Desprez: De profundis - Motets

Cordes, Manfred, Weser-Renaissance Bremen

CPO 777 588-2

Following Josquin's mass Ave maris stella (jpc 571 78 85), WESER-RENAISSANCE Bremen under Manfred Cordes now turns to a selection of psalm settings by the same composer. »Lord, hear my voice!« This appeal to God formulated in Psalm 129 could hardly express with greater clarity what it was that fascinated composers around 1500 about psalm composition. Josquin Desprez, not only one of the first but also one of the most influential among them, assumed the task of Latin psalm composition and like many after him chose psalms with a first-person perspective. Endowed with a musical setting rich in associations, these highly literary priestly poems develop an immense symbolic intensity. Along with his early works, Josquin's fully dimensioned »Miserere mei, Deus« (on Psalm 50) is one of his most famous motets – if not one of his most important works of all. It is 425 breve values long and thus one of the longest and most-difficult-to-perform motet works from his compositional phase around 1500. As in the case of their first Josquin CD, »High respect is to be paid to Manfred Cordes and his musicians for the stylistic precision and sensitive touch with which they treat their repertoire. Uncompromising enlisting of excellent technical skills on behalf of the particular work of art, finding the right musical language for each one, and not for a single second placing themselves too conspicuously in foreground as interpreters: this distinguishes Manfred Cordes and his Weser-Renaissance Bremen ensemble in a special way« • (klassik-heute. de 03 / 12).

CD

20.08.2012

761203758821