The Choirs of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, with their director Edward Wickham, have collaborated once again for this album of Renaissance motets and hymns in praise of St Catharine - one of the most ubiquitous and beloved saints of the Middle Ages who also lends her name to the college (founded in 1473) where both groups are resident. This diverse programme spans a century in which the cult of St Catharine was at it's height, representing the prayers and exhortations of pious communities towards a saint who might represent their interests in the court of heaven. St Catharine's College lies at the historic centre of Cambridge and at the heart of the University's distinguished musical tradition. Founded in 1473, there has been a choir associated with the college for over a hundred years. The mixed student choir currently consists of around 24 undergraduate and graduate members, augmented by former choristers from the Girls' Choir; and sings regular services in the college's eighteenth century chapel.

Nicolas Gombert’s compositions, all vocal, are for ensembles of up to twelve parts. • His contrapuntal language is based on that of Josquin, but increasingly complex. • Imitation is used even more consistently than did Josquin, and Gombert’s vocal textures are often densely packed, with individual lines characterized by an avoidance of rests. • A substantial number of his compositions survive, including ten masses, over 160 motets, 60 secular chansons, and a set of eight Magnificats (one in each mode). • The motets on this recording, for 4–6 voices, offer fine representations of Gombert’s musical style.

In April 1999 the first concert by Calmus Ensemble took place near Leipzig. Four young singers made their debut as an ensemble after their time in the famous St Thomas's Choir. The beginning of an impressive career: scholarship holders of the Deutscher Musikrat, first prize in competitions in Germany, Spain, Finland, and the USA, workshops and master classes, 22 albums, over 1,200 concerts in twenty countries. Since their concert debut in 1999, the line-up and number of members of the ensemble has changed several times, but one thing has remained constant: blend, precision, lightness, and humor. These four characteristics are the hallmarks of Calmus, making the ensemble one of the most successful vocal groups in Germany. Their wide range of sound colors, joy in performing and kind of sound, but also their varied and imaginative programs delight audiences time and time again - both at home and abroad. And the range of repertoire on this journey has been almost unlimited: shaped by the tradition of St. Thomas's Choir, the singers are naturally at home in the vocal music of the Renaissance, the Baroque and the Romantic, but the music of our own time is also a major focus. Over the years Calmus has commissioned and premiered many compositions, including works by Paul Moravec, Steffen Schleiermacher, and Wolfram Buchenberg. For their 20th anniversary, a compilation with highlights from Calmus' extensive discography is being released. Not only simply a 'best of', but a virtuoso look back at two outstandingly successful decades of Calmus Ensemble!

Sebastian Ochsenkun’s Tabulature Book for Lute, with its Latin motets, German psalms and songs, and Italian and French pieces, was published in 1558 as a collection of contemporary vocal music arranged for solo instrumentalist. Josquin des Préz is the most prominently represented composer, but other renowned composers, such as Nicolas Gombert from the Spanish court of Emperor Charles V and Ioannes Mouton from the court of King Francis I of France, can be heard on this recording as well.

Ochsenkun was the lutenist of Prince Elector Ottheinrich of the Palatinate. Rising to a technically challenging task, he always produced the complete texture for his instrument by transcribing all the voices into lute tablature where contemporaries settled for two or three. Nevertheless, Ochsenkun’s intabulations are excellently suited for having a voice sing to them, as demonstrated on this recording. Renowned singers Dorothee Mields and Jan Kobow join for several tracks. Viewed historically, Ochsenkun’s work is regarded as testimony to the high level of lute playing during the middle years of the sixteenth century in Southern Germany. With his aspiration to high quality, he reaches beyond his times and his instrument to touch us today.

Simon-Pierre Bestion immerses us in the world of Charles V and a Spain marked by Arab-Andalusian culture. From 1515 onwards, Spain also welcomed musicians and singers from Flanders: this Capilla flamenca had an explosive effect on Spanish music during the Renaissance, according to Bestion. He has composed an imaginary Requiem for the death of Charles V, using compositions actually intended for this service, such as Pedro de Escobar's Missa pro defunctis and Cristobal de Morales' Missa Mille regretz, based on the emperor's favourite song. As usual, the founding conductor of La Tempete takes a few liberties and breathes life into these works by arranging them with variations in timbre, tempo and expression: 'I chose to make extensive use of percussion and certain very distinctive instruments such as the shawm and sackbuts, which perfectly match the spirit of outdoor processions, such as those in the gardens of the Alhambra.'

The disc’s title refers to the fate of the outspoken and for a time widely popular 15th-century friar Girolamo Savonarola, executed in Florence in 1498 following his continued calls for church reforms, his criticism of papal corruption, and finally his direct defiance of papal orders. Awaiting execution, he composed a meditation on Psalm 50, Miserere mei, Deus, and another on Psalm 30, In te, Domine, speravi, texts that were secreted out of the prison and eventually disseminated throughout Europe. During the next century composers latched on to these writings and many of the works on this program include settings of Savonarola’s meditation texts.

A notable feature of these works is their length: the shortest is nearly six minutes; the longest more than 17. Most fall in the nine to ten-minute range. Whatever the timing, writing polyphonic works of this scope, not only sustaining momentum over long-breathed phrase after long-breathed phrase–indeed, full cadences are few and far between!–and keeping the music interesting while articulating the texts within the greater musical framework takes more than ordinary skill.

The mastery on display here, by composers such as Josquin, Palestrina, Gombert, and Byrd, expertly supported by the talented and distinguished voices of Magnificat (long-time choral fans will notice a few familiar names in the 16-voice ensemble), is clear from the beginning of Josquin’s Miserere mei, and certainly needs no defense nor explanation to serious choral music listeners. Conductor Philip Cave, in his excellent perfomance note, describes these works as “extraordinarily intense”, and as you listen you won’t disagree with him.

Although Cave also claims Josquin’s Miserere, which opens Disc 1, as the “heart of the program”, I suggest skipping to Disc 2 and going right for Jean Lhéritier’s Miserere mei, Domine. To hear this exquisite, lesser-known work first, without distraction or the influence of previous listening, is worth upsetting Cave’s undoubtedly well-thought-out program order. Every time I hear a piece by Lhéritier (whose name doesn’t even appear in some music dictionaries) I wonder why his motets do not have wider advocacy by world-class choirs. (Notably, most of the performing editions used here, including the Lhéritier piece, are the work of musicologist, veteran professional choral musician, and member of Magnificat, Sally Dunkley, who has been responsible for bringing many works from manuscript obscurity to the concert hall and recordings.)

Lhéritier, who, according to Patrick Macey, the writer of the disc’s first-rate liner notes, “may have been a student of Josquin in the early 1500s”, and who spent most of his career in Italy, creates works like those of his contemporary Gombert, that draw you in and then surround you in a world of sound that’s at once sensuous and spiritual, that glories in rich harmonies, complexly interweaving melodies, and the timbre of combined voices. Exactly what we should expect from really good choral music sung by world-class singers.

Hearing Josquin’s five-part, 17-minute-plus setting of Psalm 50, it’s easy to understand Cave’s choice of this piece as an anchor and inspiration for the selection of other works on the program. It’s also easy to hear how the kind of musical standard Josquin set–in his particular attention to text, its clarity, and its specific musical treatment; to the organization of musical structure both in use of voices and in the larger context of contrapuntal and alternating homophonic sections–would demand much from his contemporaries and followers.

That they succeeded–at least those featured on this recording–is quite clear, and the tribute to the music’s excellence is confirmed in these performances, so sensitively phrased and caringly inflected, carried by an exceptionally well-balanced ensemble of compatible voices. Highly recommended.

- ClassicsToday