# Heinrich Isaac (1450-1517)



## deprofundis

He was an uttermost talented musician of germano-flemish origin born in Flander belgium deceased in florence italy, he is part of the franco-flemish school of art, we can see this.

Isaac left songs or if you preffer the chansons genra and great missa,i consider him and link his music to Alexander Agricola in spirit and format.There is something about there music that is similar yet different but i can't put my finger on it, maybe it's me, projecting stuff links and paralel between composer that dont exist, but lisen for yourself both, than tell me what you think, did i find out something am i on to something , did i discover something out of this observation.

Maybe these two musicians met and were buddy, hypotetic but who know...

So i need more info on mister Isaac, his motets , songs, missa how many of each, i think i overlook his talent.


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## Mandryka

Given your taste for large ensembles, make sure you get to hear the recording of Missa Prudentissima by Karl Ludwig Nies. You will love it. Ensemble Giles Binchois also released a recording of this with a smaller group of singers earlier this year, also outstanding.


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## Mandryka

I would also say that Peter Phillips's recording is outstanding, the Agnus Dei of the Missa de Apostolis is a summit.









There are three recordings of the Missa Paschale that I know. Hilliard uses instruments in what is IMO an undesirable way, and Isaac's music is interrupted by chant all the time. William Rombach at least does not use instruments like Hillier, but the ever present chant is a drag. The interesting one is from Cappella Praetensis, who replace the ubiquitous plainsong with rather stylish organ improvisations, they claim it's authentic practice, and the result is like a real organ mass.


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## Dirge

My favorite Isaac (more or less) …

_Quis dabit capiti meo aquam?_ (1492)
:: Turner/Pro Cantione Antiqua [Archiv]





As beautiful laments go, this is a pretty good one. It was written on the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, who died from the Medici family curse: the gout. The six-minute motet is cast in three distinct sections and sets a poem by Angelo Poliziano (who, like Isaac, was in Lorenzo's service), which asks where the poet could possibly find enough water to feed his tears both day and night, like the widowed turtledove, like the dying swan, blah, blah, blah.

The work has the expected lament character throughout and is marked by a strong reliance on the plaintive descending melody associated with the text "Et requiescamus in pace." Isaac uses every rhetorical trick in the book to produce a mournful atmosphere suggestive of weeping, etc., including canon-like echoing of voices and archaic-sounding paralleling of voices-that and a somewhat declamatory style of presentation bring a certain neo-Medieval quality to the proceedings. Most famously (this is well-known work by Renaissance standards), in the middle section, at the point in the text when the laurel tree (representing Lorenzo) is struck down by lightning, the laurel goes silent and one of the voices drops out … the others continue on without him in the musical analogue to The Missing Man formation of a military flyover. All the while, the bass is repeating the text "Et requiescamus in pace" ("And may we rest in peace"), which strongly resembles and evokes the plainsong melody of "Requiem aeternam dona" ("Grant them eternal rest"); the bass sings the chant five times, starting a step lower each time in a sort of descending ostinato.

Whatever you might expect from all of Isaac's contriving, the result sounds inexplicably sincere and disarmingly beautiful and affecting. Indeed, I'd be hard-pressed to name a more lamentable lament.

* * *

_Tota pulchra es_ (1490s)
:: Hilliard Ensemble [Hyperion]




 (Turner/Pro Cantione Antiqua)

In this Song of Songs motet, Isaac treads the precipitous ridge between sacred devotion and earthly love with the skill of a mountain goat, causing lovers to pray and prayers to blush. If the seeming incongruity between risqué text and religious context isn't entirely resolved by Isaac's setting, any uneasiness that remains only spices things up from an entertainment standpoint. An interesting aspect and turning point of the motet is the conspicuous shift from the very tight canon-like relationship between voices in the first part to the much freer relationship in the second-you can almost feel yourself relax and breath easier after the changeover.

[I couldn't track down a video or an audio stream of the superb Hilliard Ensemble account-everyone's in great voice and the group has never been better or more naturally recorded-so I've substituted the trusty old Pro Cantione Antiqua account.]

* * *

_Angeli, archangeli_ (1490s)
:: Wickham/The Clerks' Group [ASV/Gaudeamus]





This bright, high-lying, cheerful-sounding six-voice motet is immediately accessible and features one of the great hooks in all of Renaissance sacred music: a vocal bell-tolling sequence (just after the five-minute mark) that would bring a smile of recognition to even the most uncultured Renaissance ditch-digger-very ap*pealing*. The cantus firmus is taken from the pleasant little ditty "Comme femme desconfortée" by Binchois, which is also the seed for a full-scale mass by Isaac.

* * *

"Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen" (<1498)
:: Stimmwerck [Christophorus]





This is Isaac's most popular work and one of the most popular songs of the Renaissance. It's nothing fancy, really, just a very likable tune in a very well-crafted setting.

* * *

_Virgo prudentissima_ (1506)
:: Henry's Eight [Etcetera]





This grand and almost audacious twelve-minute motet was written for the coronation of Maximilian I as Holy Roman Emperor, and it harmoniously embraces both the ceremonial and the celebratory aspects of that glorious occasion. The music generally alternates between sublime duets & trios and splendiferous six-voice celebrations, sounding appropriately august all the while. Stylistically, Isaac is fond of fluid, long-breathed contrapuntal lines, and he tends to lean (however moderately) away from polyphonic rigorousness and toward a concern for sonority for sonority's sake, away from constant invention and toward eloquent rhetoric-you won't mistake _Virgo prudentissima_ for a work of Isaac's great contemporary, Josquin, but it's very compelling in its more populist/everymonk sort of way. Writers of liner notes are fond of pointing out the contrasting but complementary musical natures of Isaac and Josquin, often casting Isaac as Handel and Josquin as Bach; justified or not, this dubious comparison/analogy is much to my liking. In such a context, _Virgo prudentissima_ might be heard as the Renaissance ancestor of Handel's Coronation Anthems.

The work seems to be performed with windy instrumental support (organ, sagbutts, cornetts, etc.) more often than not, but I prefer "not": the instruments add sonic splendor to the proceedings in a modest pre-Gabrieli sort of way, but they tend to overwhelm the voices, severely muddy textures, and undermine the intricacy of it all, at least in the recordings that I've heard.


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## Mandryka

The recording that Dirge couldn't find from Hilliard is really a great favourite, not just the Isaac but the whole thing. Tota Pulchra Es was set frequently, I'm not so convinced it's so sexually charged.


You are completely pure, Mary, 
and the stain of original sin is not within you. 
Your clothing is white like snow, and your face is like the sun. 
You are completely pure, Mary, 
and the stain of original sin is not within you.
You are the glory of Jerusalem, you are the joy of Israel, you are the honoured of our people. 
You are completely pure, Mary.


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## Mandryka

One CD I'd love to hear, but it's too expensive, is by Medieval Ensemble of London. If anyone sees it at an affordable price, or can upload it, please let me know.









One recording I've been enjoying over the past few days - I only found it after deprofundis started this thread, is with Cantica Symphonia - some motets and a mass "Misericordias Domini" I think the mass, which is sung lyrically and gently and without instruments, is well worth catching.


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