Rebellious reinterpretation

Josquin Desprez, "the music master", as Luther called him, was one of the first composers to expressly forbid singers to enrich their pieces with ornamentation and improvisation. Is such overweening authority the reason why two ensembles now seem to disrespect him? One CD features the famous portrait, although Josquin's head has been replaced by a skull. Josquin the Undead is the title of the Belgian ensemble Graindelavoix's selection of dances of death and lamentations (Glossa GCDP32117). Their performance is sonically dense and passionately languid. But there is also a great deal of respect in all of this, because Josquin is a revenant who cannot be killed.

This liveliness also characterizes the rebellious approach on the CD by the Basel ensemble Thélème. The title Baisiez moy can be understood in a rather obscene way. Even more striking, however, are the arrangements of some of the pieces. When La Bernardina is performed by two lutes, this is historically justifiable; if in Qui belles amours the lute and the Fender Rhodes, that almost legendary keyboard from the sixties, are added to the four vocal parts or in Nymphes des boisThe déploration of Ockeghem's death, even the Ondes Martenot, is sacrilegious. No historical information and no authenticity protect such an arrangement. But that is precisely what makes it so fresh and cheeky. It is a contemporary approach that is continued in the lively performance style, which tends towards the fragile. Neither ensemble cultivates a polished style. Incidentally, the interpretative approaches could hardly be more contrasting: While the chanson in particular Baisiez moy While Graindelavoix's music becomes a broad, ornate stream of sound, Ensemble Thélème's remains entertainingly playful and straightforward. C'est à vous, Maître Josquin, de choisir!