Josquin Desprez

The press speaks about it

The record was announced live on 05 April 2016 on the Classic Club show, as well as on Emilie Munera's show En piste!

THE RECORD SHOP BIN
"The accompanying text - an original initiative of the AR RE-SE label - first invites discophiles to a very imaginative dialogue (dated 3 January 2015) between the conductor Maurice Bourbon and Josquin: "Do you know if I am the same age as you were when I composed the Pange Lingua mass? Perhaps that is why I am so sensitive to it and have enjoyed conducting it so much': this was confirmed at the audition. The conductor adds that he 'worked passionately on the tempi and equivalences for almost a year' and specifies that, for the canon at the fifth of the Benedictus, 'the singers (there) showed an astonishing mastery of piano conducting...'. Josquin Desprez - born in Beaurevoir around 1450 and died in Condé-sur-l'Escaut on 27 August 1521 -, a Franco-Flemish musician, so much admired by Martin Luther, the eminent master of the Renaisssance, was in fact a "European before the term". He composed numerous Motets and Masses (parody, cantus firmus, canon), among others.
In his late Mass Pange Lingua - according to Jacques Barbier - he uses the melody of the eponymous hymn "as a thread running through all the sections of the Mass, but in no way in the manner of a cantus firmus". Josquin uses note-for-note counterpoint and syllabic treatment to improve the intelligibility of the text, especially for the articles of the Credo. As for the polyphony, it is quite homogeneous. Benefiting from a remarkable acoustic, the voices of the vocal ensembles Metamorphoses and Biscantor! (quartet) simpose in their fullness, their accuracy, their warm timbres. The Messe de beata Virgine, in the tradition of the Marian cult, makes use of their high tessitura (perhaps evoking heaven) and is based on Gregorian melodies. Josquin speculates on the number of voices: 2, 4, 5; the technique of the canon in the Credo with, as J. Barbier judiciously points out, "the humorous indication Le premier va devant puis le devant va derrière" (final part). The Sanctus and the Agnus Dei include the indication "you will fast the four times". An excellent liturgical paraphrase.
On the one hand, the Pange Lingua Mass - often performed nowadays - is striking for its simplicity and economy of means; on the other hand, the Mass of the Beata Virgina, with no melodic thread, is marked by a logic that is more liturgical than musical. From all points of view (booklets with imagined dialogue, excellent analysis, outstanding interpretation): a disc that must be acquired. "
Edith Weber.

"After starting his career in the scientific sector as an engineer, Maurice Bourbon became an artistic director, baritone, teacher and composer. Together with Charles Ravier, he founded the vocal ensemble Métamorphoses (composed of international soloists) in Paris in 1983. With this group, he chose the path of French and Italian polyphonic music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Since 1987, he has directed the ensemble Coeli et Terra de Lille: a high-level amateur chamber choir. In 1993, he founded the Atelier international de polyphonie vocale en Cévennes.
In 2005, he created the young singers' ensemble (18-28 years old) Biscantor! In 2006, Maurice Bourbon plans to record all the masses of Josquin Desprez. This CD is the sixth of the ten planned and includes two late masterpieces by Josquin Desprez: the Messa Pange Lingua and the Messa de beata Virgine (a composition that was a great success as evidenced by the twenty-two manuscripts and four engravings that have come down to us).
Based on a rigorous study of the scores, Maurice Bourbon's work takes shape in recordings with an almost archaic sound power that renders the complex geometries of Josquin Desprez with naturalness and "lyricism". For example, we listen to how the master, without fearing to dilate the time significantly, transforms into spiritual calm the miraculous economy of means that characterises the writing of the Missa Pange lingua.
Massimo Rolando Zegna

AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE
"This new release features two of Josquin's most famous Masses. Bourbon faces stiff competition: there are six recordings of the Missa 'Pange lingua' listed in the ARG index, including the excellent ones by the Janequin Ensemble (January/February 2009), the Westminster Cathedral Choir (March/April 1993, reissued January/February 2012), and an earlier, uncritical recording by the Tallis Scholars (Gimell 9). There are seven of the Missa de beata virgine, two of which I own, by the Theatre of Voices (July/August 1995) and the Tallis Scholars (March/April 2012).

As I have noted in previous reviews, Maurice Bourbon's numbers tend to be small (here ten singers including the director), and the addition of female voices lightens up the textures compared to his earlier all-male ensembles (March/April 2011 & May/June 2014). What struck me about this new release were Bourbon's idiosyncratic tempo changes during the movements as well as an increasing use of vocal orchestration, alternating between two and one voice per part, which creates a very different aesthetic compared to the other releases. In his mischievous introductory text (in the form of a fictitious dialogue with Josquin) Bourbon goes so far as to describe the end of the Credo from De beata virgine as a 'slow, ecstatic waltz'.
I continue to recommend the more 'traditional' performances of the Tallis Scholars, although I still have a soft spot for the timbres of the boy sopranos of the Westminster Cathedral Choir."
BREWER

