This second CD from Peter Urquhart’s American ensemble brings some more of Ockeghem’s Masses to the catalogue – The Clerks’ Group beat them to the Fors seulement Mass by a matter of days, but the five-voice Sine nomine has never been available in any medium, and this is also the first CD recording of Cuisvis toni – the famous Mass designed for performance “in any mode”. All three Masses pose special problems in the realm of musica ficta. Briefly, this denotes the performance of accidentals that are most often absent from the notated music, but whose inclusion is implied by the contrapuntal practice of the time. Peter Urquhart has studied the practical implications of these rules very closely, and this recording bears witness to his often radical proposals. Where an alternative performance exists (in the case of Fors seulement), I wager that the considerable editorial differences in the matter of ficta will pass even acute listeners by – Ockeghem’s attention to constant shifts in textures, to chordal spacing and linear direction, is rarely so affected by chromatic inflexion as to warrant special mention here. Besides, the bold clashes proposed in Urquhart’s editions are somewhat blunted by a certain tentativeness in execution, as though his singers don’t quite share his conviction. Without wishing to deny the considerable merits of Capella Alamire’s clean and engaging sound, it cannot match The Clerks for technical confidence or interpretative acuteness. But that merely reflects the difference between a fine amateur choir and a professional ensemble whose experience in singing Ockeghem is second to none.
As to the interpretations of Sine nomine and Cuisvis toni, it is not the lack of competition alone that encourages greater confidence: these are far less complex pieces contrapuntally than Fors seulement, easier on the singers, and certainly easier to bring off on the level of ensemble. The Sine nomine Mass is particularly instructive, for on paper certain contrapuntal details are rather puzzling; on this recording on the other hand, its asperities come across with unexpected naturalness. Yet here one might question interpretative decisions on the level of tempo – can the 12 bars of the Kyrie of Sine nomine really be made to stretch to nearly two minutes? The result is a rather soft-focus Ockeghem, lacking perhaps the bite that Urquhart’s pungent approach to dissonance implies. An obvious investment for connoisseurs of the period, though a rapidly expanding field makes this recording seem less of a priority that it might once have been.'