Era: 1425-1497 (Renaissance)
Form: Requiem & Mass (Polyphonic)
Score: 82
Thoughts: Just put it on and so far love the multiple voices... which I normally don't immediately connect. It's not too busy and truly angelic. Hoping it feels that way throughout... we'll see... well an update here. I'm about halfway through and it starts losing some of that angelic feel (possibly because it's more fancy meslimatic singing and monophonic on Tractus). Still pretty solid though and would love to see a performance.
Info from Medieval.org:
Ockeghem's Requiem is one of the most famous items in the 15th century Franco-Flemish repertory. Although the polyphony is quite restrained, and often in only two parts, it continues to make a big impact on listeners from all backgrounds. Ockeghem's Requiem is also the earliest polyphonic setting of the requiem mass to have survived, although a now-lost setting by Dufay is thought to have been written earlier.
Ockeghem is somewhat rare among composers of this era to have written his most adventurous & compelling works in the "mass" form. The Missa Prolationum is highly technical in terms of constructing, being based on strict canon, but nonetheless presents a highly interesting listening experience without regard for the technical constraints. This degree of melodic invention continues to set Ockeghem apart from his contemporaries.
This is a relatively large-scale ensemble, featuring both bass & soprano voices. The texture will correspondingly be somewhat more varied than in some Ockeghem performances.
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Era: 1400-1460 (Renaissance)
Form: Chanson
Score: 81.5
Thoughts: Even though I've been exposed to religious music my whole life, early religious music isn't quite the same as today (ain't no swing lo sweet chariot)... anyway the point I'm making is sometimes these Chanson records are a nice break from this time period because they really are early "pop" songs and are the most "recognizable" form from the period - easy to digest instead of a 6 part polyphonic melody, at times really are quite beautiful - but sometimes feel more like a math problem than music (which is can be inspiring too). This was just a nice listen and especially cool because there's varied instrumentation instead of only vocals or vocals accompanied by a single instrument, etc... and I suppose more important to my musical taste - a clear rhythm.
Info from Medieval.org:
A program devoted entirely to Gilles Binchois (c.1400-1460) is certainly welcome, and long-awaited. It would be nice to have a program devoted to Binchois' fairly extensive sacred output as well.
Gilles de Bins, known as Binchois, was born in Mons south of Brussels to a family of privileged background. He was in France early in his career, and then took up the leading position at the court of Burgundy. At the time, this was the most eminent court in Europe, and Binchois' position gave him pride of place. Indeed, his songs from the 1420s-40s survive more widely and in greater number than those of Dufay from that period. Many anonymous songs of the period are also thought to be by Binchois.
Binchois' songs are highly elegant and refined, eschewing much of the more outgoing quality which characterizes Dufay. They are overwhelmingly in three parts, with the upper part given prominence. In addition, Binchois makes use of many passing dissonances in ways his contemporaries rarely did.
Binchois set songs of many of the leading figures of the time, including Christine de Pizan (track #15), Charles d'Orleans, and Alain Chartier (tracks #1, 4, 16). The centrality of Binchois' output has long been overlooked in popular surveys, although it has been acknowledged in musicological surveys. Beyond this, the sheer quality and stunning beauty of his songs makes them an incomparable body of music.
Era: 1200s (Medieval)
Form: Motet, Estampie, Chanson
Score:
Thoughts: Very cool compilation of music out of Paris in the 13th century. Much of which is traditional compositions, but a couple from Gace Brule, Gillebert de Berneville, & Thibaut de Champagne
It's nice to get lost in the drone. It's near meditative... still listening. It's been a while since I've listened to music with a drone and I love the dance the melody makes over it. Hitting it, dancing around it, etc. Overall I wasn't blown away with the compositions or even the performances (although far from bad, just nothing I was emotionally captivated by). Enjoyable listen for sure, but nothing terrible memorable. I feel this kind of music I tend to enjoy more when I can understand the lyrics/meaning of the works - the music often isn't what's important, rather the message of the song. I usually am a music first, but content is important too. I should read more of the text, etc. to appreciate a bit more. Anybody know old French:
Quadruplum:
Trois serors sor rive mer chantent cler
L'aisnée dit a "on doit bien bele dame amer
et s'amour garder, cil qui l'a"
Triplum:
Trois serors sor rive mer chantent cler
La moiene a apelé Robin son ami
"prise m'avés el bois ramé, reportées m'i"
Duplum:
Trois serors sor rive mer chantent cler
La jonete fu brunete de brun ami s'ahati
"je suis brune s'avrai brun ami aussi"
Info from Medieval.org:
This recording presents a nice selection of most of the genres current in France during the height of the 13th century, especially the developing motet. This was quite a dynamic time in the history of music, with the flourishing of the monophonic secular repertory as well as the development of both Latin & French motets (generically compositions with multiple texts) which were to become so influential in their later forms. Instrumental dances are also first preserved from this period. The liner notes of the present release are especially informative in this regard.
