The Netherlands Bach Society and Jos van Veldhoven - Saints & Sinners (1998)

In 1992, the inspired musicologist Frits Noske published the last of his works to appear during his lifetime: Saints and Sinners. Noske called it a minor mir- acle that he, as a researcher, had discovered a genre which had never been studied in its entirety: Latin musical dialogues of the 17th century. The earliest examples of such dialogues appeared around 1600, and the genre had disappe- ared from the musical landscape by the time the century had elapsed. Yet more than 500 of these pieces have survived, the majority of them from Italy, but also a fair number from France, the Netherlands, Poland, and England. Many of the surviving works had not been heard since the 17th century, and had to be lite- rally excavated from musical oblivion.