The CD includes works by famous composers from the epoch of late-Renaissance and Baroque. Claudio Monteverdi, the creator of the first important operas in the history of Europe's art of music, is represented by eight works. The songs and the psalms performed by the Sofia Madrigal Choir, specialised in the interpretation of Renaissance and Baroque music, demonstrate not only Monteverdi's exceptional ability to develop polyphonic compositions but also his mastery of the new emotional style strongly influenced by Italian folklore. Secular or sacred, these works are imbued with a sincere emotion and with the humanistic spirit of the time. They demonstrate a new attitude towards the text set to music and the melodic invention of Monteverdi, who lived and worked in the second half of the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries. Carlo Gesulado, his near contemporary, also created models of madrigal art, sparkling with creative wit and invention, featuring virtuosity and poetry. And next to them ranks the German composer Heinrich Schutz, who laid the foundations of the Baroque style in German music. He is the author of many remarkable sacred works - passions, masses, madrigals, an opera, one ballet, vocal and instrumental opuses. The CD contains some of his secular songs, admirable for their melodiousness and beautiful vocal texture.