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Feast of the Swan - Den Bosch Choirbook Vol. 4
Various

Cappella Pratensis | Stratton Bull | Sollazzo Ensemble

Feast of the Swan - Den Bosch Choirbook Vol. 4

Price: € 20.95
Format: SACD
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917288025
Catnr: CC 72880
Release date: 05 April 2024
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Label
Challenge Classics
UPC
0608917288025
Catalogue number
CC 72880
Release date
05 April 2024

""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
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
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DE

About the album

The present program presents the kind of music that might have been heard at the Feast of the Swan, an annual banquet held by the Confraternity of Our Illustrious Lady in ’s-Hertogenbosch, sometime in the middle of the sixteenth century. The combination of “sacred” and “secular” pieces might come as a surprise. However, the border between what we in the twenty-first century might imagine as two different musical realms was actually quite porous in the sixteenth.

One of the Confraternity’s regular banquets, held each year on the first Monday after Holy Innocents’ Day (28 December), was the Feast of the Swan. The Swan was the Confraternity’s heraldic beast, a symbol of grace and purity, attributes of the Blessed Virgin. In the medieval imagination, the swan had musical associations. The anonymous bestiary Physiologus states that the Latin name for the swan (cygnus) comes from the verb “to sing” (canere), because it produces such a beautiful song from its long and flexible neck. It was thus fitting that the Feast of the Swan should include a rich musical component. Some of the singers also played instruments at the banquets.
Das vorliegende Programm präsentiert die Art von Musik, die beim Fest des Schwans, einem jährlichen Bankett der Bruderschaft Unserer Erlauchten Jungfrau in 's-Hertogenbosch, irgendwann in der Mitte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts zu hören gewesen sein könnte. Die Kombination von "geistlichen" und "weltlichen" Stücken mag überraschen. Doch die Grenze zwischen dem, was wir uns im einundzwanzigsten Jahrhundert als zwei verschiedene musikalische Bereiche vorstellen, war im sechzehnten Jahrhundert tatsächlich recht durchlässig.

Eines der regelmäßigen Bankette der Bruderschaft, das jedes Jahr am ersten Montag nach dem Tag der Heiligen Unschuld (28. Dezember) stattfand, war das Fest des Schwans. Der Schwan war das Wappentier der Bruderschaft, ein Symbol der Gnade und der Reinheit, Attribute der heiligen Jungfrau. In der mittelalterlichen Vorstellung hatte der Schwan musikalische Assoziationen. In dem anonymen Bestiarium Physiologus heißt es, dass der lateinische Name für den Schwan (cygnus) von dem Verb "singen" (canere) abstammt, weil er mit seinem langen und biegsamen Hals einen so schönen Gesang erzeugt. Es war also nur folgerichtig, dass das Schwanenfest eine reiche musikalische Komponente enthielt. Einige der Sänger spielten bei den Festmahlen auch Instrumente.

Artist(s)

Cappella Pratensis

Cappella Pratensis specializes in the music of Josquin Desprez (= Josqinus Pratensis) and other polyphonic composers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The ensemble performs its own programs and original interpretations, which are based on academic research. As was customary in the renaissance, the singers of Cappella Pratensis usually stand around a central music stand, singing from facsimiles of original choirbooks. This creates a unique perspective on the repertoire. The ensemble, founded in 1987, is now under the artistic direction of singer and conductor Stratton Bull. In addition to regular concerts in the Netherlands and Belgium, Cappella Pratensis performs in leading international festivals and venues in France, Portugal, Germany and the United States. The ensemble also has also released several CD...
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Cappella Pratensis specializes in the music of Josquin Desprez (= Josqinus Pratensis) and other polyphonic composers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The ensemble performs its own programs and original interpretations, which are based on academic research. As was customary in the renaissance, the singers of Cappella Pratensis usually stand around a central music stand, singing from facsimiles of original choirbooks. This creates a unique perspective on the repertoire. The ensemble, founded in 1987, is now under the artistic direction of singer and conductor Stratton Bull.

In addition to regular concerts in the Netherlands and Belgium, Cappella Pratensis performs in leading international festivals and venues in France, Portugal, Germany and the United States. The ensemble also has also released several CD recordings which have been greeted with rave press reviews and awards, including the Diapason d’Or and the Prix Choc. From 2005 to 2007, Cappella Pratensis was ensemble-in-residence at the Fondation Royaumont (France), where it gave courses and concerts, and worked with several prominent musicians. In 2009, it released a DVD/CD production of the Missa de Sancto Donatiano by Jacob Obrecht, which contained a reconstruction of the first performance of this mass, filmed on location in Bruges, supplemented with extensive documentation. This production was awarded with a Diapason découverte and the highest rating in the professional magazine Classica.

