T HE aim of this study is twofold: first, to offer an overview of the main trends in recordings of the music of Luca Marenzio, and second, to update my previously published discography of the composer, which covered 71 recordings up to and including 1987.1 As with most composers of his period, the recording history of Marenzio belongs essentially to the second half of the 20th century. However, the few earlier examples from the 78 rpm era are of great interest for discographers in terms of choice of repertory and the performing resources used. The earliest pieces to be recorded and sold commercially were some of the now better-known motets. This sonic image of Marenzio as a 'sacred' composer would soon be replaced by Marenzio the madrigalist; however, in terms of the sacred works, and with the exception of more recent recordings, the same pieces have recurred time and time again. And, as we shall see, whether for his sacred output or his secular, the spread of Marenzio's works by way of recordings tended for decades to focus on just one aspect of his output by way of a narrow selection of settings. The situation here is akin to the appearance of his works in concert programmes or in modern printed editions.2 It is the recurrence of these pieces that has prompted the patchy knowledge of the composer's output. Moreover, recordings-rather than editions-established reference points for future performances, tending to produce a repetitive repertory and a uniform manner of performance. The first known dated recording of Marenzio comes from November 1924: the motet Innocentes pro Christo [2, 9] (numbers in square brackets refer to entries in my 1988 discography) performed by the choir of the Societa Polifonica Romana directed by Raffaele Casimiri. The November of the following year saw recordings of Estote fortes [lo] and O Rex gloriae [1, 11]. Later we find both Innocentes pro Christo and Estote fortes recorded by the choir of the Cappella Giulia directed by Ernesto Boezi [4, 51. In the midst of this first group of recordings, there is just one (by an unspecified group of performers) of