JOSQUIN Des Prez (c.1445-1521)
Miserere mei Deus: Funeral Motets and Deplorations
Deploration sur la mort d’Ockeghem. Nymphes de bois/Requiem aeternam [3:30]
Nimphes, nappes/Circumdederunt me [2:19]
In principio erat Verbum [9:02]
Absolve quaesumus, Domine [3:40]
Absolon fili mi [3:30]
Planxit autem David [13:17]
De Profundis/Requiem aeternam [4:33]
Miserere mei, Deus [14:46]
Pater noster/ Ave Maria [7:05]
Nicolas GOMBERT (c.1495-c.1560)
Musae Jovis [5:20]
Capella Amsterdam/Daniel Reuss
rec. 2018, de Waalse Kerke, Amsterdam
HARMONIA MUNDI HMM902620 [66:10]
I’m a big fan of Daniel Reuss’s work with Capella Amsterdam, though everything I’ve heard of their music has been in later Romantic and modern repertoire. Their Brahms was remarkable for the focused tightness of their sound, while their Beethoven Missa Solemnis was a really outstanding version of a classic. Arvo Pärt’s Kanon Pokajanen, on the other hand, was spellbindingly spiritual, with some dazzling singing used to enhance a modern work’s religious vitality.
Happily, those same qualities are brought to bear on this disc of Renaissance polyphony, to equally marvellous effect. This disc is ostensibly a collection of Josquin’s mourning music, but it is anything but morose. In fact, it’s a collection of reflections on death that focus on spiritual contemplation and renewal, with some surprisingly positive moments.
Take In Principio, for example: it’s a setting of the first few verses of John’s Gospel, which famously state that “In the beginning was the word.” That sounds like an odd choice of texts for a funeral, but it lifts the eyes (and ears) above the coffin and towards God’s eternal purposes. Josquin matches the text with music that’s clean and dark-hued. It’s bass-heavy, but that’s never a drag: in fact, it suits Capella Amsterdam’s basses very well indeed, and it’s also the first point of the disc where the glorious resonance of the acoustic really plays a part: the Waalse Kerke of Amsterdam can seldom have borne witness to such intensely beautiful singing, reaching a transcendent climax at the words “et verbum caro factum est”, the moment where the word becomes flesh.
There is also unusual musical optimism in the major-key setting of Nimphes, nappes, and Absolon fili mi feels like a meditation rather than a setting of desolation. Furthermore, there are other moments where the dense setting clears markedly for key pieces of text, like the “Requiescat in pace” that ends Absolve quaesumus, Domine.
Even Planxit autem David, David’s large-scale lament for Saul and Jonathan, is contemplative rather than desolate, and the multiple layers of the De Profundis ring around one another bewitchingly. There is an unaffected simplicity to his setting of the Miserere, which is entirely out of keeping with the work’s polyphonic complexity, and that’s also true of the combined Pater noster and Ave Maria setting.
It’s a lovely touch to end the disc with a memorial written for Josquin himself by Nicolas Gombert, and even lovelier that in it Gombert borrows music from Josquin’s Nimphes, nappes, but transposed down so as to give it more of a mood of mourning. It’s clever, but also very effective, and gives the disc a pleasing symmetry.
The singing throughout this lovely disc is characterised by pinpoint precision and the most impeccable blend; but, perhaps even more importantly, it doesn’t draw attention to its technical skill. Instead, the sound draws the listener’s attention away from the performers and towards the music (and, by extension, the composer himself). Daniel Reuss’s direction is unshowy and gets things done with remarkable focus behind the scenes. The rich sound of their Romantic repertoire is brought to bear most effectively. Fans of Renaissance polyphony need not hesitate.
Simon Thompson
Previous reviews:
John Quinn ~ Michael Cookson
