Despres: La Déploration de Johannes Ockeghem (Nymphes des bois) - download (MP3 & FLAC)

The oeuvre of Johannes Ockeghem influenced, indeed directly inspired a considerable number of musicians who were contemporary with or came immediately after the Master of Tours. Many of these talented composers took one of his works as a model, thus bearing eloquent testimony to their admiration for him.

All of them visited him and helped to popularise the image of him as a benevolent ‘father figure’ to this amazing caste of singers and composers.

Ockeghem’s death at a ripe old age in 1497 greatly affected the brilliant generation that was in the process of making the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and naturally led to the creation of some deeply moving music. Four motets covering a wide stylistic range, a complete polyphonic mass and an extraordinary poem of lamentation make up this touching tribute to Johannes Ockeghem from his colleagues and friends.

The works assembled on this CD represent the highpoint of Franco-Flemish counterpoint and illustrate the imperceptible shift from Middle Ages to Renaissance thanks to this sublime music sublimated by the death of the great master. They are sung here according to the tradition of the great cathedrals and collegiate churches: a cappella, with one or two singers to a part as the works require.

To complete a triptych of recordings presenting an alternative view of performance practice from across a century of Franco-Flemish polyphony, Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix now turn their attention to music by Alexander Agricola and his contemporaries in Cecus.

Following on from their two earlier albums, Joye and La Magdalene, Cecus concerns itself with music associated with blind players (notably two fiddlers from Bruges) and memory and commemoration (laments on the deaths of Agricola and Johannes Ockeghem) coming from the chapel of Philippe le Beau and Juana of Castile.

Alexander Agricola’s own musical world – and especially Cecus non judicat de coloribus [The Blind Do Not Distinguish Colours] – crosses the border between theory and practice, between flamboyant experience and rational construction and constantly evokes blindness in relation to memory and written or improvised music, but also in connection with those songs of mourning.

Graindelavoix’s new CD for Glossa promises polyphony in sharply-articulated, richly-coloured performances, provided with athletic vocal gestures by Schmelzer and his Antwerp-based ensemble of musicians from Spain, Estonia, the UK, France and Belgium.