Harry van der Kamp and an expert group of singers and instrumentalists from the Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam have achieved what few specialist ensembles before them have even attempted: a complete survey of the vocal music of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, the ‘Orpheus of Amsterdam’. Sweelinck's reputation has undergone a curious reversal in modern times.Today he has become best appreciated for his teaching and his keyboard works - and for having laid the foundations of the North German organ school which remained influential until the time of JS Bach.Yet, in the 17th century (he died in 1621) he was better known for his vocal output: French chansons, Italian madrigals as well as polyphonic settings of all 150 Psalms. Van der Kamp, a noted teacher and a celebrated soloist himself, directs here the beginning of what plans to be a fitting monument to this Dutch master.This first release on Glossa covers the entirety of Sweelinck's secular vocal works, one of the glories of the young Dutch Republic and which occupied much of his compositional activity in the two decades around the turn of the 17th century.