Since it's founding in Freiburg in 1958, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi has been one of the most important and ambitious labels for period performances. Over decades, globally-acclaimed recordings were created with outstanding musicians. The limited edition "Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 100 Great Recordings" contains 100 outstanding DHM recordings with some of the most important and best artists in their field: Nuria Rial, Dorothee Mields, Al Ayre Espanol, Hille Perl, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Skip Sempé, Capriccio Stravagante, La Petite Bande, Gustav Leonhardt, Andrew Lawrence-King, Frieder Bernius, the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Thomas Hengelbrock and many others.

Das Vokalensemble Cantus Cölln unter der Leitung von Konrad Junghänel gehört heute zu den renommiertesten Formationen seiner Art. Die über 30 CD-Einspielungen von Cantus Cölln wurden mit zahlreichen internationalen Preisen ausgezeichnet und umfassen musikalische Raritäten ebenso wie wegweisende Interpretationen von "Klassikern" des barocken Repertoires.

Der Dirigent und Lautenist Konrad Junghändel ist durch seine Zusammenarbeit mit mit Ensembles wie Les Arts Florissants, La Petite Bande, Musica Antiqua Köln bekannt geworden. Die fortgesetzte Beschäftigung mit der vokalen Musik des Barock führte Junghänel 1987 zur Gründung des Vokalensembles Cantus Cölln, das sich innerhalb kürzester Zeit zu einem der führenden Ensembles entwickelte. Diese limitierte Edition umfasst 10 Alben mit herausragenden Aufnahmen Junghänels für das Label DHM, 6 davon als Lautenist, 4 mit Cantus Cölln.

Belonging to the same tradition as the celebrated Weihnachtshistorie of his teacher Schütz, these sacred concertos by Rosenmüller date from the period 1645-50, when the young composer was enjoying a rapid rise to eminence in the good city of Leipzig. Long before his enforced exile in Venice for ‘unnatural vice’, a typically Italian suavity is already clearly perceptible all through these remarkable settings of St Luke’s account of the Nativity. Cantus Cölln returns here to its favourite repertoire, eight years after a first release devoted to the same composer’s Vesper music.

""En cette ville, on n’avait jamais entendu auparavant son égal en matière de composition et de pratique des instruments les plus variés…"" Nikolaus Bruhns, auquel on doit les plus belles cantates écrites avant Bach, n’a malheureusement pas eu le loisir d’exercer longtemps son art. Il est mort prématurément à l’âge de 32 ans.

The Venetian triumph of a German in exile. After having been considered the "Alpha & Omega Musicorum" in Germany, in 1655 Rosenmüller succeeded in escaping from Saxony where he had been imprisoned for an offence against morality… Shortly afterwards he began a new life in the City of the Doges and went on to become one of the most highly esteemed composers of the day. Dominated by an impressive Dixit Dominus of 621 bars, these Vespers of the Blessed Virgin are in the direct lineage of a Venetian tradition already glorified by Monteverdi and Cavalli.

This recording is of the rarely performed late fourth version of the St. John Passion. Cantus Cölln performs the entire work as a double vocal quartet, producing vocal brilliance and immaculate solo sections. The ensemble is one of the most renowned vocal groups for Renaissance and Baroque music.

Cantatas for an evening's music. Buxtehude's major contribution to mid-baroque German sacred music lay in the Abendmusiken, the evening concerts organized before Christmas by the organist of Lübeck outside the context of his official duties. While most contemporary cantors had to produce a cantata a week, Buxtehude placed his genius in the service of works of the highest artistic demands. Here are some of the most dazzling examples.

The 17th-century Austrian composer Heinrich Biber is remembered today for his extraordinary solo violin music–collections such as the Mystery Sonatas. He wrote a number of large-scale instrumental works and choral pieces as well, but their reputation is not as high. They include a lot of grand gestures for brass, but they tend to be harmonically static and often seem long-winded. So Konrad Junghänel and his superb musicians have really achieved something by making the works on this disc sound so appealing.

This is an excellent and varied selection of composers from the very well known like Palestrina, Monteverdi, Bach and Vivaldi, through the less famous but familiar like Frescobaldi, Sainte-Colombe and Zelenka, to the downright obscure. It is all delightful: the musicians are uniformly excellent, and include such great names as Gustav Leonhardt, Cantus Colln, Christopher Hogwood and so on. They give fine performances both of the familiar works and of the less familiar ones. Obviously there will be discs you like more than others and you may already have favourite versions of some works, but these discs are never less than very good and are often outstanding.

La Susanna, a late oratorio composed in Genoa in 1681, the year before the composer’s death. La Susanna belongs to a popular 17th-century sub-genre termed oratorio erotico because it employed biblical stories concerned with love or the sensual aspect of women. It is typical of the kind of plot that might be used to attract an audience drawn to the prayer halls to be given Bible “instruction” in easily accessible form. The concept was a mark of counter-Reformation propaganda and stories such as those of Judith or Susanna were popular not only in music, but also literature and painting. Indeed, the cover of the present set is illustrated by a fine painting by Artemisia Gentileschi depicting the beautiful naked Susanna recoiling from the gaze of the two leering elders.

Much has been said and written about Handel and Metastasio, and the composer’s supposed lack of interest in the librettos of the famous Roman poet. The fact is that Handel generally used adaptations of much older librettos which perhaps represented a bigger space of liberty for its work and conception of drama. Though Handel set to music only three librettos by Metastasio (Siroe, Poro and Ezio), we can hardly doubt he knew and recognised the qualities of their dramaturgy. Two of the three were successful and all of them gave him opportunity to write beautiful music.

There could hardly be any contrast more striking than that of "Messiah" with these delicate miniatures composed by Handel during his stay in Italy before he settled in London. They are vocal chamber music of the highest quality. They give no inkling that the graceful young composer might later produce anything like the "Hallelujah" chorus, though there is a clear pre-echo of "For unto us a child is born."

A large collection of religious works by two Austrian composers. Bieber's work for 36 voices is a powerful and moving piece, especially for cornets, trumpets, sackbuts and timpani bursts. Here, Junghaner is in charge of the Viennese early music group and Concerto Palatino, who has the best technique and expressiveness in the early music brass system, also contributes to this wonderful performance. It was performed in the mass format at the time, and is recorded with a sonata in front and behind. [Sony Music]

The Italian opera of the 17th century is a part of music history which is still hardly explored. Of course, Claudio Monteverdi's operas are regularly performed and recorded, and some of the stage works by his pupil Francesco Cavalli, the main composer of operas in Venice after Monteverdi's death has been given attention to, but many other works written in Italy in the 17th century are still to be rediscovered. One of the composers of that time whose works are hardly explored is Pietro Antonio Cesti. From the tracklist one may conclude that he was a prolific composer of operas. René Jacobs has been an avid advocate of Cesti's oeuvre, and in 1982 he made a recording of L'Orontea, arias from which he also performed at the concert in 1980 recorded and only recently released by ORF. He also gave performances of L'Argia, but so far that hasn't been recorded on disc.