The Early Music Club (EMC)

[North Star]

Ok, so most that know me around here will know me as a passionate modernist fan, but for quite a while I've had an interest in early music, especially Renaissance.

So far I love some various works by: Palestrina, Tallis, Petrotin, Gombert and Monteverdi.
I'm wondering, what are some of your most reccommend early works I check out?

Thanks!! 


Alien

Dufay: isorhythmic motets (Huelgas ensemble's recording)
Richafort's Requiem (Cinquecento on Hyperion)
Josquin des Prez (Nymphes des bois, Miserere - also the Cinquecento disc with the Richafort..)
Gesualdo's madrigals
Marenzio's madrigals

[Drasko]

Machaut - Messe de Notre Dame (Ensemble Gilles Binchois)
Ecole de Notre Dame: Mass for Christmas Day (Ensemble Organum)
Dufay - Isorhythmic Motets (Huelgas Ensemble)
Busnois - Missa L'Homme Arme (The Binchois Consort)
Ockeghem - Requiem (Ensemble Organum)
Desprez - Missa Pangue Lingua (Ensemble Clement Janequin)
Desprez - Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae, Miserere (De Labyrintho)
Escobar - Requiem (Ensemble Gilles Binchois)
Victoria - Requiem (Gabrieli Consort)

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Ok, so most that know me around here will know me as a passionate modernist fan, but for quite a while I've had an interest in early music, especially Renaissance.

This syndrome (modern music fan who also digs early music) is pretty common. Those centuries in between are so boring and predictable, eh? 

Anyway, I strongly recommend you get hold of the two anthologies led by David Munrow, The Art of Courtly Love and The Art of the Netherlands. Both of them are great pioneering early music anthologies.

Especially Courtly Love, which contains the album "14th Century Avant Garde," amazingly wacky music by composers associated with the Papal court of Avignon. Nothing else like it!

I also endorse the recommendations of North Star and Drasko. To Ockeghem's Requiem, I would add his Missa Prolationum, one of the most compositionally rigorous "proto-avant garde" pieces in existence.

[HIPster]

Hi Alien. 

Many excellent recommendations here.  I'll add a few ~

Perotin/Leonin
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Gesualdo (6th book of Madrigals)
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Monteverdi
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These three are desert island recordings for me.

Cheers! 

[San Antone]

All the previous recommendations are good.  Here's some that are very good box sets available on streaming services



Machaut : Sacred and Secular Music
Victoria : Sacred Works
The Flowering of the Renaissance Choral Music

The Machaut set will have a different recording of the Messe which will provide a nice contrast to the one you've already heard.

Also, some ensembles to seek out (some of which have already been suggested): Orlando Consort; The Sound and the Fury; Cinquecento; Stimmwerck

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

The Flowering of the Renaissance Choral Music

I recommend pretty much anything done by Pro Cantione Antiqua. I really like their more fervent, emotional approach. Also, they tend to add instrumental support, which is something I also prefer.

[Que]

Ok, so most that know me around here will know me as a passionate modernist fan, but for quite a while I've had an interest in early music, especially Renaissance.

So far I love some various works by: Palestrina, Tallis, Petrotin, Gombert and Monteverdi.
I'm wondering, what are some of your most reccommend early works I check out?

Thanks!! 

Alien

Well, most of the really big names have already been mentioned: Machaut, Dufay, Desprez (Des Prez),  Ockeghem.

Missing is Lassus aka Orlando di Lasso.
Those are his Latinized and Italianized names - he was born in the Southern Netherlands as Roland de Lâtre.

Some suggestions to start off:

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Q

[North Star]

I'd also suggest this Lasso disc
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[Que]

I'd also suggest this Lasso disc
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Oh, definitely!! Forgot to mention that one...

Q

[HIPster]

I'd also suggest this Lasso disc
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Oh definitely! 

Well, most of the really big names have already been mentioned: Machaut, Dufay, Desprez (Des Prez),  Ockeghem.

Missing is Lassus aka Orlando di Lasso.
Those are his Latinized and Italianized names - he was born in the Southern Netherlands as Roland de Lâtre.

Some suggestions to start off:

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[asin]B00K1Q3VIG[/asin]
[asin]B001KALT68[/asin]
Q

These too! 

[The new erato]

This syndrome (modern music fan who also digs early music) is pretty common.

Perhaps because they both often are composed based upon pretty rigid constructuional principles, with slight regard for "harmony"?

[Que]

I sure love Perotin, Gesualdo, Machaut and Monteverdi 

Welcome to the Club, then! 

Perhaps because they both often are composed based upon pretty rigid constructuional principles, with slight regard for "harmony"?

During my student years I worked in the Classical department of a large record store, and during that time I also noticed that people with a preference for modern & contemporary music frequently developed a taste for Early Music as well.

Q

[Mandryka]

Hello gentlemen.

I want to find out more about Ockeghem, but there aren't many books that I can see, either in English or in French. In fact the only one I've been able to find is Krenek's. How technical (as apposite to "music appreciation") is Kerenk's book? It's very old, is it too old to be valid?

