# Heinrich Isaac the Josquin Desprez of Germany , these guys are in the ame league



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

*Heinrich Isaac the Josquin Desprez of Germany , these guys are in the same league*

Heinrich isaac polyphony might have been more so dissonant than Josquin according to varieous source, but when Josquin arise, isaac imense talent, skills where overshadow by the poppulaity of Josquin i have next to nothing of Isaac fews song on pizza album whit varieous artist and Tallis Scholars missa Apostolis which is fine, but why so little albums of Isaac, missa motets, ect, why , why ,why?

This is so unfair, the same thing could be said about Ockeghem overshadowing, Heinrich Fink the Ockeghem of germany...

What your cue on this , we need more Isaac works and more Fink works?
what do you think dear folks att TC classical headquater departement ancient lore
renaissancce series.

:tiphat:


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

We need more Isaac, definitely. It's curious that if Anton Webern did his doctoral thesis on Isaac, his music should be better represented on recordings. 

I've never heard Fink, so I can't comment.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Webern's thesis was on Isaac's Choralis Constantinus, which has been very badly served on record. There is one interesting recording I know of, just one CD so just a fraction of what Isaac wrote in the Choralis Constantinus, from The Hofkapelle Ensemble under Michael Proctor.


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

These are my favorite/most-listened-to Isaac works:

_Quis dabit capiti meo aquam_ • Turner/Pro Cantione Antiqua [Archiv]




This lament is marked by a strong reliance on the plaintive descending melody associated with the text "Et requiescamus in pace" ("And may we rest in peace"). 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-this and a somewhat declamatory style of presentation lend a certain neo-Medieval quality to the proceedings. Most famously (this is a well-known work by Renaissance standards), in the middle section, at the point in the text when the laurel tree (representing the deceased) 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," 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 affecting.

_Tota pulchra es_ • 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. The Hilliards are in particularly good voice here, and Hyperion captures them as well as I've heard them captured on record. (Hyperion recordings aren't available at YouTube, so I've provided a link to the trusty old Pro Cantione Antiqua recording.)

_Virgo prudentissima_ • 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.

_Angeli, archangeli_ • Wickham/The Clerks' Group [ASV Gaudeamus]




This bright, high-lying, cheerful-sounding six-voice motet for the feast of All Saints 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. 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. Despite its hard-to-resist appeal, _Angeli, archangeli_ is surprisingly little known-until recently, that is, as its star has been on the rise of late.

"Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen" • 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.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

This is one I like, a complete Easter Mass with organ and chant in alternatim from Cantus Modalis / Martin Erhardt


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I just thought I'd draw your attention to this recording which features some sensational Isaac and Obrecht. Daedalus Emsemble are a wonderful group of musicians.


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