The CD Sacrum convivium presents a vision of French music over two millennia: from Gregorian chant through Guillaume de Machaut’s extraordinary Lai de Nostre Dame to the twentieth century of Maurice Duruflé, Francis Poulenc and Olivier Messiaen ; all three of them influenced in some way by the spirituality and sensibility of Gregorian chant, which Messiaen himself described as the greatest treasure we possess in western music.