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. His setting sits alongside the three Lamentations du samedi saint by Claudin de Sermisy, composer to the French royal chapel and Jehan Barra's Salve Regina. The Gilles Binchois ensemble here sheds light on an all-too-often overlooked part of musical history, through the generation that directly followed Josquin des Prez. The art of these three composers bears witness to the high level of mastery attained by that productive and talented generation.

As with so many of the best early music ensembles performing today, the musical performances of the Ensemble Gilles Binchois have been inextricably linked with profound musical scholarship and with the leadership of a single powerful personality. For the Ensemble Gilles Binchois, this personality remains its founder and director, Dominique Vellard.

Le "codex Las Huelgas" qui a été récemment daté des années 1340, rassemble 186 chants liturgiques et para-liturgiques dont L'Ensemble Gilles Binchois présente une sélection. La musique du Moyen âge n'existe aujourd'hui que grâce au précieux travail de musiciens comme Dominique Vellard qui s'emploient à donner vie au répertoire liturgique des monastères anciens. Aux quatre coins de l'Europe médiévale, des manuscrits - ou codex - consignaient les chants des offices.

For their new recording, Ensemble Gilles Binchois seizes Claude Le Jeunes Le Printemps, a collection of airs and chansons of the 16th century. Its modernity and refinement make this piece one of the masterworks of the century. Blending airs, ballades and chansons, Claude Le Jeune builds a colorful fresco and demonstrates the extent of his musical skills. Ensemble Gilles Binchois echoes to that ability, whether the musicians sing in two, four or six parts: with this performance, we can see blooming in front of us the incredible music of Claude Le Jeune in all its splendour.

Guillaume de Machaut is the first “famous” composer in western musical history. In his time, the Middle Ages, most composers delivered their works anonymously (as part of their clerical duties), but Machaut was considered such a master of his creative art that he presented his works under his own name. He was in service of the highest monarchs, among whom Charles V, King of France. Machaut’s “Messe de Nostre Dame” is the first polyphonic Mass written, a complicated structure full of ingenious compositorial techniques. But even without the theoretical knowledge we are still spellbound by the haunting beauty and mystery of this masterpiece.

Pedro de Escobar (c. 1465-c.1535) was a composer of the same renaissance generation as Josquin, Isaac, Mouton and De La Rue. He was born in Porto, Portugal but was of Castilian ancestry; his work was in great demand in his time and he spent part of his working life in Spain, much of this in the service of the Catholic Queen Isabella I. His best-known works today are a Requiem Mass (recorded twice so far), a Magnificat setting and a handful of motets, but this present CD brings us the first recording of a complete ordinary Mass setting, simply titled ‘Missa 4v.’

Since founding the group in 1979, Dominique Vellard has spent 35 years inspiring the Ensemble Gilles Binchois to create some of the essential contributions in the field of medieval music and the Renaissance performance. This new recording gives us the opportunity to discover the vocal music of composer Heinrich Isaac, whose brilliant compositions are both generous and captivating. Vellard leads the Ensemble Gilles Binchois in Isaac's Missa Virgo Prudentissima, performed using a manuscript preserved in the Dome of Florence.

The legendary label, deutsche harmonia mundi, releases a special 50 CD boxset featuring star performers such as Hille Perl, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Dorothee Oberlinger, Simone Kermes, and Nuria Rial and more! This collection displays the sheer variety available from the dhm archive. A perfect collection ranging Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic music.

A beautifully-packaged 50-disc box set, released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, one of the most important and adventurous early music labels. The set contains 50 classic recordings of baroque and ancient music, chosen to represent the breadth of this huge and varied catalogue and each disc is slip-cased with artwork replicating the original CD or LP artwork.

Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300 – April 1377) was a medieval French poet and composer. He is regarded by many musicologists as the greatest and most important composer of the 14th century. Machaut is one of the earliest composers on whom substantial biographical information is available, and Daniel Leech-Wilkinson called him "the last great poet who was also a composer".[This quote needs a citation] Well into the 15th century, Machaut's poetry was greatly admired and imitated by other poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer.