This disc, by an English ensemble specializing in Continental sacred music of the Renaissance, would seem to be aimed at specialists with its mysterious subtitle of "The Alternatim Practice at the Imperial Court" and its highly detailed examination of the music recorded. And so it is. Yet, as with the unexpected foreground image of two dogs playing in the inside-front-cover woodcut of Kaiser Maximilian celebrating Mass, there's a good deal here to interest the general listener. To condense the notes to a point probably ...
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This disc, by an English ensemble specializing in Continental sacred music of the Renaissance, would seem to be aimed at specialists with its mysterious subtitle of "The Alternatim Practice at the Imperial Court" and its highly detailed examination of the music recorded. And so it is. Yet, as with the unexpected foreground image of two dogs playing in the inside-front-cover woodcut of Kaiser Maximilian celebrating Mass, there's a good deal here to interest the general listener. To condense the notes to a point probably beyond what is acceptable, the disc explores an unusual way of setting the text of the mass: "alternatim" settings, found in various countries, set phrases of the text polyphonically while leaving others to be sung as chant, for an antiphonal effect. The new wrinkle in Heinrich Isaac's Austria was that the chant sections might be replaced by organ improvisations on the chant melodies appropriate for the day's service. Subsidiary themes of the album include the persistence of tropes or...
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