"Mayr's Masses were in demand across Europe, and their composition is rooted in the Italian tradition of the messa concertata which demands division into separate vocal numbers. The Mass in E minor has long been recognised as an outstanding example of Mayr's late style, with its polyphonic mastery and dialogues between singers and concertante solo instruments being exceptionally convincing. The Mass in F minor evokes both joy and deep melancholy, though accompanied, as always, by Mayr's notable gift for melodic beauty."

The winner of numerous prestigious prizes, including several Gramophone Awards, the vocal ensemble Vox Luminis, founded by Lionel Meunier in 2004, is now regarded as a benchmark in the interpretation of the great works of German Baroque music. Its unfailingly faithful and lively approach to such masters as Bach, Buxtehude and Scheidt has made the group’s reputation, but this new recording features a major work by Heinrich Biber, a composer hitherto absent from its discography: his Requiem in F minor for 14 voices, composed around 1692. The programme is completed by two sacred works by Christoph Bernhard (Herr, nun lässest du deinen Diener in Friede fahren and Tribularer si nescirem misericordias tuas), two pieces by Johann Joseph Fux, and the Sonata a 6 in A minor of Johann Michael Nicolai.

The Memory of Trees is the fourth studio album by the Irish singer, songwriter, and musician Enya, released on 20 November 1995 by WEA. After travelling worldwide to promote her previous album Shepherd Moons (1991), and contributing to film soundtracks, Enya took a short break before she started writing and recording a new album in 1993 with her longtime recording partners, arranger and producer Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan. The album is Enya's first to be recorded entirely in Ireland, and covers themes that include Irish and Druid mythology, the idea of one's home, journeys, religion, dreams and love. Enya continues to display her sound of multi-tracked vocals with keyboards and elements of Celtic and new age music, though Enya does not consider her music to be in the latter genre. She sings in English, Irish, Latin and Spanish.

In 1968, six former choral scholars from King’s College, Cambridge established the King’s Singers, later described by The Times as “the superlative vocal sextet”. The group has always comprised two countertenors, a tenor, two baritones and a bass, and over the years it has proved consistently exceptional for vocal distinction and breadth and diversity of repertoire. This celebratory collection of eight CDs focuses on Renaissance composers from Italy, England, France, Spain, Germany and the Low Countries.

The first disc from El Concierto Español, the orchestra founded by the violinist Emilio Moreno (who is both a founding member of Frans Brüggen’s Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and a great champion of Spanish music) is dedicated to one of the most important composers of the 18th century in Spain, Francisco Corselli. Of Italian origin, Corselli spent a considerable part of his career working for the Spanish court, to which he brought the opera seria which was enjoying so much success elsewhere in Europe at the time.

Michael Haydn’s colourful and inventive music is uplifting and expressive in equal measure, but his music has been eclipsed by that of his elder brother Joseph, and by Mozart. Sacred music is central to Michael Haydn’s oeuvre and was considered by some contemporary critics as superior to Joseph’s. Encompassing a broad range of textures and styles, parts of the Missa Sancti Nicolai Tolentini demonstrate Haydn’s music at its most exhilarating and energetic, and his supreme gift for empfindsames (‘sensitive’) lyrical writing is also to be heard in the Vespers.

The performances on this lovely album of vocal and instrumental music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier make it a recording that should delight the composer's fans and anyone who loves the music of the Baroque. Listeners should be warned that the packaging and even the composer's titles create expectations of music of a very different character from what is actually presented. The three Leçons de Ténèbres of the title, scored for bass and chamber orchestra, refer to baleful texts taken from the Lamentations of Jeremiah describing the fall and abasement of Jerusalem, and were written for services on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of Holy Week, the darkest days in the Christian liturgical calendar.

A selection of monumental Roman works from the Cappella Sistina music manuscripts in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana dating from the time of popes Julius II, Leo X, and Clement VII (1503-1534). This CD, recorded for Pure Classics/Glissando, was produced to be sold at the exhibition titled "Hochrenaissance im Vatikan (1503-1534). Kunst und Kultur im Rom der Päpste I" shown at the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in Bonn, Germany, in the year 1998. It is Pomerium's most popular recording. Includes such classic's of Renaissance sacred music as Josquin's Benedicta es, celorum regina and Virgo salutiferi, Mouton's Tua est potentia, Carpentras's Lamentationes Jeremie, and Willaert's Enixa est puerpera.

The great composer Jean-Baptiste Lully deployed all his musical science in his grand motets to express intense emotion; Madame de Sévigné said: "all eyes were filled with tears". With their large chorals, small ensembles, trios, duets, solos and orchestral symphonies, these large religious compositions are representative of the pomp deployed at Louis XIV's court, at the service of the monarch's absolute power. If O Lachrymae fideles, composed in winter 1664, goes from contained emotion to jubilant dance, the two other motets are deeply solemn.

Monteverdi’s “Vespro della Beata Vergine” was published in 1610, together with his “Missa in illo tempore”. This edition is his first important collection of music for the Catholic service, although there is much uncertainty about how it came into being. In fact, it is a collection of various pieces which were most likely not conceived together as a self-contained unit.

Andrew Nethsingha and The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge release the second volume in the highly praised ‘Magnificat’ series, presenting nine settings of the Evening Canticles by celebrated Organist-Composers, written between 1932 and 1952 and non-church musicians from 1974-1989.

The critically-acclaimed ensemble Mala Punica came into the limelight by the mid-Nineties with three illustrious, multi-award winning discs on Arcana, which revolutionized the world of medieval music: Ars subtilis Ytaliaca, D’Amor ragionando and En attendant.

The critically-acclaimed ensemble Mala Punica came into the limelight by the mid-Nineties with three illustrious, multi-award winning discs on Arcana, which revolutionized the world of medieval music: Ars subtilis Ytaliaca, D’Amor ragionando and En attendant. We have here what looks to be the last of Mala Punica's series on the Arcana label, and the most sophisticated yet. This is based on a program made up of pieces which quote others, and the resulting web of allusions is quite sophisticated, as is the literary style of the liner notes. Quite a nut to crunch.

The Codex Faenza 117 features the richest instrumental variations of medieval plainchant masses and offices that have come down to us, including three pairs of Kyrie-Gloria settings, a ceremonial motet and several sections of a Marian office. Mala Punica’s ground-breaking recording of this repertoire has shown different possible combinations between voices and—mostly keyboard—instruments to be suitable for the repertoire. The program stages five voices and five instrumentalists.

If you love medieval vocal music, you'll be fascinated by this unusual collection of mass movements written by two Italian composers– Matteo and Zaccara–that are juxtaposed and organized both to contrast their styles and to make programmatic sense. There's lots of fancy ornamentation and there are many dramatic moments, as well as sections of sweet, gentle lyricism–listen to Matteo's "Gloria," sung with heart- rending tenderness by soprano Jill Feldman. The singers are alternately accompanied by recorder, harp, fiddle, bells, and organ.