|
1 SACD
✓ in stock |
€ 20.95
|
Buy |
| Label Challenge Classics |
UPC 0608917287820 |
Catalogue number CC 72878 |
Release date 14 May 2021 |
""What actually transpires through the course of listening is that this series is arguably something far more special than a catalogue raisonné of the choirbooks' contents, and perhaps equally monumental." "Listeners who have seen the Cappella Pratensis perform in person or online will be aware that improvised polyphony is not the only aspect of historically informed performance in which they are currently leaders in the field." "Throughout the first three volumes of this series the quality of performance, interpretation and recording is superb, but the fourth instalment is certainly its crowning glory." "As a whole, the series to date is a masterclass in how scholarly study can be used to craft exciting and exuberant programmes.""
Early Music, 10-9-2024Cappella Pratensis | Tim Braithwaite
For almost forty years, the Gramophone Award-winning ensemble Cappella Pratensis has been renowned for its innovative approach to the performance of Renaissance polyphonic music, being one of only a handful of professional ensembles in the world who perform directly from historical notation, as opposed to transcriptions in the form of a modern choral score. In recent years, the ensemble has dived further into the musical traditions surrounding this repertoire by exploring historical methods of improvisation and pedagogies, as well as working within the contexts of liturgical reconstruction. The result is an inherently immersive approach, in which the performers draw on a truly embodied relationship with past musical cultures in order to provide convincing and engaging performances.
The singers of Cappella Pratensis all specialise in Renaissance music, and many hold positions at higher educational institutions at European universities and conservatoires, including the Conservatoire of Amsterdam, the University of Vienna, and the Schola Cantorum in Basel. Cappella Pratensis also enjoys a formal partnership with the Alamire Foundation, International Centre for the Study of Music in the Low Countries (Leuven) as ensemble in residence. The ensemble’s programming draws on both the wealth of knowledge and experience within the ensemble, as well as collaborations with leading scholars in the field. Cappella Pratensis increasingly combines this approach with innovative performance contexts, including regular collaboration with actors, digital animators, dance companies, and composers.
In addition to regular appearances at concert venues in the Netherlands and Belgium, Cappella Pratensis has performed at leading international festivals and concert series throughout Europe, North America, South America, and Japan, including the Boston, Berkeley, Utrecht, and York Early Music Festivals. The ensemble’s recordings have met with critical acclaim and distinctions from the press, including the Diapason d’Or, the Prix Choc and, for the last three CDs, three consecutive Gramophone Editor’s Choice mentions. Gramophone magazine recognised the ensemble’s recording of the Ockeghem Requiem as the best out of more than twenty recordings made over the last forty years. In 2022, Cappella Pratensis won the prestigious REMA-EEMN Heritage Project of the Year Award with the CD recording Apostola apostolorum. The ensemble’s 2023 recording of Obrecht’s Missa Maria zart won the Premio Abbiati della critica musicale, was awarded with a Disco Excepcional by the Spanish music magazine Scherzo, and was rated five stars by the Spanish magazine Ritmo. In 2024, the recording won a Gramophone Classical Music Award, perhaps the most important award for Classical Music in the world.
Cappella Pratensis makes it a priority to pass on the wealth of knowledge and experience within the group through an established educational program, which ranges from introductory outreach sessions in local schools to appearances at international conferences and festivals, including an annual ‘Summer School’ hosted by the Antwerp-based festival Laus Polyphoniae, the group engages in regular workshops at a higher educational level, which have been held with great success at such notable institutions as Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford.
"What actually transpires through the course of listening is that this series is arguably something far more special than a catalogue raisonné of the choirbooks' contents, and perhaps equally monumental."
"Listeners who have seen the Cappella Pratensis perform in person or online will be aware that improvised polyphony is not the only aspect of historically informed performance in which they are currently leaders in the field."
"Throughout the first three volumes of this series the quality of performance, interpretation and recording is superb, but the fourth instalment is certainly its crowning glory."
"As a whole, the series to date is a masterclass in how scholarly study can be used to craft exciting and exuberant programmes."
Early Music, 10-9-2024
A sensational interpretation of Cappella Pratensis, both unclassifiable musicians for the significant of the current European music scene.
Sonogramo, 29-7-2022
This may well be the first recording of the Missa Tua est potentia by Mouton, but even if it has been recorded before, its performance as part of a liturgical framework makes this recording something no lover of renaissance polyphony should miss.
Music Web International, 10-2-2022
For anyone interested in Renaissance music this is a welcome acquisition. Listening to the liturgy unfold as it might have done in 16th century ‘s-Hertogensbosch is illuminating from a historical perspective, and the performances are first-rate.
Fanfare, 01-1-2022
The lush polyphony is performed festively and with great conviction.
De Volkskrant, 21-12-2021
There is no question of technical proficiency. Intonation and ensemble are flawless...
American Record Guide, 13-10-2021
He restores here with perfect transparency a counterpoint of exceptional density, which does not eschew
dissonances (Kyrie), and the sometimes tortuous melodic designs.
Diapason, 01-10-2021
Cappella Pratensis’s homogeneity of timbre is impressive, especially in view of the many different registers in play. The cast is well matched from top to bottom in both the Mass and the motets. Taken as a whole, the latter make the more convincing impression (in the Gloria some of the choices of pitch may surprise), but the final sections of the Mass are the core of the experience, as they are in the liturgy. And the chant never plays second fiddle to the polyphony; the fact that it is rhythmicised is a further twist, which only adds to the project’s distinctiveness.
Gramophone, 15-7-2021
The balance is good, the can sound is pleasant and absolutely convincing.
Luister, 15-7-2021
Cappella Pratensis prove themselves to be an ensemble of exquisite skill, voices steeped in both artistry and personality, Jean Mouton’s music shaped and sung superbly.
Gramophone, 13-7-2021
Play album
