Album: Cappella Amsterdam, Sweelinck: Psaumes Francais & Canciones Sacrae (Harmonia Mundi)

The outstanding Cappella Amsterdam choir turn their attention to their 16th-century homeboy Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, whose intricate vocal settings of both Catholic and Protestant psalms and motets are considered the crowning achievements of Franco-Flemish polyphony.

The choir's cascading harmonies, batted from male to female and back again in Psalm 33, "Resveillez vous chacun fidele", or shifting through sequential repetitions in "Du fonds de ma pensee", have a sublime, intense purity. Ironically, the Latin Catholic verses of "De Profundis" and "Magnificat" employ paradoxically freer, but somehow less opulent, harmonic structures.

Download this: Resveillez vous chacun fidele; Du fonds de ma pensee; Magnificat