

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I don't believe that there is special name. In late renaissance/early baroque the assignment of fixed instruments was quite unusual, since there were plenty of alternatives (crumhorns, hurdy-gurdys and whatever) and the scores had to adjust to what the playing amateurs had at hand. The lute is surely replaceable by harpsichord or any other continuo instrument, recorder, flutes and violins were frequently exchanged. Since string and woodwinds are listed my guess would be singer with broken consort and continuo as the nearest description.