Era: 1500s (Renaissance)
Form: Motet
Score: 81
Thoughts: As I was listening to this, the thought hit me for the first time (yes I'm a bit slow), that while previous of polyphony were complex and beautiful, nearly mathematical, this seems to be the first collection where I thought... wait a second, this is like a full symphony, a Capella. It's beautifully written and masterfully performed. Unbelievable what these performers are doing with their voices alone.
Info from Medieval.org:
This performance is by a small, mixed chamber choir. The selection is quite admirable.
This repertory remains the heart of Franco-Flemish polyphony, and by extension, of Renaissance music.
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Era: 1425 (Renaissance)
Form: troubadour
Score: 81
Thoughts: It's been a refreshing vocal differentiation to go from Latin/English/French nearly all the time to German. Possibly because I've studied it from a cultural history/linguistic perspective, but also because it's (I think) the first time a German is a part of this journey since Hildegard von Bingen. It's really no big difference I suppose, but something happens to the flow of the music when different languages are used and I liked this change of pace. Musically it wasn't too different (which made me think how cross-cultural this was back then vs our modern interpretation of it in a cross-cultural world). Anyway I enjoyed it a bit more for that linguistic differentiation, but not immensely more than the French troubadour experiences.
Info from Medieval.org:
German music does not fit the present chronology very well, since it carried what might be called the troubadour style well into the 15th century.
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Era: 1455-1521 (Renaissance)
Form: Mass/religious polyphony
Score: 82
Thoughts: It's funny, I listened to this on the plane ride home last night and thought nearly similar thoughts to this review below. This is near symphony level music at an early stage... kind of pioneers of the music. Very similar timing feel, very similar musical elements. Dude was ahead of his time. I always wonder, though, how much of this is modern interpretation, but alas, that's like wondering what it feels like to be pulled into a black hole, we'll never know. Every piece on here was cerebral in a good way, yet also angelic and enlightening.
From the editorial Amazon review:
Quote:
The Mass was for Renaissance composers what the symphony was for 19th-century composers--the most respected and prestigious musical form. One result of this is that today, most recordings devoted to specific Renaissance composers (as opposed to anthologies) concentrate on Masses, with perhaps a few motets thrown in on the side. Here Harmonia Mundi features nine of Josquin's finest motets, including the limpid Ave Maria/Virgo serena (something of a Renaissance warhorse), Stabat Mater (surprisingly serene for a text about Mary weeping at the foot of the Cross), and the sublime Miserere mei, Deus, a setting of the penitential Psalm 51 for Holy Week built around the tenor voice intoning "miserere mei, Deus" ("have mercy on me, O God") on each note of the scale in succession. Philippe Herreweghe is best known these days for his Bach and Beethoven, but he has a wonderful way with Renaissance music as well. The Paris-based La Chapelle Royale makes a clear, lean sound--somewhat cooler than that of Herreweghe's Belgian choir Collegium Vocale, yet well-suited to Josquin's lucid part-writing. --Matthew Westphal
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Era: 1450-1500 (Renaissance)
Forms: Villotta, Chanson, Frottola, Rondeau, Quodlibet, Mass, Motet, etc.
Score: 81
Thoughts: If you want a good survey of many (if not almost all) music types, composers, etc. from the Franco-Flemish movement, this is a great compilation. Intriguing instrumentation and curation.
Info: a compilation of Franco-Flemish music of the late 15th century.
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Era: 1515 (Renaissance)
Forms: Renaissance/Fantasia/Paraphrase Mass
Score: 82
Thoughts: A symphony of voices. I think I've said this of other late Renaissance music, where insanely complex polyphonic singing starts to die down and instead of impressing with mind-blowing metal guitar scale runs (doh! wrong genre), they impress by creating truly beautiful arrangements. Incredibly soulful in it's musicality instead of nearly only cerebral.
Sit nomen domini ... wow... I literally felt like I was being lifted into heaven or something - it's this loop of slightly louder and louder uplifting music... I think I should have been floating in water and closed my eyes to complete the weightlessness this brought to me.
Info from Medieval.org
The Missa Pange Lingua is believed to be Josquin's last setting, and has become his most popular today. It is, in many ways, his closest to the plainchant on which it is based, showing less artifice than some settings and a general gravity. It is overwhelmingly in four parts, with some duet sections which have become justifiably famous. The overall emphasis on homophonic texture rather than more freely ranging polyphony also serves to make this mass evocative of the later developments of Palestrina et al.
From wikipedia:
Rather than being a summation of his previous techniques, as can be seen in the last works of Guillaume Dufay, Josquin's mass synthesizes several contrapuntal trends from the late 15th and early 16th centuries into a new kind of style, one which was to become the predominant compositional manner of the Franco-Flemish composers in the first half of the 16th century.[3][10]
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