The music of Heinrich Isaac is much less well known than that of his contemporary Josquin Desprez, although, in his day, he was very highly regarded and had no trouble lining up job offers when the fundamentalist Savonarola put the brakes on Florence's flourishing music scene. He was extraordinarily prolific, and it's possible that the lack of exposure of his music is the result of performers simply not knowing where to start. Consider this release from the group Cinquecento, featuring the Missa Wohlauff gut Gsell von ...
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The music of Heinrich Isaac is much less well known than that of his contemporary Josquin Desprez, although, in his day, he was very highly regarded and had no trouble lining up job offers when the fundamentalist Savonarola put the brakes on Florence's flourishing music scene. He was extraordinarily prolific, and it's possible that the lack of exposure of his music is the result of performers simply not knowing where to start. Consider this release from the group Cinquecento, featuring the Missa Wohlauff gut Gsell von hinnen. This mass is based on a popular song that was also known in French as Comment peult avoir joye and set as a polyphonic chanson by Josquin; that piece is also included here. Isaac subjects it to an exceptionally complex atomization, breaking the mass up into small sections that each treats a small fragment of aspect of the song, many in scoring reduced from the full six-part complement. It's a bravura piece of writing that makes one understand why Anton Webern was fascinated by...
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