La Chapelle Royale de Versailles, Koopman

Philippe Herreweghe and La Chapelle Royale turning to Josquin, whose music they perform with individuality and seriousness of purpose. It is also that they are concentrating on some of his finest achievements: here, for example, we have not only the miraculous Miserere—the work that the late Edward Lowinsky regarded as music's answer to the Sistine Chapel ceiling—but the six voice Ave nobilissima creatura, the Stabat mater and the psalm Usquequo, Domine.

The large motet 'à la française' is a quite distinctive affair that has nothing in common with the more traditional notion that a composer like Bach, for instance, had of the genre. If a comparison must be made, we will find that the French motet is more like an extended cantata consisting of a succession of choruses and arias accompanied by the orchestra, with the absence of recitative constituting an important difference.

Palestrina's musical output was large, and included not only masses, motets, hymns, and lamentations, but also spiritual and secular madrigals. Indeed the compositional techniques of the madrigal inform mach of Palestrina' work. The controlled emotion of his religious music, the sense of expressive restraint in his word-setting, are owed to his knowledge and experience of the madrigal.

This reading shows the gentleness of the work perfectly…The essence of the score that Herreweghe brings out so well is Mendelssohn's flawless counterpoint, not just the fugal choruses but between orchestra and choir or woodwind and strings. The harmonic richness leaps out from the opening of the overture, with its lush orchestration of the chorale Wachet auf. It makes so much sense on a period orchestra.

Herreweghe's 1990 performance was the first modern reading of Gilles' celebrated Requiem from manuscript, shorn of Andre Campra's beefed up orchestration, and very fine it is. In the style of the French Grand Motet, much of the singing is given to soloists and quite florid - as is the choral work.

It was in 1985 that Philippe Herreweghe made his first recording of the St. Matthew Passion, following a public performance that created a deep impression. Thirty years later, this trailblazing interpretation is still among the top recommendations.