Pierre de la Rue: Requiem; Antoine Brumel: Requiem (2005)

The music on this disc isn't commonly heard; most of the Requiem by Antoine Brumel, according to the booklet notes, has never been recorded before. That places the music in the category of real finds. For reasons that are imperfectly understood, the Office for the Dead or requiem mass was seldom set polyphonically during the Renaissance, and the few examples that do exist show recognizable chains of influence. The two masses here, by Pierre de la Rue and Brumel, date from perhaps around 1500 and have the gloomy, low-voiced ... Read More

The music on this disc isn't commonly heard; most of the Requiem by Antoine Brumel, according to the booklet notes, has never been recorded before. That places the music in the category of real finds. For reasons that are imperfectly understood, the Office for the Dead or requiem mass was seldom set polyphonically during the Renaissance, and the few examples that do exist show recognizable chains of influence. The two masses here, by Pierre de la Rue and Brumel, date from perhaps around 1500 and have the gloomy, low-voiced Requiem of Johannes Ockeghem in the background. The two composers react in completely different ways to Ockeghem's example. La Rue extends Ockeghem's language, keeping the low range and augmenting it with unexpected contrasts such as the reduction to an upper duet in the "Sicut cervus" psalm. Brumel, on the other hand, simplifies the texture, pointing toward the new clarity Josquin would forge. His mass seems at times almost like a harmonization of the requiem chants, but it... Read Less