Desprez J. - Josquin Et L'espagne

Fakta In 2006 Maurice Bourbon and La Chapelle de Flandres decided to remedy a significant gap by recording the complete masses of Josquin Desprez, Josquin l'Européen, thereby honouring this emblematic figure in the history of music.

The Fortuna desperata and Une musque de Biscaye masses are included in this seventh volume of the complete masses, entitled "Josquin and Spain". These considerable works, each more than 33 minutes long, are masterfully written, and were clearly composed at the height of Josquin's powers.

Maurice Bourbon took part in analysing and executing the works, as he has done since the project's inception, but chose for this recording to hand the job of conducting the choirs over to the young Juliette de Massy, who led Biscantor! (6 young singers including an alto, an haute-contre, three tenors, and a bass) and Métamorphoses (3 confirmed singers: a soprano, a countertenor, and a bass).

These combined forces enabled the performers to recreate a variety of tessitura, to bring out certain themes, and to ensure that breathing would not interrupt long notes. The Missa Fortuna desperata is based on the 3-voice song of the same name, and is attributed to Antoine Busnois, one of Josquin's contemporaries.

Josquin shows his compositional prowess in this work, playing with the three voices of the song, using them one after another as a Cantus firmus (a melodic subject). Long note values are often used for these voices, which act as a veritable framework for the work. What a masterful Credo! What a magnificent Agnus Dei!! The skill involved in writing them and the splendid results are similar to those of the Missa l'Homme armé Sexti toni (see Josquin and Rome 1, the third volume of the complete masses).

Like a great geometrist, Josquin amused himself by varying note lengths and metric relationships between the voices, and by inventing symmetries (in terms of time, in retrograde motion, or for just an instant, as related to a single note).The fruitful, lyrical themes of the song bring compelling vig