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Random Awesome Early Music

Great thread! Josquin des Prez is one of my two favorite composers (Bach being the other). Josquin's Ave Maria, in my mind, is one of the most sublime pieces ever written.
 
Josquin & Praetorius. Perfect!

Here's one that blew me away when I first stumbled on it twenty years ago. Still floors me when I spin it. A lesson in how to turn it up to 11 every 3 minutes without it getting aurally exhausting. Antoine Brumel's Earthquake Mass...

 
Here's one that I wasn't expecting. Looking for new recordings to pick up which sent me back to my record collection to lookup some stuff by Kronos Quartet. Low and behold...

 
Earlier in the thread Frescobaldi's name was intoned. Well no early music fest can't go without throwing oneself into the mosh pit of Scott Ross and his breakneck and breathtaking Scarlatti Sonata readings. This man is legend. Oh the stories one could tell...

 
Just going to add a couple of other Scott Ross related vids to give some balance and depth to who he was musically and as a person.

First is one of the Bach Partitas where he doesn't sound like he's juiced with adrenalin. And the second vid is a good section of a documentary on Ross where the camera follows him giving instruction and so on. I hadn't seen this before so others may be interested as well.




 
Really should have some Pergolesi in here. Fine performance with great camera work...

 
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Josquin & Praetorius. Perfect!

Here's one that blew me away when I first stumbled on it twenty years ago. Still floors me when I spin it. A lesson in how to turn it up to 11 every 3 minutes without it getting aurally exhausting. Antoine Brumel's Earthquake Mass...


That... souldn't be possible. Those are twelve "true" independent voices. I have listened to other pieces with an insane amount of intricacy (Ockeghem comes to mind), but they often sounded more like if a modern delay was applied to them. Sorry, I didn't want to turn this into a technical discussion but I'm at a loss of words right now.
 
Sorry you lost me Pier (laughing). What isn't possible?! Singing this glorious and dense?!! The first version I heard was in 1990. It was put out by Sony Classical with the Hugelas Ensemble under the direction of Paul van Nevel.

This snippet is from a reissue of that recording I believe. Both the Tallis Scholars version (the one I posted above) and the Hugelas Ensemble versions are worth having. If you are a choral nut it doesn't get much better than this...

 
Sorry you lost me Pier (laughing). What isn't possible?! Singing this glorious and dense?!! The first version I heard was in 1990. It was put out by Sony Classical with the Hugelas Ensemble under the direction of Paul van Nevel.

This snippet is from a reissue of that recording I believe. Both the Tallis Scholars version (the one I posted above) and the Hugelas Ensemble versions are worth having. If you are a choral nut it doesn't get much better than this...


What a fantastic recording.
 
What isn't possible?! Singing this glorious and dense?!!
Touché!! That's a very good point :emoji_laughing:

I've listened to both the videos, some parts multiple times.
Thanks, this whole thread is a wonderful idea
 
What a fantastic recording.
Indeed it is. You might have to check Discogs or something similar to get a copy unless it has been properly reissued. I knew when I heard it, some thirty years ago that this was a particularly special recording, even in the context of all these amazing choral recordings by the likes of Herreweghe, Christie & The Tallis Scholars.

I found a copy for sale. Reasonably priced...

https://hbdirect.com/album/29796-brumel-missa-sequentia-van-nevel-ensemble-huelgas.html
 
In my humble opinion, the OP contains one of the most incredible duets ever wrote during the renaissance. I still remember my awe when I first heard it, not long ago actually. Many other pieces come to mind, but I'll just post the other two that probably mean the most to me:




In all the choral madness of the past week, I forgot to post a rejoinder to these glorious pieces. The first one, the Monteverdi piece holds a special place for me as that was the opening track on a Les Arts Florrisant disc set that set me on a life-long obsessive path with choral music and singing in general.

The second piece, the Scarlatti one, shit that is amazing. I keep returning to it since I listened to this over the past week. Really echoes similar techniques and intent to what Richard Strauss did in "Vier Letzte Lieder" or Four Last Songs by creating this massive throbbing, breathing organism that is Earth.

I know this vid isn't early music but damn it is good. Dropping the needle at a particularly emotional part just before Im Abendrot begins to wind up with the swirling larks and the throbbing geosphere.

 
In all the choral madness of the past week, I forgot to post a rejoinder to these glorious pieces. The first one, the Monteverdi piece holds a special place for me as that was the opening track on a Les Arts Florrisant disc set that set me on a life-long obsessive path with choral music and singing in general.

The second piece, the Scarlatti one, shit that is amazing. I keep returning to it since I listened to this over the past week. Really echoes similar techniques and intent to what Richard Strauss did in "Vier Letzte Lieder" or Four Last Songs by creating this massive throbbing, breathing organism that is Earth.

I know this vid isn't early music but damn it is good. Dropping the needle at a particularly emotional part just before Im Abendrot begins to wind up with the swirling larks and the throbbing geosphere.


Nice little reminder that what I said earlier in the thread -

Yeah I am primarily interested in stuff that's pretty new, and stuff that's pretty old. Nothing against everything in between but this is what really gets me going.
- is nonsense, at least speaking purely as a listener rather than a listening composer.
 
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