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| Label Challenge Classics |
UPC 0608917293326 |
Catalogue number CC 72933 |
Release date 17 March 2023 |
"Never heard of it? Don't feel that you are alone. But should you hear it? Oh, yes! .. an incredibly complex, constantly evolving, interplay of voices and lines. ... I am enthralled by the resulting combinations of voices, pitches, and changing time signatures. This is amazing music."
Positive Feedback, 08-4-2025Jacob Obrecht’s Missa Maria zart is an extraordinary work, both literally, as probably the longest extant Mass of the Renaissance, taking an hour to perform, and in the more general meaning of the word. It is recognised as one of the most ambitious artistic creations of its time; some have claimed that it defies description. The director of Cappella Pratensis, Stratton Bull mentioned his interest in the complexities of Renaissance mensural notation and the difficulties that modern-day ensembles sometimes experience in interpreting it. Although several recordings of this Mass already existed, few if any had succeeded in doing justice to its subtle system of mensuration signs and use of notation generally. A symposium was held in 2018 and the resulting performance duly took place, but plans for a recording were postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This had the welcome if unintended consequence of permitting several other live performances before the recording sessions in September 2022: the interpretation that Cappella Pratensis commits to disc is well ‘lived in’.
Jacob Obrecht was born in Ghent between 1457 and 1459. His career included a string of posts as choirmaster in Northern France and the Low Countries (Cambrai, Bruges, Bergen op Zoom, Antwerp). He died in Ferrara (of plague) in May or June 1505.
It is not known when the Missa Maria zart was composed but there are good reasons for thinking it one of Obrecht’s very last Mass cycles.
Even by Obrecht’s standards Maria zart is unusually complex and inventive.
Given the general agreement that Maria zart was probably commissioned for the Imperial court at Innsbruck, Cappella Pratensis uses the Germanic pronunciation that would have been in use there.
Cappella 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.
Never heard of it? Don't feel that you are alone. But should you hear it? Oh, yes! .. an incredibly complex, constantly evolving, interplay of voices and lines. ... I am enthralled by the resulting combinations of voices, pitches, and changing time signatures. This is amazing music.
Positive Feedback, 08-4-2025
The Dutch ensemble Cappella Pratensis with a piece from their CD Missa Maria Zart, by Jacob Obrecht. That album is now shortlisted for the Gramophone Classical Music Award in the Early Music category. (...) Artistic director Stratton Bull is very happy with this nomination: "Thank you, thank you, it is a great honor. Yes, you can almost regard this as the Oscars of CDs in classical music, for sure. And very rarely that this is also for a Dutch ensemble, even a nomination in this way, so a good moment."
Radio 1, 27-8-2024
This is clearly a well-honed performance, strongest in delicate moments.
This new release is a happy marriage of musicality and musicology.
Gramophone, 01-8-2024
...under the direction of Stratton Bull, Cappella Pratensis provide a gorgeous exploration of Obrecht’s demanding and musicologically complex Mass.
Early Music, 17-5-2024
The twelve singers manage to transmit an extraordinary feeling of intimacy and conjunction, perhaps enhanced by the fact to sing from a lectern with the same score. This exceptional work brings out a forgotten gem.
Ritmo, 01-2-2024
The performance of Cappella Pratensis is breathtakingly beautiful. The rich polyphonic pieces where the sung texts are melismatically supported are majestic. The singers sound homogeneous in which all voices are equal and unfold like an overwhelming metier. It is fantastic that such age-old music still has such an attraction for today’s people. Especially when the music has been performed with so much love and attention, which makes the enchantment even greater.
Music Frames, 17-4-2023
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