![]() | Bach Edition: Complete Works [Box Set]
It doesn't take a rocket scientist, or a musicologist, to put Bach first on this list. The Complete Works box is a bargain, especially if you buy it used or from amazon.de. I could consume the rest of this list with Bach's cantatas alone. The Bach Edition performances are top-notch, especially the cantatas.
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![]() | The Ockeghem Collection [Box Set]
Buy new: $29.98 Next to Bach, where he belongs. This is also a huge bargain, with five of Ockeghem's masses performed by the Clerks' Group, who have dedicated their skills to this challenging composer.
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![]() | Ockeghem: Requiem; Missa Fors Seulement
Buy used from: $12.86 Ockeghem wrote the first known requiem mass.
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![]() | Mozart - Requiem / Kirkby · Watkinson · Rolfe Johnson · D. Thomas · AAM · Hogwood by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Buy new: $16.98 / Used from: $2.00 This is a consoling performance of Mozart's Requiem, and perhaps consolation is the truest purpose of both music and religion.
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![]() | Mozart: Requiem in D Minor, K. 626 [Hybrid SACD with CD-ROM track of Mozart's Original Manuscript] by Bernarda Fink
Buy new: $9.98 / Used from: $4.89 Quite a different interpretation of the Mozart Requiem.
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![]() | Brahms: A German Requiem
Buy used from: $3.66 There are many good CDs of the Brahms Requiem. This excellent performance carries a consoling price tag.
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![]() | Pierre de la Rue: Requiem; Antoine Brumel: Requiem by Antoine Brumel
Buy new: $17.98 / Used from: $9.97 Two spectacular pieces of polyphony; more triumphant than mournful.
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![]() | Victoria: Requiem 1605 by The Sixteen
Buy new: $18.98 / Used from: $14.10 The Sixteen's "big choir" sound serves Victoria well.
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![]() | Arvo Pärt: De Profundis
Buy new: $21.98 / Used from: $3.73 Perhaps only a survivor of Soviet repression could write sincerely affective religious music today.
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![]() | Arvo Pärt: Berliner Messe; Magnificat; Summa [Hybrid SACD]
Buy used from: $63.11 There are lots of CDs of Arvo Part these days. In short, he's been discovered, but don't hold that against him. His works bear repeated listening, unlike most minimalists, and show emotional depths that invite interpretations by many performers.
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![]() | Ockeghem: Missa Ecce Ancilla Domini
Buy used from: $149.89 I've already listed the Ockeghem collection. If you've never heard Ockeghem, this mass might be the best to start with.
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![]() | Ockeghem/Obrecht: Masses
Buy used from: $16.71 |
![]() | Jacob Obrecht: Missa Sub Tuum Praesidium; Benedictus in laude; Salve Regina
Buy new: $17.98 / Used from: $10.00 Obrecht transforms his Marian mass into something complex, intriguing, exciting, triumphant. Aside from offering consolation, the Christianity of the Renaissance glorified human aspiration -- humanism! -- a purpose that modern religion has abandoned.
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![]() | Desprez: Missa Pange Lingua /Ensemble Clement Janequin * Ensemble Organum * Peres by Gregorian Chant
Buy used from: $29.95 One of the best CDs of Renaissanc vocal music ever recorded.
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![]() | Morales: Mass for the Feast of St. Isidore of Seville
Buy used from: $15.00 |
![]() | Allegri: Miserere; Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli
Buy new: $21.49 / Used from: $41.70 Music to match the Sistine Chapel.
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![]() | Chanticleer: Magnificat (A Capella Works by Josquin, Palestrina, Titov, Victoria, and Others) by Chanticleer
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $9.99 |
![]() | Palestrina: Lamentations
Buy new: $21.98 / Used from: $10.50 |
![]() | Palestrina: Missa Pro Defunctis; Motets by Chanticleer
Buy used from: $40.77 |
![]() | Music from the Sistine Chapel
Buy new: $16.98 / Used from: $12.37 |
![]() | Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610/Venetian Vespers