The CD Vivat Leo! Music for a Medici Pope (2010), directed by guest conductor Joshua Rifkin, was awarded a Diapason d’Or. A successful series of concerts of the Requiem of Pierre de la Rue was led by guest conductor Bo Holten. A DVD of one of these concerts, performed as part of the event Jheronimus Bosch 500, was released in 2010 under the title Bosch Requiem.

In January 2012 a new CD, containing the earliest surviving polyphonic requiem masses in music history, those by Johannes Ockeghem and Pierre de la Rue. In February 2014 the ensemble released a CD containing music written for the feast of the Assumption and transmitted in choirbooks from the Vatican, including Josquin Desprez’s masterpiece Missa Ave maris stella. In late 2015, the ensemble recorded the Missa Cum Jocunditate by Pierre de la Rue.
In 2016, Cappella and the Nederlands Kamerkoor performed eight concerts of the world premiere of the Missa Unitatis, composed in 2008 by Anthony Pitts (* 1969) in a unique partnership with choirs in Antwerp, Breda, ’s-Hertogenbosch, Eindhoven, Tilburg and Helmond. It has also performed during the Early Music Festival in Utrecht, and presented five performances of the program Christmas with Josquin in the Season of Early Music.

Cappella Pratensis shares its vision and approach to vocal polyphony with professionals and amateurs in masterclasses, with multimedia presentations, and also in a week-long summer school that takes place annually during the festival Laus Polyphoniae in Antwerp. In a structural collaboration with the universities of Leuven and Oxford, the musical manuscripts of the workshop of Petrus Alamire are explored by musicologists and adapted for use by other musicians.


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Stratton Bull (conductor)

Grantley McDonald (bass-baritone)

Jonatan Alvarado (tenor)

Jonatan Alvarado is an Argentinian singer, lutenist, director and researcher. He began his musical studies on the modern guitar at his hometown's conservatory of Mercedes. He would go on to pursuing a Degree in Orchestral Conducting and Composition at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, while also beginning private singing lessons in Buenos Aires. During his studies he founded his own baroque orchestra, with which he would go on to give the Argentinian premier of Bach's John's Passion on period instrument, while also performing several works by Charpentier and Scarlatti for the first time in South America. Parallel to this, he developed a successful career as a folk-singer, culminating with his performance at the Cosquin Festival with his group Dos...
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Jonatan Alvarado is an Argentinian singer, lutenist, director and researcher. He began his musical studies on the modern guitar at his hometown's conservatory of Mercedes. He would go on to pursuing a Degree in Orchestral Conducting and Composition at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, while also beginning private singing lessons in Buenos Aires. During his studies he founded his own baroque orchestra, with which he would go on to give the Argentinian premier of Bach's John's Passion on period instrument, while also performing several works by Charpentier and Scarlatti for the first time in South America. Parallel to this, he developed a successful career as a folk-singer, culminating with his performance at the Cosquin Festival with his group Dos en Trío.

Taking the decision to develop his skills as singer and performer of historical European repertories, he applied for a Bachelor in Early Music singing at the Amsterdam Conservatorium where he was accepted into the class of Xenia Meijer. While advancing in his singing studies he also explored the possibilities of period plucked instruments, taking lessons with the lutenist and theorbo player Fred Jacobs. The combination of singing and lute playing in historically informed performances would lead to a Master's in self-accompanied singing, custom-created for his studies, resulting in a “Cum Laude” for his final examination recital.

During his time as a student he became the cofounder and co-director of the ensemble Seconda Prat!ca, with which he entered the EEEmerging platform, an initiative of the European Commission for Culture to support rising early music talent. The ensemble's high level of performance has led to their releasing of the debut album “Nova Europa” in 2016 with the Ambronay label, which garnered a coup de coeur and became album of choice of France Musique.

He is currently working with Dr. Rebecca Stewart in developing vocal techniques for historical repertoires and connecting early music with oral practices such as the folklore of his own country. This research has led to the recording of his debut solo album ‘Pajarillos Fugitivos’ released by the label Ayros. It includes Spanish guitar songs found in non-spanish sources, aiming to explore its possible connections and transformations within the realm of Latin-American traditional music and poetry.

