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Byrd, Dunstable, de las Infantas, Tallis, Victoria
Music by Obrecht including Missa De Sancto Martino, and motets by Ockeghem and De Wrede. Despite the high regard of his contemporaries – the theorist Tinctoris includes him amongst 25 ‘masters’ – Obrecht’s music is little performed or recorded today. This may in part be due to the sound world he inhabits, straddling both the late medieval and early renaissance – but most often resembling neither. The result is something tough, exhilarating and (we hope) beautiful.
This programme of Lenten music from some of the greatest Spanish composers of the 15th and 16th centuries, such as Morales, Victoria and Peñalosa, includes an undeservedly lesser-known setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah by Alonso de Lobo. This is accompanied by various settings of penitential texts, including St Thomas Aquinas’ hymn Pange Lingua and the voice of the Prodigal Son speaking in Morales’ Quanti Mercenarii.
Built in the late 15th century, the church is named for St Martin of Tours. St Martin renounced his military service as unsuited to a Christian life and instead rose in the church to become a bishop renowned for his pastoral care. This concert is built around Obrecht's Missa de Sancto Martino, which was written contemporaneously with the building of the church in Stamford, and will also include his dramatic 6-part setting of the Salve Regina.
Members of the Petrucci Ensemble past and present will be appearing as soloists for this performance of Monteverdi's Vespers.
Taking as its theme the church year's "seasons of preparation", this concert opens with music for Lent, based around Tallis's Lamentations I and II. Lent is followed by Advent, with motets for five and six voices by Byrd and Tallis set around Byrd's Mass in four parts. The mass is alternated with the Gregorian chant settings of the propers for the fourth Sunday of Advent.
The chanson Nymphes des Boys exhorts the great composers of the age - Josquin, Pierre de la Rue, Brumel and Compère - to "clothe themselves in garments of mourning" to mark the passing of Johannes Ockeghem. This concert includes pieces by all four, alongside Ockeghem's Requiem and Josquin's original chanson.
A short progrmme of motets for four, five and six voices by 15th and 16th century English, Flemish and Spanish composers, setting texts in praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The programme includes the Gloria from Cristobal de Morales' Missa de Beata Maria Virgine, which includes the phrase 'Ave Maria' set as a cantus firmus in the baritone and a number of Marian tropes throughout the movement. The concert concludes with Robert Whyte's majestic six-voice setting of the Tota Pulchra Es from the Song of Songs.
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A programme based around the Roman Rite requiem intersperses movements from Johannes Ockeghem's Requiem Mass with Gregorian chant. The concert opens with Josquin Desprez's chanson 'Nymphes des Boys', written to mourn Ockeghem's death in 1497, and concludes with Ockeghem's great motet, Intemerata Dei Mater, said to have been intended by Ockeghem for performance at his own funeral.
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Pre-reformation England was known as 'Mary's Dowry' in recognition of the special devotion to Our Lady of our forebears. On the eve of the Assumption, the newly formed Petrucci Ensemble presents a selction of pre-reformation music in honour of Our Lady.
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