Sacred music for girls' (women's) choir with organ can almost only be found in France in the period of late Romanticism and early Modernism.

This repertoire, influenced by French Catholicism, is presented by the girls' choir of the Cantus Juvenus singing school in Karlsruhe under the direction of Peter Gortner with wonderful lightness and beauty of sound.

The centrepiece is the Messe basse, a youthful work by Gabriel Fauré, whose simple clarity makes it easy to imagine in a French nunnery. A series of five other motets by Fauré complement the mass.

The most significant work on the recording is the Litanies à la Vierge Noire, which Francis Poulenc wrote during a stay in the face of the Black Madonna figure of Rocamadour, to whose convent he had withdrawn in 1936 during a serious crisis.

Furthermore, motets by Claude Debussy, Lili Boulanger, Maurice Duruflé and Jean Langlais can be heard.

The girls' choir is accompanied by Carsten Wiebusch on the great Klais organ of the Christuskirche in Karlsruhe, who complements the programme with works for solo organ by Messiaen, Alain and Dupré.