Tinctoris Masses
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Johannes Tinctoris
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Cyprès
Magazine Review Date: 7/1998
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 69
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: CYP3608
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Missa L'homme armé |
Johannes Tinctoris, Composer
(The) Clerks' Group Edward Wickham, Conductor Johannes Tinctoris, Composer |
Missa sine nomine No. 1 |
Johannes Tinctoris, Composer
(The) Clerks' Group Edward Wickham, Conductor Johannes Tinctoris, Composer |
Author: Fabrice Fitch
Johannes Tinctoris is remembered as perhaps the most influential theorist of the fifteenth century. He could claim personal acquaintance with several of the leading composers of the day, including Ockeghem and Busnois (to whom he dedicated one of his treatises). What is not so well known is that he was no mean composer himself. The Orlando Consort recently made the first significant contribution to his discography in 20 years, with a set of Lamentations (“Passion”, Metronome, 4/97); here, The Clerks’ Group reveal more fully how fine a composer he was. In the four-voice L’homme arme cycle he sets out to make his mark on a growing tradition of settings of that famous tune. His florid, at times fierce, prolixity fairly takes the breath away and The Clerks respond in kind with a raw, almost raucous performance that is very exciting to listen to. The top line is shared by a countertenor and a female alto, resulting in a very different sound from their recent, more polished Obrecht CD on ASV (5/98). Although some may find the result at times just a bit rough, I must say that I prefer the more energetic approach adopted here.
There are thrills of a slightly different nature in the Missa sine nomine No. 1. This work is notated in very low clefs that stipulate a bass part that regularly descends to writtenC (and occasionally, BB). Even granting that no fixed pitch-standard is thought to have existed at the time, the special clefs do seem to indicate that a very low pitch is intended. David Munrow, as ever on the look-out for something distinctive, recorded the Kyrie at a pitch-standard of A=440 (in his “Art of the Netherlands” set, Virgin Classics, 11/97). Here Edward Wickham’s male singers take it a tone higher, and it is remarkable that such a low register can be sustained over half an hour’s music. But the effort betrays itself in a slight loss of poise and shaping of lines, and an occasional suggestion of blandness about the ensemble’s sound. As in the L’homme arme Mass, The Clerks’ cast is slightly different from their usual, and one or two voices obtrude uncomfortably on occasion. The microphones, placed very close to the singers (perhaps excessively so), emphasize these jagged edges. Yet the lyricism of the three-voice Mass provides effective contrast with the L’homme arme Mass, and suggests a variety of compositional approaches that marks Tinctoris as a composer of true inspiration. When the list of discoveries for 1998 is drawn up, this disc will surely figure.'
There are thrills of a slightly different nature in the Missa sine nomine No. 1. This work is notated in very low clefs that stipulate a bass part that regularly descends to written
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