A treasure-house of the grand master of sixteenth-century musical calligraphy, the choirbooks of Petrus Alamire contain some stupendous and hitherto unpublished polyphonic works. Through the hand of the dedicated humanist that was Alamire – famous as a “guardian of the books” and as a spy within the most influential courts of the Renaissance, including those of Marguerite of Austria in Malines, Henry VIII of England and Charles V – the Huelgas Ensemble and Paul Van Nevel trace a portrait of this brilliant humanist in a programme that will take you to the very heart of the secrets of Renaissance polyphony.

On the death of Anne of Brittany, her husband King Louis XII honoured her with exceptional funeral ceremonies lasting forty days, which sealed forever her image as Queen of France and Duchess of Brittany. As he prepared this programme centring on the Missa pro defunctis of Antoine de Févin, and read the exceptionally vivid narrative by the herald of Anne of Brittany (whom her subjects nicknamed simply ‘Bretaigne’!), Denis Raisin Dadre realised that beyond all this official mourning staged by the royal authority, there was also a silent sorrow, that of the Bretons who had lost their duchess and were also in the process of losing their duchy’s independence.

Auf »The Landscape of the Polyphonists« präsentieren das Huelgas Ensemble und Paul Van Nevel auf zwei fantastischen CDs den intensiven melancholischen und imitatorischen Stil der französisch-flämischen polyphonen Musik und erkunden, wie die Musik durch den besonderen Charakter der Landschaft, in der jeder Komponist sein Leben verbrachte, geprägt wurde. 24 ausgewählte Landschaftsaufnahmen und Bilder von flämischen Kathedralen und ihrer Umgebung versetzen den Zuhörer in die Welt der flämischen Länder der Renaissance, während das Huelgas Ensemble die Werke von außergewöhnlichen Komponisten wie Antoine Busnois, Nicholas Gombert, Josquin Desprez sowie von weniger bekannten, aber ebenso bemerkenswerten Komponisten wie Josquin Baston, Jean l’Héritier oder Jean Mouton aufführt. Das Publikum kann die komplexe Wechselwirkung zwischen historischen Landschaften, Architektur und Musik an ihren jeweiligen Herkunftsorten unmittelbar erleben.

This Requiem is known in five sources; two of them mention no composer, two attribute it to Antoine de Févin, one, the Occo Codex, to Antoine Divitis. It is recorded here in the version transmitted by an early sixteenth-century manuscript, the Occo Codex, a sumptuous, richly illuminated volume. The book was originally intended for use in worship at one of the oldest churches in Amsterdam, built in the fourteenth century on the site of a miracle which played a fundamental role in constituting the religious identity of Amsterdam. Occo was the name of the rich merchant who financed the production of the manuscript.

An important contribution to our understanding of the ‘gentle master musician.’ Stephen Rice brings perceptive musical insights to these accounts, and also sheds light on Févin’s idiom in the excellent CD booklet. His vocal ensemble may be slender but the singing is robust and buoyantly articulated. Boyish upper voices offset velvety tenors and basses, and the relatively close recording perspective produces a sound at once lucid and lustrous.