Curiously, the name Thomas Crecquillon is hardly known today. Yet in his own day, in the service of the Emperor Charles V in the first half of the 16th century, he enjoyed European, even worldwide, fame. Stephen Rice and his Brabant Ensemble deserve thanks, not only for bringing to our ears a composer much admired and taken as a model by others, including Monteverdi, but also for introducing listeners through his music to the intimacy of family life in the household of a great monarch.

As chapel-master it fell to him to compose motets for occasions of joy but also of mourning. The two settings of Mort m’a privé, a five-part one with its emphasis on major themes, possibly a portrait of Charles, and a gentler four-part one using the minor, possibly portraying Isabella of Portugal, mirror the intense grief Charles felt at the loss of a wife truly loved, not merely one forced on him by a mariage de convenance. The words of this song, based on a letter Charles wrote to his brother expressing his grief, are sufficient proof. Snatches of the original music are woven into the movements of the Mass setting. The Brabant singers capture the spirit of sorrow and mourning, and this is carried through to the more formal funerals of other members of the family or close associates.

But all is not tears and weeping: the singers know how to liven up the Hosannas after the low-key, semi-homophonic Sanctus of the Mass, with its swathes of chordal writing; and the final Easter motet, depicting the Marys at the tomb with their vision of the resurrected Lord, comes as a triumphant climax to a gem of a CD.