With his ensemble and as a soloist he has sung and played in some of the most important festivals of his specialty including Ambronay, Sablé, Stockholm and Göttingen. He has collaborated with other musicians and directors such as Sigiswald Kuijken, Richard Egarr, Gabriel Garrido, Adrian van der Spoel and Eduardo Eguez.


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Marc Busnel (bass-baritone)

Filipa Meneses (vihuela)

Mara Winter (flute)

Composer(s)

Press

"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

The performances are technically superb and exquisitely delicate. There is no compromise of ensemble precision, but the music seems to have a spontaneous, almost improvisatory flow. The singers and players seem to be speaking their native musical language, not performing a musicological exercise.
American Record Guide, 01-9-2024

Spatialized in a large and diaphanous acoustic, here is a stimulating investigation of this ceremony as it could have resonated, some five hundred years ago, in s-Hertogenbosch!
Clic Musique, 01-7-2024

It invites you to to get to know this repertoire that was played at the meetings of the Brotherhood of Our Illustrious Virgin in 's-Hertogenbosch better. The Capella Pratensis and also the Sollazzo Ensemble specialize in this music, they are all musical “truffle pigs” who always go looking for forgotten music, rummage through archives and also not shy away for fragments. The result are recordings that are convincing from start to finish. Thank you for so much commitment!
SWR Kultur, 02-6-2024

Since both groups are at the top of their form, the results are predictably stunning... ...they sing beautifully in Mass music by Appenzeller and Vinders (...), give one track of improvised polyphony, and offer lovely performances of two contrasting songs by Compère.
Gramophone, 01-6-2024

Sacred and profane songs alternate in a context that at that historical moment had no boundaries and is witnessed by the many manuscripts owned by the Confraternity, the same manuscripts from which Cappella Pratensis drew to create the recording. Giovanni Conti talks about this and more with one of the historic voices of the ensemble, Peter De Laurentiis.
RSI, 26-5-2024

An interesting five-part series of CDs by Stratton Bull's vocal ensemble Cappella Pratensis, specialized in Early Music. [...] Instruments and voices are inspired by the heavenly polyphony from the liturgical repertoire, which is presented in a very relaxed and transparent manner.
De Gelderlander, 18-5-2024

The Den Bosch Choirbooks, remarkable collection of Renaissance music from the golden age of Brabant, which local vocal ensemble Cappella Pratensis is exploring and bringing back to life. Old music made new with attractive immediacies, easy to imagine the banquet as toasting, maybe roasting the swan. Altough, they had to be lucky to have voices as attractive and well-schooled as these.
BBC Radio 3, 04-5-2024

Stratton Bull, at the head of the Cappella Pratensis and the instrumental ensemble Sollazzo Ensemble, commits to a very well-articulated interpretation, with a clamorous voice emitting from the singers and a vigorous instrumental accompaniment, maintaining the melodic lines with brilliant clarity.
Sonograma, 29-4-2024

