Filia Sion is the first ECM New Series disc devoted entirely to the Estonian vocal group Vox Clamantis. From the beginning of its history, Vox Clamantis has focussed on Gregorian chant as the foundation of European music, but has also maintained strong connections to contemporary composers including Arvo Pärt, Helena Tulve and Erkki-Sven Tüür (members of the ensemble previously appeared on Tüür s Oxymoron album, singing his composition Salve Regina ). Their interpretation of medieval music is never purely historical. While always remaining true to the spirit of this repertoire, the approach to the work and the selection of pieces is contemporary, with sound and texture and the blending of voices as a focus. As leader Jaan-Eik Tulve explains, Gregorian chant is monophonic music which remarkably emphasizes the blend of voices.

The "laude" of the Renaissance Italian city-states have survived in just two manuscripts; until recently they constituted one of the last major genres of Early Music to be reconstructed and performed. Essentially, they were the music commissioned by the guild-like confraternities (with members from the middle and lower economic classes of the cities) for performance by the members and by well-paid professional soloists, at festivals and in the side-chapels of the cathedrals where most lay people attended to their religious devotions. In short, the music of the people rather than the priests.

Arcana's O tu chara Sciença, featuring Italian period instrument and vocal ensemble La Reverdie, is quite simply one of the best-ever recordings of music from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Firstly, the very premise of the program transmits a complete understanding of the theoretical function of music in the late middle ages; music, at least among the learned, was neither an empty entertainment offered in the court or public square, nor was it purely understood as something to hang a sacred service upon to help it turn corners more smoothly. Music was a science on a level with mathematics, astronomy, and geometry.

What these sound recordings attempt to do is to bring you face-to-face — or, perhaps more appropriately, sound to-heart — with actual works of the troubadours and, occasionally, of others in their circle of influence. The task is daunting for so many reasons: songs got written down decades, even centuries, after their dates of creation; only about ten percent of the original melodies survive; and most direct knowledge of how performers worked out their interpretations at the time has been lost. We know nothing whatsoever about the singing style, or about the techniques of instrumental accompaniment that may have been employed. These performances, therefore, of necessity, reflect a confluence of musicological and philological knowledge with performers' instincts and intuitions, as all of these tendencies interacted with each other at a specific moment in history, the late twentieth century.

The Arcana recordings by the Italian ensemble La Reverdie approach, in their esoteric beauty, the medieval recordings by the American quartet Anonymous 4. There are, however, great differences. The La Reverdie recordings are not only based on minute scientific research but also on philosophical concepts, these usually being explained in the form of heady intellectual essays printed in the accompanying booklets in four languages. The music itself is eclectic, being carefully selected from manuscripts held in European university libraries.

Edmund Wylfing (ca. 844-870), a Saxon king of East Anglia, virgin and martyr, was the the first patron-saint of England. The Italian ensemble La Reverdie brings to life again his story through a medieval liturgical drama, in three parts: life, passion and miracles.

In the Middle Ages Italy was not the unified country that we would like to think of since the nineteenth century, following the Romantic era and the formation of the modern state. It was quite the contrary, a nebula in which there was opposition between the great divisions of the Tyrrhenian West and the Adriatic East, as of the South with its memories of Greece and the North which sought links with the Germanic world in a kind of prefiguration of modern Europe: the Alpine range did not constitute a real barrier.

Although it's not unusual for artistic and literary communities to revisit and emulate the ideals of an earlier time (the 18th-century reverence for classical antiquity, for example), the present age has shown an interest in medieval music that's certainly unprecedented–and, on evidence of hundreds of recordings and the work of dozens of performing ensembles, its practitioners certainly are among the most accomplished and knowledgeable musicians and scholars ever known. This excellent recording from the medieval ensemble La Reverdie provides more support to such a claim. Rather than just dig up a bunch of old manuscripts, arrange a few obscure tunes, and dump them onto a program with a suitably poetic title, La Reverdie dug up a bunch of old manuscripts, arranged a few obscure tunes, and intelligently and skillfully organized them into an engaging program that brims with lively, lovely music and imaginative interpretations.

A beautifully-packaged 50-disc box set, released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, one of the most important and adventurous early music labels. The set contains 50 classic recordings of baroque and ancient music, chosen to represent the breadth of this huge and varied catalogue and each disc is slip-cased with artwork replicating the original CD or LP artwork.

Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300 – April 1377) was a medieval French poet and composer. He is regarded by many musicologists as the greatest and most important composer of the 14th century. Machaut is one of the earliest composers on whom substantial biographical information is available, and Daniel Leech-Wilkinson called him "the last great poet who was also a composer".[This quote needs a citation] Well into the 15th century, Machaut's poetry was greatly admired and imitated by other poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer.

SEON (Studio Erichson) is a period music label by the legendary producer Wolf Erichson. Erichson founded the label in 1969 as one of the first labels dedicated only to authentic music. The recordings were made with the best available recording techniques of the time and still deliver a high quality product in line with today's standards. This special boxset offers all SEON CD reissues from the late 90s on 85 CDs in a limited edition boxset.

Francesco Landini was the most famous Florentine Trecento composer, known for being a multi-instrumentalist, notably a virtuoso on the organ. As known, he lost his sight at the age of 7 but, despite his disability, he excelled in the study of music and all liberal arts. Might the condition of blindness have affected the poetic production of Landini? La Reverdie together with Christophe Deslignes, investigate this hypothesis, with a new project that presents both well-known masterpieces and pieces never recorded before, searching for signs that might be eventually impressed in the verses and the music of Magister Coecus by the loss of his sight.

Active in Venice and Padua at the beginning of the 15th century, Johannes Ciconia was undoubtedly the most important composer of this transitional period. Born in Liège and trained in the principles of the French and Italian Ars Nova, he played a considerable role in the musical development that led little by little towards the Renaissance.

The Huelgas Ensemble was founded by director Paul Van Nevel in 1971. It has specialized in choral music, frequently with instrumental support, from the thirteenth century on to the early Baroque. Their recordings of the High Renaissance have been especially prized. They have also been pioneers in the performance of the difficult Ars Subtilior repertory of the late medieval era.

The tireless pilgrimage of Llull to spread their Ars seems to nurture with new energy as are major the obstacles that cross the road. Llull wants to be present in all places and moments in the turbulent events of the 13th to 14th siecles transition. The news that the Mongols, allied with the Armenian Christians had attacked Muslim positions in Syria leads him directly to Cyprus, Armenia and the Holy Land. The last stages of his long life journey, protagonists of this album, set up one of the most representative combination of Llull and his ideas: an amalgam of music that joins sounds from Mediterranean coasts, the privileged space of Ramon Llull’s actions.