Ricercar was founded by the musicologist Jérôme Lejeune in 1980, a good time for the record industry with the arrival of the compact disc just around the corner. As a professor of music history at the Royal Conservatory of Liège, specialising in early music, Lejeune knew a number of musicians in the city who were looking for a record label to work with – including the organist Bernard Foccroulle, the viola da gamba player Philippe Pierlot and the composer Philippe Boesmans. Lejeune set up Ricercar to work with these musicians and many others, sharing in a mission to explore repertoire that had previously been unrecorded. The label was soon renowned for its concentration on early music and for its focus on ‘historically informed’ performance practice, a rapidly evolving movement in the 1980s.

Ricercar’s catalogue now boasts almost 500 titles. Although the label has explored many periods and genres, two threads run through its catalogue. First, a focus on German music of the 17th century, which has resulted in explorations of such composers as Nicolaus Bruhns, Matthias Weckmann and David Pohle. And second, the rich musical heritage of the French-speaking region of Belgium, as the label proudly champions composers ranging from Johannes Ciconia to César Franck, encompassing not only Johannes Ockeghem, Jacques Arcadelt, Roland de Lassus, Henry Dumont and André-Modeste Grétry, but also lesser-known figures such as the Lantins brothers, Johannes de Lymburgia, Mateo Romero and Philippe Rogier.

All this has been possible thanks to close collaboration with the many artists who have joined Ricercar over the years: from Belgium these include Bernard Foccroulle (whose survey of the complete organ works of JS Bach culminated in a 16-disc box-set issued in 2023), the Chœur de Chambre de Namur, Scherzi Musicali (Nicolas Achten), Vox Luminis (Lionel Meunier), Clematis (Stéphanie de Failly) and InAlto (Lambert Colson); those further afield include Doulce Mémoire (Denis Raison Dadre), La Fenice (Jean Tubéry), La Cappella Mediterranea (Leonardo García Alarcón), L’Achéron and François Joubert-Caillet, who recorded the complete works for viola da gamba by Marin Marais, Céladon (Paulin Bündgen), Le Miroir de Musique (Baptiste Romain), Brice Sailly, Yoann Moulin and many others.

Vox Luminis’s recording of Schütz’s Musicalische Exequien (A/11) was Gramophone’s Recording of the Year in 2012, sealing the reputation of this outstanding vocal ensemble. More than a decade later, the same group’s ‘Ein deutsches Barockrequiem’ – a composite Baroque companion to Brahms’s A German Requiem – was Gramophone’s Recording of the Month (6/23).

Benefitting from the support of the Ministère des Arts de la Scène du Ministère de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Ricercar is now owned by the Outhere Music Group, which has enabled the label to secure its distinctive identity and to continue to present exciting discoveries, primarily but not exclusively in early music, as comprehensive packages complete with richly detailed and well-researched booklet notes.