Desolata Est The Ebor Singers Directed by Paul Gameson Organ: Robert Poyser

SOLD OUT Cat No: CLOCD0701

This disc presents an anthology of seventeenth century sacred works whose texts are thematically associated with human frailties, suffering and God's intercession, and man's mortality and hope for the life to come: while such texts are not as exclusively bleak as the title of this collection suggests, they have prompted expressive responses from composers through the centuries, not least in the turbulent years of the seventeenth century that saw much religious, political and social change.

Historically, the works included here cover music by Catholic and Protestant composers, from the late flowering of the Renaissance in England (Byrd, Morley), the dissemination of Italian ideas through Europe in the 1610s-50s (Carissimi, Schütz, Lawes), and the establishment of the oratorio in France at the end of the century.

This was the choir's first disc. The recording was made in the National Centre for Early Music, York, in January and February 2001.