Saturday, January 1, 2022 | 20:00 (utc+1)
In 2021 and 2022 it will be exactly five centuries since the deaths of respectively Josquin Desprez and Jean Mouton, the two most important composers of their generation. We are not sure whether Mouton was a student of Josquin, but we see a strong connection between the two in many ways. They probably met at the French court, and while Josquin chose to return to his hometown Condé to spend the last years of his life, Mouton followed his earlier path to Italy. Like Josquin, Mouton became the most sought-after composer of his time, much appreciated by both the Duke of Ferrara and the Pope. But what is especially interesting is the musical heritage that Josquin passed on to Mouton, which subsequently worked through to the way polyphonic music would be conceived and composed by subsequent generations of composers.
In this New Year’s concert on the transition between the two commemorative years, we show how both composers chose extremely difficult composition tasks, but were able to perform them with an extremely efficient rhetorical and apparently effortless effect. A very good example of this is their use of canonical writing, where one or more voices are not written out but merely implied, and thus have to be resolved by the singers themselves.
From the magnificent palace of Charles de Lorraine in Brussels, together with the musicians of the Sollazzo Ensemble, we offer you a rich and varied palette of breathtakingly beautiful music by two absolute masters of the Renaissance.
PROGRAM
Jean Mouton | Ave Maria, gemma virginum | Cappella Pratensis
Jean Mouton | Salva nos Domine | Cappella Pratensis
Jean Mouton | Da pacem domine | Cappella Pratensis
Jean Mouton | Tua est potentia | Cappella Pratensis
Josquin Desprez | Douleur me bat | Cappella Pratensis & Sollazzo Ensemble
Josquin/Mouton Adieu mes amours | Cappella Pratensis & Sollazzo Ensemble
Josquin Desprez | La belle se siet | Cappella Pratensis & Sollazzo Ensemble
Josquin Desprez | Se congés prens | Cappella Pratensis & Sollazzo Ensemble
Josquin Desprez | Inviolata, integra et casta es Maria | Cappella Pratensis
Josquin Desprez | Proch dolor | Cappella Pratensis & Sollazzo Ensemble
Jean Mouton | Nesciens Mater | Cappella Pratensis & Sollazzo Ensemble
Cappella Pratensis
Stratton Bull, Andrew Hallock, Tim Braithwaite | superius
Korneel van Neste, Lior Leibovici | contratenor
Pieter De Moor, Peter de Laurentiis | tenor
Marc Busnel, Grantley McDonald | bassus
Artistic director: Stratton Bull
Sollazzo Ensemble
Anna Danilevskaia, Filipa Meneses | vihuela de arco
Mara Winter | renaissance flute
Christoph Sommer | renaissance lute
Artistic director: Anna Danilevskaia
