The 1997 Ars Musici recording by Musica Fiorita entitled “Music and Poetry from the Time of the Thirty Years’ War” is a fascinating mixture music and recitation. The ensemble’s excellent performance of 17th-century German works is magnified by towering lieder singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who recites selected poems from the period.

It’s not often we get to hear traditional Chinese music next to classical western music. Yet that’s exactly what Jean-Christophe Frisch did in a 2007 Naïve recording entitled “Music of the Jesuits in Beijing.”

Ensembles Musiques des Lumieres and Meihua Fleur de Prunus join forces in a reconstruction of a late 17th-century Catholic mass, including compositions by French missionaries as well as Chinese melodies of the period that were brought back to Paris.