Customer Reviews

Jacob Obrecht: Missa Sub Tuum Praesidium; Benedictus in laude; Salve Regina

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For those who love Jacob Obrecht's music, this disc is an essential acquisition. The Clerks' Group perform Renaissance music in an authentic manner with one or two voices per part. Although the deployment of a "chamber choir" beautifully renders the separate strands of Obrecht's polyphony, this group can also blend their voices to luscious effect in chordal passages. Just listen to the final two movements of the mass cycle on this disc and you'll hear what I mean.

For those pursuing recordings of Obrecht mass cycles, perhaps his best music, also consider the Clerks' Group recording of Missa Malheur me bat. Other essential recordings include the rendering of Missa Caput by the Oxford Camerata; and the two disc set entitled "Jacob Obrecht 1" by The Sound and the Fury, which includes Rosa Playsante and Fortuna Desperata. I was able to acquire the latter from France via "amazon.fr".

Not to be overlooked is the performance of Missa Maria Zart by the Tallis Scholars. Although there are those who have reservations about recordings by the Scholars, I personally love this disc.

If you are familiar with any of Obrecht's music, or with any of the great polyphonic masses of the Franco-Flemish masters, then you must hear this performance. The mass is a bold assault on the predictabilities of the genre, assigning the "tenor" to the highest voices. The motets that fill out the disk are equally daring. None of this would matter if the performance were not thrillingly insightful, with nearly perfect tuning and phrasing, but it is! The Clerks' Group ranks with the Orlando Consort and the various ensembles led by Dominique Visse as the finest interpreters of Renaissance vocal music active today.