Repackaging of existing recordings is an annoying trend in the classical music industry, but make an exception for Harmonia Mundi and its La musique des siècles/A History of Music series. Recordings by top groups have been pulled together into single-disc collections illustrating the major genres from various periods in music history, with special emphasis on the medieval and Renaissance eras that are less familiar to most hearers. You can't go wrong with the Renaissance ensembles represented here: Dominique Visse's ...
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Repackaging of existing recordings is an annoying trend in the classical music industry, but make an exception for Harmonia Mundi and its La musique des siècles/A History of Music series. Recordings by top groups have been pulled together into single-disc collections illustrating the major genres from various periods in music history, with special emphasis on the medieval and Renaissance eras that are less familiar to most hearers. You can't go wrong with the Renaissance ensembles represented here: Dominique Visse's Ensemble Clément Janequin, Philippe Herreweghe's Ensemble Vocal Européen, Marcel Pérès' Ensemble Organum, and Paul Hillier's Pro Arte Singers and Theatre of Voices. This disc purports to cover the "apogee" of Renaissance polyphony; it is actually devoted mostly to the sixteenth century, with earlier discs in the series devoted to the Ockeghem/Obrecht generation. The selection gives a fine introduction to the complex subject of the Renaissance mass, with its various construction principles;...
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