Search - Pierre de la Rue, Dominique Visse, Ensemble Clement Janequin :: Pierre de la Rue: Missa "L'Homme armé"; Requiem

THREE 5-star Performances to Choose from!

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 11/05/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Pierre De La Rue (1460-1518) is hardly among the best-known composers in the musical history of Europe. A contemporary of Josquin Despres, he spent most of his career close to home in Burgundy - now Belgium and part of the Netherlands and France - and composed chiefly liturgical music. Thus it's an amazing surprise to find that there are THREE excellent recordings of his Requiem Mass, one of the earliest to follow the example set by Johannes Ockeghem. La Rue's Requiem, like Ockeghem's, is a work of dark passion modulated by its contemplative polyphony. It's scored for very low voices in the original notation, another factor in its somber expressivity. All three performances are by top-notch ensembles, offering the listener the unaccustomed pleasure of choice!



This recording by Ensemble Clement Janequin is the most passionate and dramatic of the three. It's paired effectively with La Rue's version of the Missa L'Homme Arme, based on a cantus firmus 'song' that was the anthem of the international confraternity of The Golden Fleece. Most of the greatest composers of the Renaissance took a shot a composing a L'Homme Arme mass, and La Rue's stands as one of the most picturesque. If Franco-Flemish polyphony is sometimes too sublime and meditative for you, this performance of the Requiem should be your choice, on the basis of its energy.



The most sublime and mediative performance is that of The Clerks' Group, and this I think will be the pure musician's choice, for its suave perfection of tuning and phrasing. La Rue's requiem is paired on the CD with another Requiem, by Antoine Brumel.



The third recording, to my ears, is just a notch less polished than that of the Clerks and just a notch less passionate than that of the Ensemble Janequin. It's a performance by the German chorus Ensemble Officium. The second work by La Rue on the CD is his very beautiful Missa de la Beata Virgine.



Would there be any point in having all three performances? I guess I think so, since I do have all three. But I'm a terribly unreliable and unhelpful reviewer, as my humongous accumulation of negative votes must prove. Never buy anything I recommend until Amazon solves the problem of deranged stalkers!"

Out of this world

Michael Scuffil | Germany | 11/18/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have a large collection of recordings of 15th and 16th century music. If I could only keep one, this would be it.



There are now quite a few de la Rue recordings around, most rather ordinary. The Requiem was his best work, and it is done well here. But the best single track on this CD is the Agnus Dei from the L'Homme Armé mass. Almost no one knows it, but everyone is profoundly moved when I play it."