Des Prez: The Complete Masses, Vol.1

Featuring

Tetsuro Hanai
Naomi Hanai
Ichiro Negishi
Mari Ono
Vocal Ensemble Cappella
Antoine Brumel

Josquin des Prez
Johannes Ockeghem

Did you know?

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Josquin des Prez had a tendency to impose certain constraints on his compositions, and his Missa D'ung aultre amer may have been an experiment in what kind of music could be created using a cantus firmus in a pure form.

Compositional Technique

Josquin des Prez's Missa Mater patris is unusual for its time, with nearly one-third of the work consisting of homophonic chord blocks, a rare feature in the polyphonic Renaissance era.

Historical Context

The rondeau 'D'ung aultre amer' by Johannes Ockeghem, which Josquin used for his Missa D'ung aultre amer, was a 15th-century 'top hit' chanson, widely circulated and arranged.

Composition History

Josquin's Missa Mater patris is a 'parody mass' based on a motet by Antoine Brumel, a contemporary French composer, extending its elements into a larger four-voice framework.

Interpretation

Vocal ensemble Cappella, founded in 1997, aims to revive the true essence of Renaissance Flemish sacred music by recreating historical performance practices, including singing around a choir book and focusing on appropriate pronunciation and vocalization.

Compositional Technique

The unusual harmonies in Josquin's Missa Mater patris are based on 'fauxbourdon,' a 15th-century improvisational technique where parallel melodies are sung at intervals of a fourth and sixth below a Gregorian chant.

Composition History

Some scholars believe Josquin's Missa Mater patris was composed as a lament for Antoine Brumel, a great composer who died around 1512, given its publication shortly after his death and its solemn character.