Buy new: $9.99 / Used from: $4.41 The Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 is my personal choice for what I'd want the angels to be singing when I arrived in Heaven, if I believed in heaven.
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![]() | Venetian Vespers (Monteverdi * Rigatti * Grandi * Cavalli) /Gabrieli Consort & Players * McCreesh by Research Composer
Buy used from: $6.98 |
![]() | Monteverdi: Selva morale e spirituale
Buy used from: $73.61 Worth even the sky-high price!
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![]() | Vespro della Beta Vergine (Second Vespers for the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin) by Chiara Margarita Cozzolani
Buy new: $21.99 / Used from: $17.99 Cozzolani may have been the greatest woman composer of European history.
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![]() | Handel - Carmelite Vespers 1707 / Feldman · Kirkby · Van Evera · M. Cable · M. Nichols · Cornwell · Thomas · Parrott by George Frideric Handel
Buy new: $10.98 / Used from: $7.35 |
![]() | Chants of the Church of Rome - Vespers for Easter Sunday (Chants de l'Eglise de Rome - Vepres du jour de Paques), 6-13th century /Ensemble Organum * Peres by Marcel Peres
Buy used from: $56.12 The many performances of CHANT by Ensemble Organum are easily the most interesting and moving available, though I speak from experience in saying that chant is always more profound when heard in a Romanesque chapel.
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![]() | Hildegard von Bingen: Vespers from the Abbey
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![]() | Le Manuscrit Du Puy - Les Premieres Polyphonies Francaises by Dominique Vellard
Buy new: $10.98 / Used from: $6.45 The pilgrimage trail from Le Puy to Conques (part of the route to Compostela) is beautiful and tranquil enough to make one lament the degeneration of the religious impulse into mere bigotry and self-satisfaction. I've done it; it was the best hike of my life. Now you could take your i-Pod and hear pilgrimage music all the way.
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![]() | Nigra sum sed formosa: il culto di Maria tra Monastero e Corte
Buy new: $19.98 The cantigas are chiefly miracle narratives. I suspect that their popularity with performers has to do with their jolly naivete and rollicking (unintentional) humor.
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![]() | Lo Mejor de las Cantigas
Buy used from: $59.11 |
![]() | Alfonso El Sabio: Cantigas De Santa Maria / Micrologus by Alfonso El Sabio
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![]() | The Way of the Pilgrim: Medieval Songs of Travel by Carmina Burana Anonymous
Buy used from: $75.00 |
![]() | Llibre Vermell De Montserrat
Buy used from: $22.96 |
![]() | Martin Luther & The Music
Buy new: $11.98 / Used from: $31.41 Lutherans, I haven't forgotten you, but most of you have forgotten your greatest composers aside from Bach: Senfl, Stoltzer, and especially Heinrich Schuetz!
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![]() | Schütz: Psalmen Davids
Buy used from: $33.95 |
![]() | Schütz: Geistliche Chormusik, Op. 11
Buy used from: $14.99 |
![]() | Schütz: Passions; Resurrection History; Dialogues [Box Set]
Buy new: $21.98 / Used from: $17.68 |
![]() | Schütz: Symphoniae Sacrae II; Vater Abraham
Buy used from: $39.98 |
![]() | Awake, O North Wind: German Music from Schütz to Buxtehude
Buy new: $13.98 / Used from: $44.84 |
![]() | Handel - Messiah · Israel In Egypt / Taverner Choir & Players, Parrott
Buy used from: $16.99 No, I can't get away with omitting the Messiah. This is a splendid performance, but only one of many. You probably already have a favorite.
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Listmania!
![Bach Edition: Complete Works [Box Set]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/nav2/dp/no-image-no-ciu._SL75_V46836203_.gif)
![The Ockeghem Collection [Box Set]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61DVQTT7AFL._SL75_.jpg)


![Mozart: Requiem in D Minor, K. 626 [Hybrid SACD with CD-ROM track of Mozart's Original Manuscript]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51NUPeHTbIL._SL75_.jpg)




![Arvo Pärt: Berliner Messe; Magnificat; Summa [Hybrid SACD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61XTWZBEXCL._SL75_.jpg)


























![Schütz: Passions; Resurrection History; Dialogues [Box Set]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519Ah2X%2Br8L._SL75_.jpg)


