The Tallis Scholars Sing Josquin (2006)

Made in the mid-'80s, these recordings helped establish the reputation of the small, mixed-gender Tallis Scholars as one of the premier vocal ensembles specializing in the unaccompanied choral music of the Renaissance. They are devoted mostly to Josquin's masses, with just two delicious examples, one of them the famed Ave maria...virgo serena, of the composer's motets. The decision to make this reissue a two-disc set was a wise one, for it takes several full examples to really get a grip on what's happening in Josquin's ... Read More

Made in the mid-'80s, these recordings helped establish the reputation of the small, mixed-gender Tallis Scholars as one of the premier vocal ensembles specializing in the unaccompanied choral music of the Renaissance. They are devoted mostly to Josquin's masses, with just two delicious examples, one of them the famed Ave maria...virgo serena, of the composer's motets. The decision to make this reissue a two-disc set was a wise one, for it takes several full examples to really get a grip on what's happening in Josquin's treatment of the mass. Josquin was a genius both as a progressive and as a conservative. His motets and secular songs were novel works that played a major part in forging the modern conception of an indissoluble link between text and music, but many of his masses were based on the cantus firmus principle that was hundreds of years old at the time. Here we get four complete masses: two based on the "L'homme armé" tune that (for reasons still not fully understood) served as cantus firmus... Read Less