A good deal about the life of Marc-Antoine Charpentier, without a question the greatest master of 17th-century French sacred music, remains unknown to us. Charpentier's masses cannot be reduced to a common denominator. The mass Assumpta est Maria, with a prayer for the health of the king following on the Agnus Dei, calls for a larger orchestra along with the six parts of the choir. In contrast, the employment of orchestral and vocal resources in both masses on this recording remains at a more modest level.

On this recording selections from the two organ masses composed by the great harpsichordist François Couperin for use in parish churches and in cloister churches are heard at those placed in the Easter mass. The alternation of organ playing and singing is a practice which has been attested since the late 14th century. It did not experience a real flourishing, however, until the France of the second half of the 17th century. In 1690 François Couperin obtained permission to print both his organ masses. Each of these two masses contains 21 pieces assigned to the various units in the ordinary of the mass. Couperin prescribed the registration for these pieces in exact terms, as is the case, for example, in the dialogue between trumpet and cromorne in the Messe pour les Paroisses.