Poland's Capella Cracoviensis, comprising orchestral and choral elements, has specialized in performances of music from the Renaissance to Mozart, occasionally extending the period covered as far as the Middle Ages and the contemporary era. Since 2011, it has played on historically appropriate instruments after switching, with the move attended by much controversy, from modern ones.

The Capella Cracoviensis was founded in 1970 in Krakow (the name means "Krakow Chapel Choir") by conductor and composer Stanislaw Galonski, who became its first general manager and music director. Another prime mover in the orchestra's formative stages was Krakow Philharmonic conductor Jerzy Katlewicz, who suggested the idea of an early music orchestra to Galonski; the orchestra has performed in the Krakow Philharmonic's main auditorium. Guest conductors have included Paul Goodwin, Andrew Parrott, Andreas Spering, Paul McCreesh, Roy Goodman, Fabio Bonizzoni, and Matteo Messori. Performances in the U.S., Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, as well as a concert for Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in 2000, have confirmed the group's reputation as one of Poland's top Renaissance and Baroque ensembles.

The switch to historical instruments in 2011 took place at the insistence of music director Jan Tomasz Adamus, who had been in his position since 2008. Adamus demanded that all the orchestra's players switch, a move met by street protests and union actions. Adamus prevailed, however, and the orchestra's international reputation has arguably risen with recordings not only on the Polish label Dux, but on France's Alpha and the international Decca conglomerate.

In 2016, Capella Cracoviensis performed all nine of Beethoven's symphonies in a single day, using historical instruments, for a live audience of 2,300 plus countless more on the radio. In 2018 it released an album on the Avi label containing Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21, with pianist Marius Klimsiak, and Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor ("Unfinished"), and another on Decca featuring Nicola Porpora's opera Germanico in Germania. ~ James Manheim, Rovi