Phillip II of Spain died at first light on Sunday 13th September, 1598. Released in his 400th anniversary year this disc commemorates the death of this most catholic king with music associated with him during his lifetime, and with the sumptuous six part Requiem mass of Jean Richafort that may well have been used at his obsequiries. The programme begins with a motet written by Gombert for the birth of Philip; other motets include one of Infantas' finest works Domine Ostende, and within the context of the mass is included the celebrated Versa est in luctum by Lobo.

The general trend in recordings of Renaissance polyphony has been toward typing music to specific surroundings: royal festivities, religious feast days, and the like. This collection by the Huelgas Ensemble goes in the other direction, providing three CDs' worth of music ranging from the medieval era to Anton Bruckner, with most of the pieces falling into some stretch of the High Renaissance. The music was recorded, beautifully, in a Romanesque church near Dijon in 2018, and the program is unified loosely by a set of general guidelines for the selections at that event: the music emphasized "unknown repertoire, undeservedly obscure composers, and experiments that fall outside the scope of the normal concert season."

Founded in Paris in 1978 the Ensemble Clément Janequin devotes itself principally to the secular and religious music of the Renaissance. Its interpretations of the Parisian chanson are regarded as authoritative, and recordings of works like Les Cris de Paris, Le Chant des Oyseaulx, Fricassée Parisienne and La Chasse have brought back to life one of golden ages of French music. Now available to a wide audience, the music of Janequin, Sermisy, Anthoine de Bertrand, Costeley, Roland de Lassus and Claude Le Jeune illustrates the contrasts in which the Renaissance took such delight…

The senses reign, and Reason now is dead (Petrarch). Giovanni Antonini, flautist and founder of the legendary Italian ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, enjoys musical voyages, the discursiveness of music. He begins with an anonymous 16th century pavane, La Morte della Ragione (The Death of Reason), which he believes refers to In Praise of Folly, in which its author Erasmus distinguishes between two forms of madness: a sweet illusion of the spirit, and a negative form, one that the vengeful Furies conjure up from hell…

The 2014 founded vocal group ensemble Beauty Farm is made up of members of top international ensembles such as the Huelgas Ensemble, Vox Luminis, Collegium Vocale Gent or Graindelavoix. Their second CD is also dedicated to motets by Nicolas Gombert, a grand master of the Franco Flemish polyphony.