On this, the first release from Resonus Classics sub-label Inventa Records, award-winning choral ensemble Alamire under its director David Skinner, performs the large-scale motets of Hieronymus Praetorius (1560–1629).

The large-scale works of Hieronymus Praetorius owe much to the great polychoral tradion mastered by Hans Leo Hassler and the great Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli. Hieronymus does not disappoint with his vivid expression of texts, intricate counterpoint, and sumptuously sonorous and inventive harmonies: this is Northern Germany’s noble response to the Italians, and to the Roman Counter-Reformation.

The programme displays his creavity and ingenuity across a number of compositional forms, from the grand polychoral works (performed here with various combinations of cornetts and sackbuts with organ connuo) solo choir and instrumental items, to plainchant alternatim featuring the great historical organ at Denmark’s Roskilde Cathedral.