Josquin wrote two Masses on the famous tune L’homme arme. This is perhaps the more popular of the two, at least judging by the number and regularity of recordings: Jeremy Noble’s Josquin Choir in the 1970s (RCA, 2/73 – nla), The Tallis Scholars in the 1980s and the Oxford Camerata in the 1990s. The first two were especially warmly received and have aged very little despite the passage of many years. This new reading forms part of a recital of both secular and sacred music, including other Josquin war-horses like Illibata Dei Virgo nutrix and Adieu mes amours. The other pieces come across as fillers, being small-scale and largely unrelated. In this respect it is a rather old-fashioned programme, portraying Josquin as a large monolith and his contemporaries as a scattered collection of glacial erratics.
Old-fashioned, too, is the jumbling of so many different genres without a discernible focus: here a popular song, there a Mass; now a lauda, now a lament, as though the words ‘renaissance music’ were a sufficient programme in themselves. More than the actual performances themselves, it is the general approach that disappoints.
In general the instrumental selections are the most successful because technically and formally less ambitious. In the large-scale works (the Mass and the motet, performed a cappella) Obsidienne are no match for previous recordings: Josquin’s finely honed sequences (the second Kyrie), unexpected changes of texture and overt vocal athleticism (the final Agnus) require supreme poise, and a control that is simply lacking.
Certain interpretative decisions strike me as ill- judged (the slow tempo for the final section of Illibata, for instance), but a more blended, seasoned ensemble might have carried them off. In previous recordings, Obsidienne silenced doubters by offering a welcome first look at uncharted repertory; sadly, that allowance is untenable here. Finally, post-production is less than polished: the insert-booklet’s back cover gives the composer’s name as ‘Josquib Desprez’