Desprez / Cappella Pratensis / Bull : Missa Ave Maris Stella

Desprez / Cappella Pratensis / Bull : Missa Ave Maris Stella

• Shrink-wrapped

The music of Josquin Desprez is performed, recorded, and studied more than that of any other composer of the Renaissance. Although<br>his numerous masses and motets are now more than 500 years old, they have entered our modern musical museum of masterpieces, heard<br>in concert and on recordings as independent works of art. But just as a stunning Renaissance altarpiece becomes even more impressive<br>and meaningful when restored to its original place, so the sacred polyphony of the period gains in beauty and meaning when heard within<br>the ritual framework it once enhanced. That ritual framework told sacred stories of Christ, his mother, and the saints primarily<br>through plainsong and recitation. For special occasions, in institutions able to support highly trained singers, sacred polyphony added<br>special luster. This recording aims to recapture a sense of the ceremonial context that would have surrounded Josquin s sacred polyphony<br>in a place where he sang and composed, and where his music continued in use long after he left. That ritual context is the Saturday Mass<br>for the Blessed Virgin during Advent, a liturgy focused on the Annunciation story; that place is the Sistine Chapel in Rome.