Niccolò Jommelli was one of the most sought after composers of his time, but finally accepted to become musical director at the court of Stuttgart in 1753. Three years later he composed his Requiem to commemorates the recent death of the Duchess von Württemberg, mother of his patron, the Duke Carl Eugen.. Despite the fact that Jommelli owed his fame almost exclusively to his operas during his lifetime, the Requiem became his most famous work after his death; the almost one hundred handwritten and printed copies of the entire work or fragments of it that have survived in some seventy libraries throughout Europe, some also in the USA, bear witness to this. Whilst the score and parts of the first performance have been lost, we can still form a reasonably good idea of the original instrumentation thanks to a surviving list of payments made to the musicians. We know that there were eight singers (one female and seven male) in addition to Jommelli.

Charpentier's Te Deum written in the bright key of D major features a four-part choir and eight soloists. It displays the composer's total command of religious music combined with a gift for melodic writing. Brilliant and majestic, yet profound, this Te Deum (Charpentier wrote four Te deums) was probably composed to celebrate the victory at Steinkerque in August 1692 during the wars against the countries of the League of Augsburg. [The struggle would eventually be in vain; and Strasburg, and the Palatine succession lost to France].

Alpha is now reissuing three recordings from its back catalogue, the first discs of the conductor Teodor Currentzis. An opportunity to discover or rediscover three very different styles, and three facets of the talent of ‘the enfant terrible of classical music’, as Le Figaro called him, for whom ‘music is intended to transport into the waking world the sentiments we feel when we dream’. With their invitation to travel through different periods and territories, these reissues may be appreciated both separately and as a triptych revealing the artistic approach of Teodor Currentzis and his ensemble MusicAeterna, from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (here served by an exceptional cast of singers) to Shostakovich’s Symphony no.14 (conducted like a dance of death) by way of Mozart’s Requiem, the Salzburg composer’s last work, here given an invigorating reinterpretation.

One of the supreme monuments of western sacred music, the Mass in B minor has been constantly reexamined by successive generations of performers. The questions it raises for musicologists and conductors are many and varied; each of them strives to give his or her own reading with the necessary humility. It was in this frame of mind that William Christie tackled the work in the course of a memorable tour in 2016.

Bachs Passions and other great choral works in performances with the Staatskapelle Dresden under the masterly direction of Peter Schreier who also sings the role of the Evangelist. Schreiers aim in Bach interpretation is to bring new lightness without following the full dictates of authentic performance, and in this he succeeds superbly. The recording is first rate, with the choral forces well separated.

10 CDs mit Passionen, Messen und Motetten passend zur Osterzeit . Neben den beiden berühmten Passionen von Bach - der Johannes- und Matthäuspassion - sind weitere hörenswerte Aufnahmen enthalten. Die Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi von de Rore oder den Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae von Zelenka sind hervorragende und selten aufgenommene Werke, interpretiert von herausragenden Künstlern.

Bearing witness to a miraculously preserved and somewhat mysterious musical world, this precious recording reveals a repertory at once sober and refined, moving and poetic, which invites us to open the gates of those convents that, in the midseventeenth century, attracted from Paris and throughout the kingdom a public enthralled by their angelic voices, animated by a single deep and authentic faith which further increased the powerful appeal and the mystery of their singing.

David Bates leads La Nuova Musica in 'Sacrifices', a programme of intensely dramatic oratorios from the mid Baroque. Three poignant tales of denail and sacrifice: St Peter's denial of Christ; Abraham's [narrowly averted] sacrifice of his son Isaac; and the Old Testament story of Jepthe, the hero commander who, before leading the Israelites into battle against the Ammonites, vows to God that if he is victorious, he will sacrifice the first living thing he meets upon his return.
Unfortunately it is his darling daughter, who dances out to greet him with cymbals and flutes. Jepthe must honour his vow…

Couperin’s Trois Leçons de Ténèbres are amongst the small amount of the composer’s sacred music that was published during his lifetime. They are intensely personal, depicting the prophet Jeremiah’s bitter anguish in settings that are quite unique. Also included here are Couperin’s joyful motets Laetentur caeli and Venite, exsultemus Domino, and a remarkable Magnificat.

Vocal music is a reflection of its time, crossing the centuries to reveal emotion, particularly its religious side in which it forms an obvious prayer. Thus, on this recording which begins with Alfonso X. El Sabio all the way to Mozart and Haydn, the Vox Aeterna (Eternal voice) speaks to us, moves us, making itself the intermediary of our own feelings.

This is a set of six previously-released CDs of mostly sacred music by Josquin and his contemporaries. Here you will also find music thought to be by Josquin and Johannes Martini, Eneas Dupré, Elzéar Genet Carpentras, and music (mis)attributed to them in various ways. It’s a splendid set – full of vigour and sophisticated music-making - and can be safely recommended.

Antonín Dvorák's Stabat Mater, Op. 58, truly merits the adjective "tragic"; it was written after the deaths of two of the composer's children in succession, and his grief rolled out in great, Verdian waves. There are several strong recordings on the market, including an earlier one by conductor Jiří Bělohlávek himself, but for the combination of deep feeling, technical mastery from musicians and singers who have spent their lives getting to know the score, and soloists who not only sound beautiful but are seamlessly integrated into the flow, this Decca release may be the king of them all. To what extent was the strength of the performance motivated by Bělohlávek's likely fatal illness (he died days after the album entered the top levels of classical charts in the spring of 2017)? It's hard to say, although he also delivered top-notch performances of Dvorák's Requiem in his last days. The members of the Prague Philharmonic Choir sing their hearts out in the gigantic, shattering opening chorus, which has rarely if ever had such a mixture of the impassioned and the perfectly controlled. Sample the chorus "Virgo virginium praeclara" to hear the magically suspended quality Bělohlávek brings out of the singers in lightly accompanied passages.

When it comes to old Italian vocal music, the Padua-born Italian choir "La Stagione Armonica" under the direction of Sergio Balestracci has repeatedly demonstrated its high musical level: "The sound they produce is extremely appealing in its firm expressiveness and in the way in which Balestracci's interpretive details somehow create a hint of simple but fervent piety, "wrote the press about his album on deutsche harmonia mundi with the responses that Alessandro Scarlatti composed for Holy Saturday.

Both the Biblical Songs and Te Deum are new additions to the Decca catalogue. Live recordings, featuring a stellar line up of soloists. This release concludes the series of Jiří Bělohlávek’s last recordings of Czech masterworks for Decca Classics before he sadly passed away in 2017 “The Czech Philharmonic give their collective all; with the best sound Decca has yet achieved at the Rudolfinum, this can be placed next to Charles Mackerras as the finest modern Asrael.” BBC Music Magazine, Orchestral Choice