This program focuses on the Missa pro defunctis by the composer Charles d'Argentil. Recorded for the first time here, it is one of only a dozen musical settings of the liturgy of the dead written before 1550 to have survived to this day. Little-known today, Charles d'Argentil, who worked in the prestigious Papal Chapel in Rome, was a key figure in the French Renaissance, as well as in the establishment of musical settings of the Requiem for papal ceremonies.

Ensemble Gilles Binchois record the three Lamentations de Jérémie pour le samedi saint by Claudin de Sermisy, who was music director of the French Royal Chapel under François I. They were probably taken from the court repertoire: Sermisy’s settings of the vocalises on the Hebrew letters and the final invocations to Jerusalem (the latter sung by the lower voices alone) are concise, but rich in harmonic colour. A beautiful recording of this masterpiece.