And have I missed anything? Surely there must be other books.

[Mahlerian]

Perhaps because they both often are composed based upon pretty rigid constructuional principles, with slight regard for "harmony"?

Because they both are primarily non-tonal, modulation is really not an important part of either.  I feel that modulation really became elevated to a constructional principle with the classical era, though of course the movement to the dominant and back is an integral aspect of Baroque music.

Monteverdi is usually considered early Baroque, but his music has a lot of modal flavor in its harmony, and is still a far cry from the much more streamlined tonal system to follow by the end of the 17th century.  I loved every second of this collection, and recommend it:

[Mandryka]

Because they both are primarily non-tonal, modulation is really not an important part of either.  I feel that modulation really became elevated to a constructional principle with the classical era, though of course the movement to the dominant and back is an integral aspect of Baroque music.

Monteverdi is usually considered early Baroque, but his music has a lot of modal flavor in its harmony, and is still a far cry from the much more streamlined tonal system to follow by the end of the 17th century.  I loved every second of this collection, and recommend it:

I blow hot and cold about Monteverdi. When I was into opera I enjoyed them, especially Incoronazzione, both in the opera house and in the films that Ponnele made. And I've enjoyed the St Mark Vespers in concert, and the St Giovanni Verspers in Leonhardt's recording.

But my main reason for posting is to say that, for reasons I'm not at all clear about, I've been really enjoying the madrigals on Naxos, the recordings by Marco Longhini. I paricularly like the first four books - but this may just reflect a sort of anti-operatic taste that I've developed for no good reason. They're well worth checking out I would say.

[San Antone]

But my main reason for posting is to say that, for reasons I'm not at all clear about, I've been really enjoying the madrigals on Naxos, the recordings by Marco Longhini. Well worth checking out I would say.

If you are referring to the Gesualdo recordings, I agree completely. 

[San Antone]

Hello gentlemen.

I want to find out more about Ockeghem, but there aren't many books that I can see, either in English or in French. In fact the only one I've been able to find is Krenek's. How technical (as apposite to "music appreciation") is Kerenk's book? It's very old, is it too old to be valid?

And have I missed anything? Surely there must be other books.

I checked the bibliography at the end of the Grove article on Ockeghem (btw, it is entitled Jean de Ockeghem, not Johannes): Unfortunately most of the material is in specialist journal articles (there are a couple of books, which are not found outside of large libraries, and not in English - if that makes a difference). 

There does not appear to be a general book on the "life and music" for the non-specialist, other then the one by Krenek from the 1950s.

[Mandryka]

If you are referring to the Gesualdo recordings, I agree completely.

No, the Monty, but I'll give the Gesualdo a try soon.

I checked the bibliography at the end of the Grove article on Ockeghem (btw, it is entitled Jean de Ockeghem, not Johannes): Unfortunately most of the material is in specialist journal articles (there are a couple of books, which are not found outside of large libraries, and not in English - if that makes a difference). 

There does not appear to be a general book on the "life and music" for the non-specialist, other then the one by Krenek from the 1950s.

Cheers, I'll buy Krenek's book, it's not expensive.

[San Antone]

Don't tell my wife but I am seriously considering purchasing this

The Ferrell-Vogüé Machaut MS



Produced as two volumes in a slip case:

Volume 1: Introductory study (232 pp. colour and b/w)

Volume 2: Full size facsimile (796 pp. Full colour)

This publication weighs in excess of 7 kilograms. Postage and packing to the United Kingdom is free, to all other destinations £45. 

This is one of the most important sources for the works of Guillaume de Machaut, and thanks to the generosity of its owners, James E and Elizabeth J Ferrell, it has gone from being the most secret and enigmatic of the Machaut sources to the most accessible, and is the first to be produced in facsimile.

Given today's exchange rate, it would cost nearly $700.00 with postage.

Still ... I've been burned in the past by debating whether to purchase something like this only to see it go nearly out of print and prices rising to extraordinary heights.

[aligreto]

Don't tell my wife but I am seriously considering purchasing this

The Ferrell-Vogüé Machaut MS



Produced as two volumes in a slip case:

Volume 1: Introductory study (232 pp. colour and b/w)

Volume 2: Full size facsimile (796 pp. Full colour)

This publication weighs in excess of 7 kilograms. Postage and packing to the United Kingdom is free, to all other destinations £45. 

This is one of the most important sources for the works of Guillaume de Machaut, and thanks to the generosity of its owners, James E and Elizabeth J Ferrell, it has gone from being the most secret and enigmatic of the Machaut sources to the most accessible, and is the first to be produced in facsimile.

Given today's exchange rate, it would cost nearly $700.00 with postage.

Still ... I've been burned in the past by debating whether to purchase something like this only to see it go nearly out of print and prices rising to extraordinary heights.

Wow, I am sure that would be a magnificent set and I wish you the very best if you do decide to go ahead with it.