'O Rosa Bella' is the title of two popular 15th-century chansons, the earlier composed by Johannes Ciconia and the latter originally attributed to John Dunstable, but now to John Bedyngham. The text is based on a poem written by Leonardo Giustiniani (1300-1446): 'O lovely rose, My sweet soul; Let me not die In courtly love.' More than 20 works were based on this popular theme by composers including Johannes Ockeghem, and a Mass attributed to Gilles Joye. Born around 1420, in the Belgian town of Courtai, Joye worked as a singer and lived beyond his means. Having taken up a prestigious ecclesiastical post in Bruges, he was sent by the church fathers on a pilgrimage in order to atone for misdemeanors, but he continued to accumulate debts which compelled him to sell all his possessions; he died in penury. The song which Joye took as the basis for his Mass circulated widely during the 15th century; by a curious coincidence, Rosabella was also the name of Joye's lover with whom he lived openly (and imprudently). The recording follows performance practice of the time by using only male voices doubled by instruments for the two Masses and mixed voices for the Chansons. The chosen instrumentation includes shawm, slide trumpet, sackbut, cornetto, recorder, lute, gothic harp and psaltery: an authentic but richly colored ensemble. Although there are previous recordings of the Mass and the chansons, all the music recorded here has been newly transcribed from original sources by two of it's performers, Min J. Kim and David Brutti. The recording took place in the Umbrian church of San Francesco in Trevi, where the original organ survives, dating from 1508, and thus retaining a sound-world that resembles one known to the likes of Dunstable and Joye.

Curious, open-minded, fascinated by other cultures, Ondrej Adámek assimilates every aesthetic whose path he crosses. His works reveal all these influences, stamping them with a very individual sound colour that, combined with a powerful rhythmic sense and solid formal solid architecture, creates highly personal music by no means exempt from dramaturgy. Adámek seeks out specific playing techniques for classical instruments and creates new and original instruments. Here the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain under the direction of Daniel Kawka lays before us an eclectic panorama of his music, from the ritualised, even mechanised sinuosities of a lullaby to the disconcerting mechanism of the strange musical machines he invents, which he does not hesitate to place in front of the orchestra.