Alexander Agricola may not be a name on the tip of every record collector's tongue, but that is mainly because, by one of those accidents of recent history, virtually none of his music has appeared on record. He was a leading composer of the Josquin generation, a man of such importance that the great Petrucci issued a whole volume of his Masses as early as 1504 (and before chancing his arm with a volume of Obrecht). He is also, as a sixteenth-century commentator noted, one of the strangest composers of that generation, a man who wrote songs of extraordinary length and who wrote instrumental ensemble music of considerable complexity.
One possible reason why he has been avoided by performers is that on paper he looks a bit of a windbag: he was once described as the Reger of his generation. What this record triumphantly demonstrates is that his high reputation before his death in 1506 was amply warranted: true, some of his pieces are long and crammed with notes; but they come across here as having a richness and variety of ideas that keep the ear fully alert throughout.
Crawford Young has put together an intelligently representative selection from Agricola's considerable secular output: French chansons of several different kinds (including the newest addition to his oeuvre, the strange rondeau Gardez voz bien); a Flemish folk-song arrangement; tenor settings using a wide range of techniques (the most glorious being his wickedly expansive arrangement of the Tandernaken melody); and the two elaborately argued three-voice instrumental fantasies, Cecus non judicat de coloribus and Pater meus. He adds the rich six-voice arrangement of Fortuna desperata, which sounds terrible: I think the scoring may be wrong. And he includes the problematic and possibly spurious Helas madame, which uses techniques not otherwise found in Agricola's work but is nevertheless a mind-bogglingly fascinating piece.
There are essentially three ensembles at work here. There is a group of three viols with a narrow tone and what one might call an American approach to articulation, softening the edges of the rhythmic patterns. The plucked ensemble of two lutes and a harp plays with sharper rhythms and a necessary fluidity of beat. And a three-voice vocal ensemble shows rather less security in its balance though it puts the music across with attractive spirit. There is a certain tendency towards hurried tempos, as though the musicians were frightened that the music would otherwise be too boring. Of the two vocal soloists, David Cordier sings imaginatively but has trouble with some of the lines at that speed; Suzanne Norin sounds much more comfortable and gives what is perhaps the finest performance in Je n'ay dueil.
The engineer had (understandable) problems in making the different ensembles sound as though they were at the same recorded level. But as an introduction to a hitherto neglected composer of major stature, this is a significant and important achievement.'