Josquin Masses — The Tallis Scholars
Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie, Missa D'ung aultre amer & Missa Faysant regretz

[4.11.2020]


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Gimell  051
2020














[4.11.2020]

[19.11.2020]

medieval.org Remarks

http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/cds/remarks.html
16 November 2020
Todd M. McComb

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I guess there are plenty of distractions in the world at the moment, but it was only recently that I "noticed" that next year is a major Josquin anniversary! I saw one release announced, then another, thinking it was a coincidence, then a couple more &... wait a minute. Anyway, this seems like an event that I need to cover in this space, especially since I've generally been frustrated with the Josquin discography to this point. Maybe next year it'll be transformed for the better.....

And while their performances had been appealing, including as exemplifying the next generation of conservatory technique, the programs have generally been of the motley sort, and so haven't really grabbed me in terms of exploring repertory (as opposed to refining technique). When it comes to this "medieval Florentine garden" though, most programs continue to involve a variety of composers & sources anyway, and so a mixed program seems normal — & in this case, actually more focused than most of their previous releases (which have been thematic). And even the sacred tracks bring something compelling here, seeming to fit right into the program as a whole....

I'm consequently going to freeze that section of my "personal list" for a while, with the further hope that there'll be a surplus of fine items from which to choose, and why choose too soon? I'll review items here as they arrive, though, with an eventual update on "favorites" at some point.... The 500th anniversary of his death also provides an impetus to take stock of the Josquin biography, and that remains vague: Much like Shakespeare, maybe people will never learn a satisfying amount about the man's life, and indeed the various musical masterpieces in a variety of styles suggest a chameleon-like personality (or even a pseudonym for multiple authors, although I'm not making that suggestion seriously).

And for the most part, Josquin didn't write a series of great works in a particular idiom, but rather a large set of "isolated" great works (many with lesser companions) across a range of styles. That's perhaps most true of the motets, where Josquin practically defined a new stylistic range based on text & context, such that his masterpieces sound unique, but of the masses as well, with the several mature masterpieces being rather different from each other. But what continues to amaze is that Josquin interpretations have been lagging those of his contemporaries for compelling quality for some time now: There are no notable programs of motets, for instance, with updated technical interpretations (except, perhaps, those just now appearing), although there are (finally!) a couple of very different (& rather idiosyncratic) secular discs (coalescing around organ & lute respectively), and really only one compelling series of mass cycles....

• • •

And The Tallis Scholars have now released the last album in that cycle, the ninth, bringing the total to eighteen masses. Leaving aside (problematic) notions of a canonical list, the series is also basically in two parts, with the two albums from the 1980s (which I'd expected they'd re-record, but apparently they won't...) being of no real value. The other seven, though, include a variety of top flight material — usually with one masterpiece paired with a more forgettable cycle. This latest issue is no exception to that, as The Tallis Scholars turn out a sparkling & energetic rendition of Josquin's ostinato showpiece cycle, Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae: This is an extrovert tour-de-force & seems almost made for the group. (Of course, this latest issue continues maddening choices like refraining from documenting the recording dates & dividing each mass into an unwieldy number of tracks.... The former is truly nonsense for a group that obviously wants to be taken quite seriously. I can only conclude that the last few items in this series were recorded years ago, and held for release over a period of time... but I have no real info.)

Anyway, I wouldn't characterize the Herclues Mass as being among Josquin's most profound, but it's masterful contrapuntally & a major entry in the "ostinato mass" category, one that e.g. La Rue would take up more regularly. And Josquin also wrote Missa Faysant regretz on a very short & insistent ostinato, making for a distinctive but less satisfying cycle: The rendering of the short motive into sequential climaxes suggests Obrecht at times, and of course the ostinato suggests Hercules, but the severity of the basic material also comes to suggest something of the Missa Mater patris (from the previous Tallis Scholars program, numbered higher than this one, suggesting they wanted to end with a showpiece...) — the latter being the more mature elaboration (& a cycle that seems to be growing on me now, despite dismissing it years ago...). One might even note e.g. nascent madrigalisms or relate this thread of "insistence" in Josquin's output to e.g. Faulte d'argent.... (None of the masses on this last disc seem particularly transformative, in fact, even if one ends up being a stylistic exhibition....)

The other item — on what is the only three mass program in the series — is then the Missa D'ung aultre amer, which replaces the benedictus with the motet Tu solus & on this program even involves singing the Ockeghem song. And although I've generally been content with technical choices by the Tallis Scholars in the last seven entries in their Josquin series, they do often lack detailed consideration, and basically opt for a consistent overview sort of approach. In the case of the Missa D'ung aultre amer, though, tuning considerations come more to the fore, such that sections of this short mass suggest ambiguities between Pythagorean (as would have been normal for Ockeghem) & mean-tone (as was becoming more common in Josquin's lifetime), a "historical" sort of tuning clash ignored by this rendering.... (Per prior comments around tuning in recent Ockeghem chanson projects, this mass then presumably gives an opportunity for a more detailed look at these tuning transitions & how they're sometimes handled ambivalently in music — not so unlike Ockeghem's music simultaneously suggesting multiple modalities....)

So that's not an investigation for which one would turn to the Tallis Scholars, who take more of a high level view of "Renaissance music" in the first place (i.e. downplaying or eliding the medieval transition from the start...). But the interpretations here, and generally since this series resumed in 2008 with the Missa Sine nomine, have been striking & energetic & with a good sense of the overall characteristics of the masses. It's unfortunate that the first two programs weren't redone, but the rest make for a solid "backbone" of major mass interpretations heading into 2021: Maybe several will still be my favorites in a year, maybe not, but mostly I'm hoping for more attention to the motets & various other unilluminated corners. We'll see. It's time to transform the Josquin discography, and I'd be happy to view the Tallis Scholars series as the last of its prehistory(!).

[19.11.2020]