Franco-Flemish Renaissance master Orlande de Lassus composed The Tears of Saint Peter (1593–1594), dedicated to Pope Clement VIII: it was the final work of Lassus and considered, by some, the absolute summit of the 16th-century Italian madrigal.
Renowned composers whose works have appeared in other collected editions, such as Josquin des Prez, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, and Orlande de Lassus, are generally excluded from the set.
Some of the composers who set Infelix ego to music include Adrian Willaert (he was the first to set it directly); Cipriano de Rore; Nicola Vicentino; Simon Joly; Orlande de Lassus, working in Munich; Lassus's student Jacob Reiner; and in England, William Byrd.
Orlande de Lassus was considered the master of mascheratas, and he wrote many of his pieces (mostly madrigals) while in Rome, which saw the birth of madrigals, and more specifically mascheratas.
These discs, mostly for the Supraphon label, included a great many world premiere recordings of composers such as Dufay, Ockeghem, Obrecht, and Jacobus Gallus, as well as of more frequently performed masters such as Palestrina, Lassus, Monteverdi, Dowland, Tallis, and Orlando Gibbons.
The enormous work impressed many of its listeners, beginning in Munich, where Orlande de Lassus was in attendance; the event was similar to one a year later, described by Massimo Troiano, in which another Striggio piece for 40 voices was heard.
In 2011, the ensemble recorded The Kings of Tharsis: Medieval and Renaissance Music for Epiphany, which highlights some previously unrecorded works of Orlande de Lassus, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Guillaume Dufay, and John Sheppard.