A Secret Labyrinth: A Celebration of Music from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance

MARBECKS STAFF PICK: REISSUE CD OF THE YEAR 2009

Featuring the Huelgas Ensemble's famous and now deleted recording of the so-called "Earthquake" mass by Antoine Brumel, this 15 CDs boxset includes some of the most prestigious recordings available on the Sony Classical VIVARTE label and sheds light on this long-forgotten music that too often seems to lie in dark corners of European archives and libraries.

Paul van Nevel, choirmaster, musicologist, and cultural historian founded the Huelgas Ensemble in the early 1970's at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. The Ensemble has emerged as one of Europe's main vocal ensembles dedicated to the performance of music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Van Nevel has won a number of prestigious awards for his recordings with the Huelgas Ensemble. Their recording of the music of Renaissance composer Mattheus Pipelare, Pipelare: Missa "L'homme armé" , won the 1998 Cannes Classical Award for Best Choral Music, in addition to the Diapason d'or in 1996. Previous albums, including their critically acclaimed Utopia Triumphans, have accumulated similar accolades. Van Nevel has also been awarded the "Prix In Honorem" from the Académie Charles Cros in Paris.