"Métamorphoses, a six-voice ensemble (2 Sopranos, Tenors, and Basses), founded in 1983, and four members (2 Sopranos, 1 Countertenor, 1 Tenor) of Biscantor! a second ensemble also directed by Maurice Bourbon, participated in this recording. Both groups were created by Bourbon, a choirmaster, singing teacher, singer and composer. His third ensemble, a leading chamber choir, is called Coeli et Terra. All three are members of the association La Chapelle des Flandres. Bourbon wrote an interesting essay 'Conversation with Josquin'; there is also a historical essay with footnotes by Jacques Barbier, of the Centre d'Études Supérieures de la Renaissance at the Université François-Rabelais, Tours.
As a composer, Bourbon composed a work entitled Déploration de Josquin (Éditions de L'Homme armé HA01-2009). Desprez appears to be central to Bourbon's artistic career. He is also known for his a cappella production of Bach's motets in Flanders.
This recording is the fourth in a series of ten devoted to Josquin's masses. Unknown in North America, Bourbon and his three ensembles represent with their CD projects a new lost treasure from France, waiting to be discovered by listeners. Highly recommended. "
© 2016 Toronto Early Music News

The masses ‘Fortuna desperata’ and ‘Une musque de Biscaye’ continue the complete recording of the masses of Josquin Desprez, ‘Josquin l’Européen’, inaugurated by Maurice Bourbon and La Chapelle des Flandres in 2007. Volume 7, Josquin et l’Espagne, proposes two masses conducted by the young Juliette de Massy at the head of the choruses Biscantor! and Métamorphoses. The interpretation of the Missa ‘Fortuna desperata’ underlines the geometric vocal plays and variations in meter which Josquin Desprez practiced with originality. Let us underscore the successful association of the young singers of Biscantor!– a veritable laboratory devoted to apprenticeship in the art of polyphony, founded by Maurice Bourbon with the confirmed singers of Métamorphoses, present since the beginning of the project. In the Missa ‘Une musque de Biscay’, after the anonymous folk song ‘Une musque de Biscaye’ (a girl from the Basque country), the composer once again demonstrates great inventiveness, blending lightness and lyric power. Sensitive music, skillfully shown to advantage by Juliette de Massy and the musicological work of Maurice Bourbon. When finished, this complete recording, which already imposes itself as the reference, will consist of 10 volumes. At the heart of Renaissance vocal music there is a key composer: Josquin Despez who, throughout his long career across Europe, wrote some 15 masses or mass fragments, in addition to innumerable motets and songs. This CD presents two of these masses, on the theme of Spain, the latest instalment in the complete recording begun in 2007. The interpretation is entrusted to ensembles that are specialists in this repertoire: Métamorphoses and Biscantor, founded on the initiative of Maurice Bourdon in the framework of the association La Chapelle des Flandres. A singular immersion in the spellbin ding universe of a capella singing. Already strongly pro-European, Josquin Desprez (c. 1450-1521) enjoyed enviable fame thanks to his vocal works, especially in Italy, Flanders and Spain. The latter provided the thematic material for the two masses recorded here, based on the cantus firmus technique, i.e., on a preexisting melody given to one of the voices. The Missa ‘Fortuna desperata’, most likely dating from his maturity, is built on an eponymous secular song attributed to Antoine Busnoys, a contemporary of Josquin Desprez. The theme of fortune or luck was very much in vogue during the Renaissance era, in literature as well as in music. Here we detect Highly virtuosic writing, for three or four voices, a real vocal geometry in which the musician varies note lenghts and invents symmetry effects. What gives the work a definite force, turned more towards the future than rooted in tradition as with his predecessor Guillaume Dufay, for example. There also appears great lyricism throught the play of frequent imitations in more than one passage, in particular the Gloria, or trought the repetition of the same formula as in the Sanctus. The Credo is masterful, and the Agnus Dei no lesse inspired, Which, after an introductory crescendo, establishes an atmosphere of great gentleness, a suspension of eternity, in the words of Juliette de Massy, concluding in a serene pianissimon. Even more impressive, the Missa ‘Une musque de Biscaye’ is based on the melody of an anonymous folk song of Basque origin (‘a girl from the Basque contry’), perhaps spread by pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela. Angain, the subject is secular, or even ribald, being a song of seduction, which was common in the polyphonic repertoire of the period. Here one will note a very developed Credo and a bewitching Sanctus with delicate contrasts up to an exhilarating ending. Even through in is surely a youtful work, Josqin’s style is fully affirmed, especially in the use of counterpoint dominated by the principle of imitation, alternating with sequences of voices answering each other, two by two. The inventiveness With which the musician uses the original material gives the pieces an often lively character. The young conductor Juliette de Massy, a soprano herself, directs a chorus of nine voices made up of singers from the MEtamorphoses ensemble (soprano, countertenor, bass) and six young singers from the Biscantor ensemble (alto, haute-contre, three tenors, bass). The former are professionals, well versed in the interpretation of masterpieces of the a capella repertoire, the lattre talented youngs polyphonists destined to train the élites to tomorrow in this repertoire. This mixture allows for reproducing the varied tessituras, working particularly on certain themes and giving their full worth to the long phrases, sung unbroken by breaaths. The result is gripping. One admires the beauty of these clear, ductile voices, treated like instruments, the rigour of production, the suppleness of the cantabile. Like the sciences of contrast between the pianissimi of a gentle resonance, especially in the low voices, and the outbursts of controlled power, full of solar brightness. The recording, made in a church in the Lozère region, is ideally airy, without excessecive reverberation, for a clear, immediate sound image.
Texte by Jean-Pierre Robert