A French manuscript from the 14th-Century said to be compiled in Avignon, the seat of the papacy during the time, the Ivrea Codex contains several styles of music from the time making it one of the most important surviving documents from the Medieval era. This recording features harmonious vocals backed by light instrumentation. The first-rate performance of Cantica Symphonia brings an element of the sublime and divine making this one of the best releases from the Early Music genre.

In 1612, the Venetian editor Giacomo Vincenti accepted for publication the only work by Fergusio that is known to survive, the Motetti e Dialogi per concertar a una fino à novi voci, con il suo Basso continuo per l'Organo. Apparently he thirty-year-old Fergusio intended this publication to be the prelude to a promising artistic and editorial career. Instead, his musical career was cut short. Painful arthritis "spreading to the joints in his hands" rendered him "unable to play the organ" and "took away his will to compose and to listen to music."

… Niquet casts the three surviving grands motets from strength, with the likes of Stephan Imbodem and Véronique Gens among his other soloists. His conducting is alert, rhythmically buoyant, and attentive to both musical and word values, as the multi-tempo hurdles of “Converte, Domine” show. Details are never lost, but neither is momentum. The choral and orchestral work of Le Concert Spirituel is first-rate, with a precision that doesn’t rule out a refined color palette.

The Codice di Staffarda is a musical codex from Staffarda Abbey (Santa Maria di Staffarda), a Cistercian monastery located near Saluzzo in north-west Italy. The codex includes works by composers including the otherwise unknown Engarandus Juvenis and Antoine Brumel.
This recording received a 1998 "Critic's Choice" award from Gramophone magazine.

The Cardinall’s Musick are acknowledged as the foremost performers of Byrd’s music. Under their director Andrew Carwood they have recorded the complete Latin church music, the final volume of which won the Gramophone Record of the Year. Now they turn to Byrd’s English church music, a genre which shows the composer treading a path between his own innate Catholicism and the requirements of the reformed Church of England. But far from sublimating Byrd’s genius this difficult situation gave rise to one of his most fertile periods.

Fire Burning in Snow, the third volume in Ex Cathedra's series of Baroque music from Latin America, is strong testimony to the vitality of the musical scene in South America in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The bulk of this album is devoted to the sacred and secular choral music of Juan de Araujo (1648-1712), who was born in Spain, but whose family moved to South America when he was a child. He lived in Peru and Panama, but spent most of his adult life in La Plata, Bolivia, where he was the organist at the cathedral. The music recorded here is notable for its almost Monteverdian range of styles and expressiveness. This selection of Araujo's strongly rhythmic work includes a rigorously polyphonic motet for triple choir; a simple, lovely lullaby for women's voices; and many stylistically diverse choral villancicos.

Ex Cathedra and Jeffrey Skidmore unearth more fascinating treasures with this latest anthology of Latin American music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first volume—‘New World Symphonies’, released in 2003 on CDA67380—has been hugely popular, getting regular airplay on Classic FM.
The works on this disc were chosen from the vast amount of extraordinary repertoire Jeffrey Skidmore discovered on research visits to the USA, Mexico and Bolivia.

Throughout this Warner Classics six disc set one remains impressed with Harnoncourt’s tightly controlled direction of his magnificent forces, employing tempi that always feel appropriate. The sound quality is of a high standard as is the interesting and informative annotation. A valuable set of Haydn sacred music that is perfect for dipping in and out.

Pier Francesco Caletti Bruni 'Francesco Cavalli' lived in Venice under the protection of the nobleman Federigo Cavalli, whose surname he adopted in gratitude. The musician dedicated his life as a composer to two musical forms: music theatre, for which he was appreciated throughout Europe and the sacred repertoire. Following his maestro Monteverdi, he composed sacred music in the Concertato style for double choir until near the end of his life when he published the three Vespers, among which the Vespers of the cinque Laudate ad uso della Cappella di S. Marco stands out as a work in its own class.

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.

Im Gegensatz zum berühmten späteren Amtsnachfolger J. S. Bach konnte Thomaskantor Sebastian Knüpfer vom politischen Arm ungehindert seinen musikalischen Fähigkeiten freien Lauf lassen. Das Ergebnis sind prächtige Psalm- und Choralkonzerte für den feierlichen Gottesdienst an der Thomaskirche.

Peter Schreier brought a lifetime's experience as a singer to the conductor's rostrum in his accounts of Mozart's Requiem, Coronation Mass, and motet Ave verum Corpus. The performances were recorded in Dresden between 1982 and 1992. A major plus is highly disciplined singing by the Leipzig Radio Chorus, whose clarity of diction and finely balanced ensemble adds much to your enjoyment of these performances; they're heard on their own account in the motet that concludes this reissue. The Requiem (in Süssmayr's completion) is powerfully and urgently driven.

A selection of music from the Italian Baroque contained in manuscripts held in the library of the cathedral of Aosta in Italy. The number of works in this collection is small, but of very high quality, demonstrating the high artistic quality of musical life in the cathedral at that time. Some of the composers are unknown, but familiar names include Alessandro Scarlatti and Francesco Maria Benedetti.

Sacred music written for female singers and instrumentalists of the Ospedali became celebrated during the 18th century. This unique musical tradition became widely famous largely through the works of such notable composers as Vivaldi, Hasse, Porpora and Galuppi, who were active as teachers at the four "Ospedali grandi".

"Denn er selbst, der Herr, wird mit einem Feldgeschrei und der Stimme des Erzengels und mit der Posaune Gottes hernieder kommen vom Himmel, und die Toten in Christo werden auferstehen zuerst"
Dunkel und drohend lässt Telemann dazu den Donner grollen, den Zorn Gottes. Der Herr, der Richter naht. Es beginnt der Tag des Gerichts. Mit diesen Signalen hebt ein packendes musikalisches Geschehen an, das dem, der sich mit ihm auseinanderzusetzen gewillt ist, eine reiche, symbolgeladene Welt schönster, erfüllender, oft eigenwilliger künstlerischer Bewältigung von Wort und Ton eröffnet.