The Orpheus myth was as important for the birth of opera in France as it had been in Italy. In 1684, Charpentier composed a work for three voices, Orphée descendant aux Enfers. With this piece, remarkable for its style and concision, he showed how well he had assimilated Carissimi’s art. It is a dramatic scene, similar to the ‘sacred histories’ of the Roman master. The text, by an unknown author, narrates Orpheus’ quest for his beloved in the Underworld. /quote]

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.

The Belgian early music group Vox Luminis has made several wonderful recordings of lesser-known Baroque repertory. They cultivate a distinctive sound with ten or 15 singers (here there are ten) and a small instrumental group, diverging completely from the general Italianate-operatic trend toward brisk tempos, sharp accents, and dramatic conceptions. Here they take on two very familiar works and meet the challenge of creating unique interpretations. Even in the splendid Bach Magnificat in D major, BWV 243 (sample one of the big choruses, perhaps "Fecit potentiam"), they are smooth and even delicate. The sound is all the more impressive in that leader Lionel Meunier does not really conduct; he sings in the choir itself. Yet the carefully burnished sound is extremely coherent. The effect is to deliver a personal aspect even to these highly public works. In this kind of reading there is the necessity for the performers to deliver text intelligibility and for the instrumentalists to deliver balance, and all succeed nicely, as do Alpha Classics' engineers, working in a pair of churches (Belgian for the Handel, Dutch for the Bach). This is a beautifully rendered representation of standard repertory that draws you into entirely new ways of looking at the music.

Vox Luminis has teamed up with the Freiburger Barockorchester again, and together they celebrate music for Ascension Day. This topic inspired great composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, four of whose Ascension cantatas have been preserved. The festive and colourful Cantata BWV 128 was composed towards the end of Bach’s second year in Leipzig. The Ascension Oratorio BWV 11 was written for larger forces and ends with a triumphant chorus. In the case of Georg Philipp Telemann, more than thirty cantatas for Ascension Day alone have survived. The cantata Ich fahre auf zu meinem Vater (I ascend unto my Father) was composed in 1721 and receives its world premiere recording here. Lionel Meunier’s ensemble and the FBO give a fervent rendering of this captivating music with its texts focusing on the afterlife.

"Sheer joy in music-making is as evident here as the sense of piety required by what are, after all, holy works. Yet it is difficult to begrudge Vox Luminis the feeling of joy at the astonishing sounds they are able to produce. The spirit of devotion is very much alive here too, in an album that pays equal attention to the holy and the heady."

Johannes Brahms drew texts from various Biblical sources for his Deutsches Requiem. As we hear in his choral music, he had a passion for polyphony and was inspired by models from the great Lutheran tradition of the late Renaissance and the Baroque. Ricercar and Vox Luminis have explored this early repertoire with the same passion for many years now, although with no less admiration for Brahms's masterpiece. It is no surprise that some of the texts that Brahms chose had already been set by his illustrious predecessors; it simply remained for us to trace a path through these earlier scores, so many meditations on death, and to assemble a very different Deutsches Requiem: one animated by the emotions of the Lutheran Baroque.

Henry Purcell's King Arthur, or The British Worthy, occupies the small genre of English semi-operas, i.e., stage works in which the most of the main characters speak dialogue, but songs, choruses, and incidental music provide commentary on the action. This 2018 performance by Lionel Meunier and the period ensemble Vox Luminis presents King Arthur without speaking parts, so the music is continuous and complete on two CDs, and displays the variety of musical forms and effects Purcell employed to make John Dryden's somewhat confusing play – a mixture of Norse and British mythology – come to life.

Johannes Brahms drew texts from various Biblical sources for his Deutsches Requiem . As we hear in his choral music, he had a passion for polyphony and was inspired by models from the great Lutheran tradition of the late Renaissance and the Baroque. Ricercar and Vox Luminis have explored this early repertoire with the same passion for many years now, although with no less admiration for Brahms's masterpiece. It is no surprise that some of the texts that Brahms chose had already been set by his illustrious predecessors; it simply remained for us to trace a path through these earlier scores, so many meditations on death, and to assemble a very different Deutsches Requiem : one animated by the emotions of the Lutheran Baroque.

Samuel Scheidt was one of the most interesting Lutheran composers of the early 17th century. Like his famous contemporary Heinrich Schütz, he combined the polyphonic tradition with the new styles from Italy. His Cantiones Sacrae for eight voices mark the summit of Renaissance musical style; even though Protestant chorales are integrated into the work, Scheidt does not hesitate to use expressive effects that originated in the Italian madrigal style.

Jérôme Lejeune continues his History of Music series with this boxed set devoted to the Renaissance. The next volume in the series after Flemish Polyphony (RIC 102), this set explores the music of the 16th century from Josquin Desprez to Roland de Lassus. After all of the various turnings that music took during the Middle Ages, the music of the Renaissance seems to be a first step towards a common European musical style. Josquin Desprez’s example was followed by every composer in every part of Europe and in every musical genre, including the Mass setting, the motet and all of the various new types of solo song. Instrumental music was also to develop considerably from the beginning of the 16th century onwards.

The works of Cipriano de Rore (1515/16 – 1565) remained extremely popular until well after his death. Several of his madrigals later appeared in dozens of ornamented versions and continued to do so until the beginning of the 17th century; this was an extraordinary success for the time.

Having recorded the complete motets composed by the ancestors of Johann Sebastian Bach (RIC 347), Vox Luminis now tackles their complete spiritual concerts and sacred cantatas, in which the instruments – particularly the strings – play a highly important role. In the cantata for the Feast of St Michael the Archangel by Johann Christoph Bach, trumpets and drums are enlisted to evoke the battle of the archangels in heaven. To round off this programme, Vox Luminis presents the cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden by Johann Sebastian Bach, in its original version dating from his Arnstadt period, containing copious elements linking it to the music of his forebears.

The winner of numerous prestigious prizes, including several Gramophone Awards, the vocal ensemble Vox Luminis, founded by Lionel Meunier in 2004, is now regarded as a benchmark in the interpretation of the great works of German Baroque music. Its unfailingly faithful and lively approach to such masters as Bach, Buxtehude and Scheidt has made the group’s reputation, but this new recording features a major work by Heinrich Biber, a composer hitherto absent from its discography: his Requiem in F minor for 14 voices, composed around 1692. The programme is completed by two sacred works by Christoph Bernhard (Herr, nun lässest du deinen Diener in Friede fahren and Tribularer si nescirem misericordias tuas), two pieces by Johann Joseph Fux, and the Sonata a 6 in A minor of Johann Michael Nicolai.