The music of Johannes Ockeghem may represent the black belt for vocal ensembles specializing in Renaissance sacred music. Beneath an almost featureless surface, with lengthy passages of polyphony not marked off by points of imitation or anything else, it features densely mathematical hidden structures that even a listener of Ockeghem's own time would have required study in order to divine. Singers of a work like the Missa De plus en plus, one of his more popular works, require absolute clarity, stamina, and an ability to ...
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The music of Johannes Ockeghem may represent the black belt for vocal ensembles specializing in Renaissance sacred music. Beneath an almost featureless surface, with lengthy passages of polyphony not marked off by points of imitation or anything else, it features densely mathematical hidden structures that even a listener of Ockeghem's own time would have required study in order to divine. Singers of a work like the Missa De plus en plus, one of his more popular works, require absolute clarity, stamina, and an ability to keep the music from bogging down. There are several good recordings of the mass from British choral groups, each with its advantages and disadvantages, but this one deserves consideration, especially at a bargain price. The musicality of this veteran all-male, all-adult group is on full display here; the contrasts in the mass between the complex sections (with manipulations in a cantus firmus of a chanson by Binchois) and freer sections with reduced forces come off beautifully. And the...
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