Josquin: Missa L'homme Arme

Oxford Camerata, Summerly, Jeremy

8.553428

Where and what Desprez wrote is an argument that still provide scholars with much to deliberate. Why is there just one work, the Ave Maria which opens this disc, written before 1485 when his known output began? If the reasonable guess of his birth date as being 1440, that would place the Ave Maria in his thirty-sixth year. Though a work of some stature, it is hardly a masterpiece from a highly acclaimed composer. Was he born much later and that Josquin in Milan is, after all, another person? The Missa L'homme armé probably dates from the late 1490's and forms part of a number of Masses he composed around that time. It is in five sections, into which the conductor has introduced the Laeta Dies. The Credo is a well worked section of considerable length for that period, but the remaining parts of the Mass are of an uneventful nature, which is making modern musicologists reexamine Josquin's apparently high ranking in the musical world in the early part of the 16th century.
The booklet accompanying the disc details modern thoughts as to the origin of Absalon fili mi. Whatever its inception, it is a particularly beautiful and serene lament, that would fit a date from the end of the 16th century.
The disc ends with the Lament on the death of Josquin by Jheronimus Vinders, a composer born in Flanders of whom nothing is known. Whether he even knew Josquin we do not know, but the composition is one of deep compassion.

CD

23.03.1998

730099442824