Play album Play album
01.
Sicut lilium inter spinas
02:36
(Antoine Brumel) Andrew Hallock, Tim Braithwaite, Cappella Pratensis, Christoph Sommer, Mara Winter, Filipa Meneses, Anna Danilevskaia, Grantley McDonald, Marc Busnel, Peter de Laurentiis, Jonatan Alvarado, Lior Leibovici, Korneel Van Neste, Sollazzo Ensemble
02.
Ave Maria
00:46
(Plainchant) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Grantley McDonald, Anna Danilevskaia, Filipa Meneses, Mara Winter, Cappella Pratensis, Christoph Sommer, Peter de Laurentiis, Marc Busnel, Jonatan Alvarado, Lior Leibovici, Korneel Van Neste, Sollazzo Ensemble
03.
Ave Maria
00:45
(Tim Braithwaite, Plainchant) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Cappella Pratensis, Christoph Sommer, Mara Winter, Anna Danilevskaia, Filipa Meneses, Grantley McDonald, Sollazzo Ensemble, Korneel Van Neste, Lior Leibovici, Jonatan Alvarado, Peter de Laurentiis, Marc Busnel
04.
Ave Maria
01:47
(Jacobus Clemens Non Papa) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Cappella Pratensis, Christoph Sommer, Mara Winter, Filipa Meneses, Anna Danilevskaia, Grantley McDonald, Marc Busnel, Peter de Laurentiis, Jonatan Alvarado, Lior Leibovici, Korneel Van Neste, Sollazzo Ensemble
05.
Le grant désir d’aymer m’y tient
05:43
(Loÿset Compère) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Cappella Pratensis, Mara Winter, Anna Danilevskaia, Christoph Sommer, Filipa Meneses, Peter de Laurentiis, Grantley McDonald, Marc Busnel, Korneel Van Neste, Lior Leibovici, Jonatan Alvarado, Sollazzo Ensemble
06.
Missa Benedicti (Ick had een boelken uutvercoren): Kyrie
04:57
(Benedictus Appenzeller) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Mara Winter, Christoph Sommer, Cappella Pratensis, Grantley McDonald, Anna Danilevskaia, Filipa Meneses, Jonatan Alvarado, Peter de Laurentiis, Marc Busnel, Korneel Van Neste, Lior Leibovici, Sollazzo Ensemble
07.
Missa Benedicti (Ick had een boelken uutvercoren): Gloria
05:52
(Benedictus Appenzeller) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Christoph Sommer, Cappella Pratensis, Grantley McDonald, Anna Danilevskaia, Filipa Meneses, Mara Winter, Marc Busnel, Peter de Laurentiis, Jonatan Alvarado, Lior Leibovici, Korneel Van Neste, Sollazzo Ensemble
08.
Myns liefkens bruyn ooghen
05:16
(Tielman Susato) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Christoph Sommer, Cappella Pratensis, Mara Winter, Filipa Meneses, Anna Danilevskaia, Grantley McDonald, Peter de Laurentiis, Marc Busnel, Lior Leibovici, Jonatan Alvarado, Korneel Van Neste, Sollazzo Ensemble
09.
Missa Myns liefkens bruyn ooghen: Sanctus
08:19
(Jheronimus Vinders) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Cappella Pratensis, Christoph Sommer, Mara Winter, Filipa Meneses, Anna Danilevskaia, Grantley McDonald, Marc Busnel, Peter de Laurentiis, Jonatan Alvarado, Lior Leibovici, Korneel Van Neste, Sollazzo Ensemble
10.
Dictes moy toutes voz pensées
06:35
(Loÿset Compère) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Sollazzo Ensemble, Korneel Van Neste, Lior Leibovici, Jonatan Alvarado, Peter de Laurentiis, Marc Busnel, Grantley McDonald, Anna Danilevskaia, Filipa Meneses, Mara Winter, Christoph Sommer, Cappella Pratensis
11.
Een vroulic wesen
02:11
(Matthaeus Pipelare, Pierre De La Rue) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Cappella Pratensis, Mara Winter, Christoph Sommer, Filipa Meneses, Sollazzo Ensemble, Korneel Van Neste, Lior Leibovici, Jonatan Alvarado, Peter de Laurentiis, Grantley McDonald, Marc Busnel, Anna Danilevskaia
12.
Missa Benedicti (Ick had een boelken uutvercoren): Agnus Dei
05:41
(Benedictus Appenzeller) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Cappella Pratensis, Christoph Sommer, Mara Winter, Filipa Meneses, Anna Danilevskaia, Grantley McDonald, Marc Busnel, Peter de Laurentiis, Jonatan Alvarado, Lior Leibovici, Korneel Van Neste, Sollazzo Ensemble
13.
Ick had een boelken uutvercoren (Oeverloos)
04:46
(Anonymous) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Christoph Sommer, Cappella Pratensis, Mara Winter, Filipa Meneses, Anna Danilevskaia, Marc Busnel, Grantley McDonald, Peter de Laurentiis, Jonatan Alvarado, Korneel Van Neste, Lior Leibovici, Sollazzo Ensemble
14.
Ave Maria
01:47
(Jacobus Clemens Non Papa) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Cappella Pratensis, Mara Winter, Christoph Sommer, Filipa Meneses, Anna Danilevskaia, Marc Busnel, Grantley McDonald, Peter de Laurentiis, Jonatan Alvarado, Korneel Van Neste, Lior Leibovici, Sollazzo Ensemble
15.
Bonus track: Ick had een boelken uutvercoren (Oeverloos)
01:55
(Anonymous) Tim Braithwaite, Andrew Hallock, Vincent Bijlo, Cappella Pratensis, Christoph Sommer, Mara Winter, Filipa Meneses, Anna Danilevskaia, Grantley McDonald, Marc Busnel, Peter de Laurentiis, Lior Leibovici, Jonatan Alvarado, Korneel Van Neste, Sollazzo Ensemble
show all tracks

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