The idea of this disc is to present some prime examples of the three major styles of the Renaissance, the Roman school (Palestrina), English late Gothic (Ashewell), and Frano-Flemish (De Lassus). It works—after hearing these three masses, it is easy to perceive the differences that pervade the often times popularly-thought monochromatic nature of this music. Only those who spend a lot of time with it are usually aware of the subtle distinctions that mark the music of this age, Even many collectors tend to categorize “Renaissance” music as of a stripe, but upon further discovery we see that this just isn’t true.
Take Palestrina as an example. For many, he simply is the Renaissance, at least as far as church music goes. This is of course not without reason—his art is one of the defining definitions of great art of any epoch, and even though today we think of him as some sort of de facto conservative standard, his music was hardly uncontroversial in its time. He may have had an “in” with Pope Julius and the Papal court as he was the first Italian to actually produce a book of masses; but the upcoming tremors of the counter-reformation were already questioning the need for polyphony in church music, and this undoubtedly persuaded the composer to prove that polyphony was not an obstacle to understanding the text. As a result, his music is replete with great clarity and melodic consistency. It is ethereal, spiritual, and wonderfully life-enhancing.
Orlando de Lassus, finding himself in the midst of reform-minded Munich, toned down some of his masses, and virtually all of them are “parody” works, or pieces that take as their source compositions by other composers, and then transform them into something different. He, unlike Palestrina, wrote many pieces of all genres, and perhaps it is his secular works that are the most adventurous; nevertheless, one cannot accuse him of being conservative in this work under consideration. Tous les regretz, a chanson by Nicolas Gombert, serves as the basis for Lassus’s mass of the same name. (Virtually all of the Lassus masses are parodies inspired by secular works.) The color and splashes of unique sonority, along with some wonderful melodies (much more exotic than Palestrina) make for an experience of sonic splendor.
Thomas Ashewell, whose short life is betrayed by the few fragments of music we have from him, was head of music at Lincoln and Durham cathedrals, and lived a few years before the other two masters on this disc. It is interesting that conductor Van Nevel chose Ashewell to represent this particular time in English history as opposed to some other more famous composers, but the comparisons are instructive, as the broad, soaring melodic lines (almost stratospheric) and the rhythmic complexity of the work illustrate with bright colors yet another aspect of that wide and disparate time period we call the Renaissance.
The singing is superb on this album, spot-on intonation coupled with a flowing, resonant massed choral sound that works wonders with dynamics cushioned by a clear and soft-focused audio spectrum. I must also comment on Van Nevel’s excellent notes, and give a thumbs-up to HM’s usual high standards in production values at a time when many companies are going to the tank with theirs. This is a grand overview of a complex and varied period in music performance history.
— Steven Ritter
