In 1680, Dietrich Buxtehude sent his friend Gustav Düben the score of Membra Jesu nostri. In this perfectly balanced work, he addresses the senses directly, immersing us in the sufferings of Christ: we feel the hammer blows, the heart that stops beating…

Sous les empereurs autrichiens de la maison des Habsbourg, les arts et tout particulièrement la musique jouèrent un rôle très important dans le cérémoniel de l'affirmation du pouvoir de la cour et de l'empire. Bien que Ferdinand III fût le premier des empereurs autrichiens à avoir composé lui-même de la musique, son second fils et successeur Léopold (1657-1704) était bien plus doué que lui…L'un de ses professeurs fut Antonio Bertali. Son répertoire trop peu connu et qui mérite d'être redécouvert est d'une extrême variété musicale, clairement influencée par la musique théâtrale: elle ne lassera jamais l'auditeur, qui pourra toujours s'attendre à d'agréables surprises après chaque cadence.

Following on from and designed along the same lines as the Guide to Period Instruments, this boxed set includes an exhaustive introductory text as well as a great quantity of music excerpts on the set’s eight CDs. These extracts have been taken from the extensive repertoire recorded by Ricercar over many years, with excerpts from recordings kindly provided by our colleagues from Harmonia Mundi, Gimell, Accent, Alpha and Sony supplementing our programme where necessary. The Lutheran repertoire of the Renaissance has remained for all intents and purposes unrecorded up until now; the tracks illustrating this repertoire together with other excerpts have been recorded specially for this compilation by Vox Luminis.

Philippe Pierlot and the Ricercar Consort's 2006 recording of Bach's Magnificat brings back the glory days of historically informed performances, those halcyon days in the 1980s when musicians, empowered by scholarship and energized by virtuosity, were recording the Baroque repertoire with the zeal of the newly converted. Though Pierlot and his musicians are of a younger generation, they bring a missionary fervor to the music, a program of Bach's Magnificat, BWV 243, and Missa Brevis, BWV 235, interspersed with two well-chosen organ works, the Fuga sopra il Magnificat, BWV 733, and the Präludium und Fuga, BWV 541. Pierlot's textures are clean, his rhythms buoyant, his colors bright, and tempos brisk, but not rushed in the fast movements, and contemplative but not moribund in the slow movements.

Da pacem gathers music by Heinrich Schütz that expressed the prayers of his listeners during the troubling times of the Thirty Years’ War, a period when the people of Central Europe “in such great fear and danger of war, sang with each other such useful and comforting songs”. Whether in elaborate concertos or simple motets, his music conveyed people’s hopes for a fair and lasting peace that can still resonate in our ears today.

Les deux compositeurs choisis, l’un anglais, l’autre allemand, nés tous les deux la même année 1685, sont assurément les représentants majeurs du patrimoine musical baroque. Les œuvres présentes sur ce disque ont toutes été composées à des moments particuliers de leur vie, en marge de leurs commandes habituelles destinés souvent à des personnages de haut rang, et se distinguent par la constante recherche de nouvelles inspirations et styles de composition.

Charles (ou François) Dieupart est un musicien (claveciniste et violoniste) d'origine française, né probablement à Paris, vers 1667 et mort à Londres vers 1740.
On ne connaît pas les détails de la jeunesse et de la formation de Dieupart, ni la raison de son émigration en Angleterre où il est présent en 1704. Connaisseur de la musique italienne et admirateur de Corelli, il a été en Angleterre un musicien apprécié de la haute société, notamment comme violoniste, et a participé au développement et à la diffusion de la musique et de l'opéra italien dans ce pays. Il a connu, à la fin de sa vie, l'indigence et une certaine déchéance sociale.

It was in Amsterdam in 1740 that a lawyer named Hubert Le Blanc published an astounding work that defended the use of the bass viol at a time when the violin and the cello were becoming more and more important in Parisian musical life. This recording provides a musical equivalent of his essay, depicting the initial success of the bass viol and of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe (celebrated in the film Tous les matins du monde), its moments of glory and, above all else, the repertoire of the viol, violin and cello during the first half of the 18th century.

From the beginning of time songs of mourning, sorrow and lamentation have been a part of Western music. Aristotle had written that nothing was more powerful than rhythm and song for imitating all the turmoil of the soul. Composers of the Baroque Period strove to deal with nothingness and eternity by exploring the utter depths of the heart. And this is what these songs are all about.

There is no shortage of performances of the two Bach cantatas on this release by the Ricercar Consort and the Collegium Vocale Gent, under the direction of gambist Philippe Perlot. They are two of the most imposing among Bach's examples of the form, with two large sections, a variety of movement types and elaborate orchestration, and Bach strove to impress with both. Good readings are available in cycles by conductors John Eliot Gardiner, Masaaki Suzuki, and others, but there's a lot to be said for Perlot's approach, which has been developed over a deliberate set of recordings of cantatas that have something to say to each other.

The Stabat Mater Dolorosa is a sequence, not a chant, and no unified melody was established for it until the mid-nineteenth century; it was even banned for a time by the Council of Trent, but restored to liturgical use in the late 1720s by Pope Benedict XIII. Much as Prohibition did not stem the tide of alcohol use, the Council of Trent's ban on the text did not diminish the popularity of the Stabat Mater. It was during the official, 160-year-long period where the Stabat Mater was not heard in churches that Giovanni Felice Sances composed the title work on this Mirare CD Stabat Mater, featuring Carlos Mena, Philippe Pierlot, and the Ricercar Consort.

Four years after the superb ‘Membra Jesu nostri’, the Ricercar Consort once again turns to Buxtehude.The majority of the cantatas in this recording are centred on Christ’s Passion and Resurrection. With the both dramatic and comforting sounds of his cantatas, Buxtehude succeeded in shifting the focus from human suffering to divine help, thus giving people a foretaste of heavenly harmony and perfection.

Spanish countertenor Carlos Mena is not one of those who evoke the powerful castrati who might have sung these sacred arias in Vivaldi's day; his voice is smooth and precise, with a tendency toward emotional restraint. This isn't blood-and-guts Vivaldi, but it's quite lovely. Even the final Nisi dominus, RV 608, with its virtuoso arias and sharp contrasts, is kept under control at all times rather than being treated as a set of operatic numbers. Mena is technically flawless in this work (listen to the rather chilling long notes in the "Cum dederit dilectis," track 22), which stands somewhat apart from the rest of the program – the intent is to close the proceedings with a burst of energy after two sad pieces that offer refined tragedy in Mena's readings.