Sacred Music: Cornerstone Works of Sacred Music from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century (Harmonia Mundi 30 CD set) LIMITED EDITION [Box set]

Sacred Music - Harmonia Mundi - 30CD Box Set

CD1 Early Christian Chant (5th -13th Century)
Chant, chant, chant! You won't want to listen to this many times unless you are a chant specialist.
CD2 Gregorian Chant
Includes Messe de Requiem gregorienne, Cistercian Chant and Magnus liber organi More chant...
CD3 Birth of Polyphony (1100-1300)
Includes music from Notre-Dame School, hockets from the Bamberg Manuscript, etc., etc. Now it's getting more interesting!
CD4 Polyphonic Motet from Ars Antiqua to the Renaissance
Includes 14th Century English music (Hilliard Ensemble), Dufay, Dunstable, Plummer, and from the Renaissance Desprez, Janequin, Byrd, Gesualdo and Hassler
CD5&6 Polyphonic Mass from Middle Ages to the Renaissance
Machaut - Messe de Notre Dame, Desprez - Missa Pange Lingua, Janequin - Messe `La Bataille'
Lassus - Missa `Tous les regretz', Palestrina - Missa `Viri Galilaei, Byrd - Mass for 4 Voices
CD7 French `Petit Motet' and `Grand Motet'
Dumont, Lully, Delalande and Charpentier Te Deum.
CD8 Lamentations & Tenebrae
Music by Massaino, Lassus, Charpentier, Couperin, and Krenek
CD9/10 Monteverdi Vespro della beata Vergine - Herreweghe
In my opinion not such a good recording as the one by Rene Jacobs, but nice to have to compare.
Also Vespro Solenne by G Rovetta (1596-1668) from Cantus Colln and Konrad Junghanel. This is beautiful!
CD11/12 Alessandro Scarlatti - Cain overo Il Primo Omicidio - Rene Jacobs
A great recording of Scarlatti's oratorio of the story of Cain and Abel. Good orchestral playing, excellent soloists.
CD13/14 Handel - Messiah - Les Arts Florissants, William Christie
A very creditable Messiah. It certainly beats both my Huddersfield Choral Society and my Bernstein version, and comes pretty close to the more exciting Rene Jacobs version. The soloists here are good - Barbara Schlick, Sandrine Piau, Andreas Scholl (excellent), Mark Padmore and Nathan Berg.
CD15/16 Mendelssohn - Paulus - Herreweghe
This work was new to me, and on a single hearing is beautifully performed, if perhaps a little understated.
CD17 Music for the Reformed Church
Music by Sermisy, L'Estocart, Tallis, Purcell, Schutz, Bruhns and a Missa brevis in F by Bach.
The Bruhns cantata made me want to investigate his music further.
CD18&19 Bach - Christmas Oratorio - Rene Jacobs
A simply stunning recording. Soloists are Dorothea Roschmann, Andreas Scholl, Werner Gura and Klaus Hager.
CD20&21 Stabat Mater
On these CDs we get Stabat Maters by Pergolesi (the well known Rene Jacobs/Sebastian Hennig performance), Boccherini (Agnes Mellon/Ensemble 415/Chiara Banchini), Vivaldi (Scholl/Ensemble 415/Chiara Banchini) and Rossini (RIAS Kammerchor/Creed). The Rossini work was new to me, and particularly appealed.
CD22/23/24 Requiem
On three CDs we get the Requiems by Mozart (Herreweghe), Brahms (Herreweghe), Faure (1893 version) (also Herreweghe), and Durufle (Magdalen College Oxford)
CD25/26/27/28 19th & 20th Centuries
Beethoven - Missa Solemnis (Herreweghe), Mendelssohn - various motets, Bruckner - motets
Poulenc - 8 motets & Messe en Sol majeur, Bernstein - Mass - what a gloriously mixed up work - bass guitar meets marching band with a bit of West Side Story and Jesus Christ Superstar thrown in for good measure!
CD29 Orthodox Church Music - 80mins
Various pieces from the 17th & 18th century and Rachmaninov - All Night Vigil Op37 Vespers all superbly sung by the Estonian Chamber Choir.
CD30 PDF file of all the texts

The set is packed in a sturdy box, like previous Harmonia Mundi compilations, and comes with a booklet with 53 pages in English, (as well as French and German) giving historical background to the pieces.

Clearly great value for money if you haven't already got a large number of these recordings, and if you are prepared to lose the satisfaction of having individual CDs to go on your shelf in alphabetical order. To make up for this, if you lay out all these CDs on the floor they combine to make a jigsaw of the 15th Century painting La Passion by Hans Memling! A fairly comprehensive selection of sacred music from the archives of Harmonia Mundi. Some may question their method of recycling their catalogue like this, but with results like this who can complain? Nearly 35 hours of music. A real bargain!

There is no doubt that this is a magnificent set with 29 CDs of wonderful music performed by superb musicians (CD 30 is a CD-ROM of track listing and texts). The extremely helpful list provided here by music-to-my-ears (thank you!) gives a very good overview and just a glance at it shows what a huge collection of brilliant, often landmark, recordings it is.

Do be aware, however, that Harmonia Mundi have not just re-boxed a collection of their finest recordings as, for example, DHM did for their stunning 50th Anniversary Box Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 50 Years (1958-2008) [Box Set]. This is a history of Sacred Music from the earliest known Notre Dame chant through to Bernstein's Mass, with works selected from original CDs and re-grouped. It therefore consists of complete works but not the complete original discs, and some of the works are not as they appeared originally. For example, neither the superlative recording of Josquin's Missa Pange Lingua by Ensemble Clément Jannequin nor Palestrina's lovely Missa Viri Galilei from Philippe Herreweghe has Ensemble Organum's wonderful singing of plainchant propers interspersed as on the original discs (it was the combination that made them so special for me). Many other works here appeared as a part of a larger programme on other CDs so don't assume that you're getting everything from the original disc.

I don't mean this as a criticism - it may not bother you in the slightest - and this set remains a wonderful collection of music at a real bargain price and a fascinating history of sacred music. However, you may want to check out the full track listing: Harmonia Mundi have made that section of the booklet available on their website. (Sorry - I can't put a link into a review here but it's easy to find.) Once you've done that, my advice is to snap it up - it's a fantastic collection.

This is a wonderful set....an historical look at all things musically sacred down the ages. A must for lovers of beautiful music. Bach, Handel, Mendelssohn, Scarlatti, Bernstein - it's all here! Chants, oratorios, motets and moving requiems. Extensive works, wonderful artists, well produced and beautifully presented in a boxed set. Includes helpful 200+ page booklet with historical notes on each piece and information about the composers/artists and the sometimes interesting circumstances in which works were written. Also included is a CD-ROM which contains the sung texts of the vocal works featured, often with the English translation.
This "Cornerstone Works of Sacred Music" is certainly treasure-trove, expressing the beauty of sacred music, and the changing musical expressions of the sacred, over the last 1000 years.