The world premiere recording of John Tavener’s Lament for Jerusalem in its “Jerusalem version” performed by the Choir and Orchestra of London under the direction of Jeremy Summerly. Soprano Angharad Gruffydd Jones and counter-tenor Peter Crawford are the featured soloists.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, one of the four best-known sons of Johann Sebastian Bach, has gone down in history as the “Bückeburg Bach.” During his years at the court of Count Wilhelm zu Schaumburg-Lippe in Bückeburg he produced a remarkable body of sacred and secular works, including piano concertos, symphonies, cantatas, oratorios, and Passion settings.

The richest transmission of printed wedding compositions comes from the prosperous Hanseatic cities. From this rich trove we have recorded for the first time a marvelous selection of interpretations by Manfred Cordes and his WESER RENAISSANCE ensemble: motets, sacred concertos, and ensemble songs, true to the motto: 'The wedded state originated in an ancient land; it was instituted in Paradise by Gods command'.

Francesco Cavalli was an important musical figure in 17th Century Venice. As a student of, and later, successor to Claudio Monteverdi, he was the leader of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. He also served as head of the Venetian operatic school and was very highly regarded as a composer of religious and operatic music in his day. Unfortunately, he was reluctant to have his compositions published, and therefore, is virtually unknown to modern audiences.

Owen Rees leads early-music consort Contrapunctus alongside The Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford in performances of John Taverner’s masterwork, the Missa Gloria tibi trinitas. A virtuosic work, it has pride of place in the Forrest-Heyther partbooks (in the Bodleian Library in Oxford), which it has been variously argued originated at Cardinal College or at the Chapel Royal.It might well have been heard on Trinity Sunday in the chapel of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s palace at Hampton Court.

Die Kombination hat sich bewährt. Joseph Haydn hat in Sir John Eliot Gardiner einen Interpreten gefunden, der mit dem nötigen Ernst und der fachlichen Kompetenz seinen geistlichen Werken nachzuspüren vermag. “Seine Darbietungen haben eine bewegende Stärke und Energie. Die Solisten sind ausgezeichnet. An keiner Stelle zweifelt man an Haydns wahrer Größe”, urteilte die BBC über Gardiners Messen-Projekt.

A contemporary of Lully and Lalande, Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) was something of an outsider to the French court of Louis XIV, which helps to explain his comparative obscurity. A period of study in Rome doubtless gave Charpentier exposure to the polychoral style long-established from the time of Gabrieli, and this recording presents the triple-choir Salve Regina alongside the opulent Messe à quatre chœurs – written for four separate choirs, with a large continuo team of four organs, four theorbos, bass viol and great bass viol! The possibilities opened up by such a wealth of musicians engender music which seems as close to the proverbial “choir of the angels of heaven” as could be desired.

An important release and valuable discovery from the Spanish Baroque! Joan Baptista Cabanilles (1644-1712) wrote a substantial oeuvre for keyboard (organ and harpsichord), and a fine body of choral works; this new CD presents the first complete recording. Sung by Coro Amystis, who did extensive research into the works of this neglected Spanish composer. Liner notes written by the artists; sung texts available for download online.

The figure of Samuel Capricornus has been unfairly neglected by modern historians of music, editors and performers. Not only was Capricornus admired by his contemporaries even beyond the frontiers; the extraordinary standard of his works and the originality and variety of his output make him quite simply one of the greatest composers of religious music of the seventeenth century. Capricornus's most original compositions are the Lieder von dem Leyden und Tode Jesu (Songs on the sufferings and death of Jesus) and Theatrum musicum. The former are a kind of German equivalent fo the leçons de ténèbres of the French Baroque.

Ma rencontre avec la musique de Charpentier remonte à mes années d'études aux Etats-Unis, au cours desquelles mes professeurs avaient l'habitude de parler de cette musique et de la montrer. J'ai ainsi découvert le "Reniement de Saint-Pierre" dans une anthologie de musique religieuse…Je me souviens aussi avoir entendu du Charpentier chanté en traduction anglaise, parfois aussi en latin par certains chœurs de paroisses protestantes. C'est là que j'ai pris connaissance de la "Pastorale sur la naissance de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ".William Christie

The appetite for evolving performance practices in Bach’s St Matthew Passion appears undiminished as we have gradually shifted, over the generations, from larger to smaller ensembles and also towards a greater dramatic understanding of the implications of Bach’s ambitious ‘stereophonic’ double choir and orchestra choreography.

Five of the discs on this six-CD set are previously released Naxos recordings of a broad variety of works by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. The set offers a generous sampling of works spanning the composer's career, from his polystylistic Collage über BACH (1964) for orchestra to his 2001 Nunc dimittis for a cappella chorus.

The transition between the Renaissance and the Baroque eras did not mark one sudden change of forms or styles, nor did it signal the end of what Claudio Monteverdi called the prima pratica, or the primary practice of Renaissance polyphony. However, a new emphasis on powerful emotional expressions became a central feature of what he dubbed the seconda pratica, which came to the fore with the development of opera, most notably in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in 1607. Composers paid special attention to the innovations in the music of Venice, which eventually spread throughout Europe in the 17th and early 18th centuries, and such figures as Monteverdi, Antonio Lotti, and Antonio Caldara, long associated with the city, became exemplars of the new Venetian style, in both secular and sacred music.

Biographical and musicological certainties may be in short supply in the life and work of Josquin, but there's no gainsaying the magnificence of the music. This program of shorter works, from The Brabant Ensemble and Stephen Rice, most in unusual guise, celebrates his 500th anniversary.

It was when the young Haydn was appointed Kapellmeister to Prince Nikolaus Esterházy that he composed his Missa Cellensis, a work of vast proportions, whose popularity is demonstrated by the many surviving copies. In this interpretation full of vivid contrasts, the RIAS Kammerchor and the Akademie für Alte Musik confirm their extraordinary ability to reveal every subtlety of a composition that possesses almost operatic energy.