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.

Biber was among the major composers for the violin in the history of the instrument. His own technique allowed him to easily reach the 6th and 7th positions, employ multiple stops in intricate polyphonic passages, and explore the various possibilities of scordatura tuning. Among other pieces, Biber wrote operas, sacred music and music for chamber ensemble. He also wrote one of the earliest known pieces for solo violin, the monumental passacaglia of the Mystery Sonatas. During Biber's lifetime, his music was known and imitated throughout Europe. In the late 18th century he was named the best violin composer of the 17th century by music historian Charles Burney. In the late 20th century Biber's music, especially the Mystery Sonatas, enjoyed a renaissance. Today, it is widely performed and recorded.

Guillaume Dufay was undoubtedly the greatest musician of the fifteenth century. The Missa Se la Face ay Pale is the first of the four Great Masses of his maturity. While ushering in the Renaissance period, this work represents a culmination in the music of the Middle Ages.

The Singapore Symphony and its music director Hans Graf present a recording of Józef Kozłowski’s Requiem, together with the Singapore Symphony Chorus & Youth Choir, as well as a quartet of outstanding soloists: Olga Peretyatko (soprano), Olesya Petrova (mezzo-soprano), Boris Stepanov (tenor) and Christoph Seidl (bass). The Requiem (1798) was commissioned to Kozłowski by the abdicated King Stanisław of Poland, and can be perceived as a requiem not just for the monarch, but for the entire Polish nation, absorbed by the Russian state during the 1780s.

The music of the Renaissance appears to reflect little of the dangers, horrors and violent conflicts of its time. Music written during the Hundred Years War or the French invasion of Italy gives hardly any impression to today’s ears of the precariousness of existence of which its composers, singers and listeners must have continually been aware. Nor do the two masses by Jacob Obrecht (1457/8 – 1505) on this recording betray anything of the restless spirit of the age, despite them both being based on models referring to suffering and misery.

This recording presents a selection of songs from Cantus sororum, and, in addition, one from Mass: the sequence Laetabundus exsultet fidelis, which was a popular sequence at Christmas in the Catholic Church generally during the middle ages.

In the middle of the 16th century, the Geneva Psalter infected the whole of Reformed Europe – Switzerland included – with a true psalm fever. The first complete collection of all 150 psalms, promoted by the Genevan reformer Jean Calvin, was published in 1562. The psalm verses were translated into French and provided with melodies by various Genevan cantors.

Most of Elisabetta Brusa’s compositions have been written for orchestral forces, with four volumes currently available on Naxos. The two new choral pieces in this fifth volume offer a revealing look at the composer’s response to spirituality and her own feelings about the end of life. The Stabat Mater was written as a trial for the Requiem and features vocal parts that are often pushed to the limit of their extensions for maximum expressivity. Following traditional models, Brusa’s Requiem evokes an archaic atmosphere which gives the piece a medieval aura, contrasted with moments of luminous and transcendent music.

The year 1970 , marked an era that was dependent on the Cuban genre; however, Harlow kicked in the decade of modern salsa with this wonderfully eclectic sound. There is energy to spare in one of the earlier forms of Harlow's breezy, rambunctious '70s style. Twenty-year-old Ismael Miranda grabs honors on several self-penned tunes: the title song, "Abandonada Fue," and "Oigan Bien Mi Guaguancó" were all strong staples of Harlow's band's book. Harlow, Miranda, and his associates were among the leading New York salsa catalysts who helped to break the Cuban mold and helped push the music into newer directions. One of the key salsa records of 1970.

Open the door onto one of the best-kept secrets of medieval music… It is the music from the Winchester Troper, one of the earliest, and most stunning sources of medieval polyphonic music, written in the first decades of the eleventh century, more than two centuries before the manuscripts of Notre-Dame polyphony.

Discover this collection of sacred music by the American composer Dan Locklair, much of it based on ancient and treasured texts, poems and hymn words. The recording includes Locklair’s Brief Mass, a simple yet deeply symbolic setting of the words of the liturgy.

Handel's Dixit Dominus HWV 232 (1707) is certainly one of the most impressive compositions of his several years in Italy. With this extremely effective piece, the only 22-year-old obviously wanted to demonstrate all of his compositional skills. Il Gardellino and Bart Van Reyn accompany him on their recording with the breathtaking cantata Il Pianto di Maria, which was long attributed to Handel until recent research has shown that it was penned by the Italian composer Giovanni Battista Ferrandini (1710-1791).

Una notte onirica is an enchanting musical journey, dedicated to the sacred and profane passions of 17th-century Italy. A soprano and six instrumentalists set up a nocturnal, intimate and sometimes disturbing atmosphere thanks to motets and sonatas by Cazzati, Turini, Marini, Rossi, Cesti and others. The torments of a jealous lover follow the luminous antiphons for the Virgin and sinfonie and lamenti compete in virtuosity. Una notte onirica is the illustration of an abundant and colourful Italian night, like a new carnival dedicated to Nyx, the goddess of the night.

It was in Rome, where he resided between 1707 and 1710, that the young Handel composed these three dazzling sacred works. The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and the RIAS Kammerchor give us an extremely lively and colourful reading of these pieces in which the composer showcased his talent: allegiance to the forms of the past, total mastery of counterpoint and, already, a unique feeling for storytelling. Everything here announces musical genius.

PRJCT Amsterdam and its artistic director Maarten Engeltjes present two of the greatest vocal works of the baroque era: Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Vivaldi’s Nisi Dominus. While Vivaldi’s virtuosic piece contemplates the helplessness of people when God does not support their efforts, Pergolesi’s portrait of the weeping Mary at the Cross embodies what the “nameless” parents of a deceased child go through. In the Stabat Mater, Engeltjes’s counter-tenor blends together seamlessly and soothingly with Shira Patchornik’s soprano voice, resulting in an interpretation that is both profound and deeply relatable.