An outstanding musical personality of the period around 1500, Heinrich Isaac (c 1450-1517) was one of the most universal and versatile of all the earlier...

An outstanding musical personality of the period around 1500, Heinrich Isaac (c 1450-1517) was one of the most universal and versatile of all the earlier composers and an important representative of the Netherlandish school. Altogether a cosmopolitan in the modern sense, he led a colourful life that is reflected in compositions in all the musical forms and styles of his time using the most important languages of Europe in a way that was comparable only with Orlande de Lassus almost 100 years later. The main work on this recording is Heinrich Isaac's six-part Missa paschalis. It comprises the Ordinarium, the 'ordinary' or 'regular' sections (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei) which are always present in the Mass. The Credo, however, is not set to music in the Missa paschalis. In its place, this recording presents a four-part composition by Isaac which is contained in Choir-book no. 33 in the Thuringian State and University Library in Jena. Heinrich Isaac's Missa paschalis is altogether in the tradition of settings of the Easter Mass. Such Easter Masses were based on the first Gregorian plainsong Mass, which was prescribed exclusively for the liturgy at Easter and on the following Sundays up to Whitsuntide. Like all Isaac's Masses using Gregorian models, the Missa paschalis follows the alternatim principle, the alternation between plainsong and polyphony. It is an exceptionally fine example of Isaac's settings of the Mass, and it is no coincidence that its Kyrie was one of few Mass settings he composed that found its way into the choir-books of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, which has a tradition of performing such works unaccompanied. The unaccompanied choral performance presented by ensemble officium on this recording carries on that tradition.