The sacred-music production of Ippolito Ghezzi, an Augustinian friar who lived between the seventeenth century and the eighteenth, is collected almost in full in this box set containing the complete edition of his Oratorios, Psalms and Lamentations for the Holy Week.

A fresh, inspired writing and a sober, but not austere style are the mainstays of the composer’s approach to the great Biblical episodes (Abrahm and Isaac, David and Goliath, etc.): the intention of this music is to reach the listeners’ understanding in a direct (and sometimes also dramatic) way, unfailingly guiding them towards a conversion to faith.

The Cappella Musicale di San Giacomo Maggiore in Bologna deserves our praise for the rediscovery of such an excellent musician.