Pia Mora

This spectacular set features a quintessential selection of western sacred music that that will please one and all, from an inquisitive novice to a discerning connoisseur.
It features a vast array of critically acclaimed recordings of more than seventy cornerstone works, ranging from the earliest Christian chants to gospel songs and Gershwin's blues.

A fascinating compilation detailing the highly expressive music of Prince, composer and murderer Carlo Gesualdo - one of history's most colorful figures. Gesualdo's first six books of madrigals remain his best-known music. Gesualdo's daring and forward-looking language was born out of his belief that music must be subservient to textual meaning, and his status as a nobleman allowed him to pursue this position unhindered. Featuring Quintetto Vocale Italiano's pioneering performance of the works, this release movingly traces the development of a composer whose intensely expressive music was centuries ahead of its time.

The blend between the voices is finely controlled, the tone mellow and the tuning spectacularly accurate, giving rise to an organ-like sonority that is genuinely thrilling,” wrote Gramophone magazine, praising the Hilliard Ensemble’s four singers, who excelled in an extraordinary variety of music over a 40-year career. This seven-CD collection extends from the Middle Ages to the Baroque, offering music by composers from England, France, Flanders and Germany.

A fascinating compilation detailing the highly expressive music of Prince, composer and murderer Carlo Gesualdo - one of history's most colorful figures. Gesualdo's first six books of madrigals remain his best-known music.

Following the acclaim which met their 2-CD set devoted to the first two books of Gesualdo's madrigals (2020 Gramophone Award), Paul Agnew and Les Arts Florissants now focus on the composer's Ferrara period. Books III and IV mark a turning point in Gesualdo's output. The murderous prince's inner demons seem to be reflected in the heightened expressiveness of these madrigals, whose reliance on chromaticism and dissonance was so far ahead of it's time that it's like would not be heard again until centuries later.