Imitation is the ultimate compliment. To take inspiration from someone else’s work, to borrow and rework it to form another piece…what could be more flattering? This technique, known as ‘parody’, was hugely popular in late 16th-century Europe and Orlande de Lassus was one of its most famous advocates. The Sixteen’s programme showcases the master of parody at work and also features a new commission from the extraordinarily inventive composer Bob Chilcott parodying one of Lassus’ finest secular madrigals.

Also included are two mini masterpieces by Maddalena Casulana - the first female composer to have had a whole book of her music printed and published in the history of western music and whose work was widely admired, not least by Lassus.

The Amsterdam-based recorder quintet has done it again: an original concept, featuring several first recordings, and superb performances which confirm them among the top-tier of today’s early-music chamber ensembles. The present album arises from a concert devised in 2018 for a festival in Bruges celebrating notable female figures from history.

Seldom Sene chose to focus on Margaret of Austria (1480–1530), who was governor of the Habsburg Netherlands for almost 20 years. Margaret had grown up with the benefits of a first-class education afforded to very few of her female peers: she was adept in all the humanities, and her library of books was reckoned one of the most extensive and learned at the time, a fit place to welcome distinguished guests such as Albrecht Dürer. From around 1515, one of the volumes in Margaret’s library was her newly commissioned personal songbook: a collection of 55 chansons and motets, richly decorated with high-quality miniatures and initials.

Many of the song texts speak of loss, sorrow and loneliness, perhaps reflecting her status at the time as a noble widow, following the death of her second husband, Philibert II of Savoy, in 1504. Margaret herself seems to have written several of them, and may also have been involved in their musical setting. Marian devotion is another theme of the songbook reflected in this selection made and transcribed and recorded by Seldom Sene. Sacred hymns are balanced out by secular laments, but also lighter and more cheerful numbers such as ‘Brunette m’amiette‘ and ‘La jonne dame’. Many of the composers are now lost to us and effectively anonymous, but the names that survive are worthy of Margaret’s elevated status, including Josquin and Pierre de la Rue.

‘Like Margaret,’ concludes María Martínez Ayerza in her booklet note, ‘like her courtiers and visitors, we see and hear the music and texts in this songbook and we are moved, stirred. These artworks make us change, as we relate the texts, even the titles, and the rather abstract beauty of the music to ourselves.’ Ayerza and her colleagues in Seldom Sene bring this music and Margaret’s world back to life with intense sympathy. The album is sure to receive the glowing reviews accorded to the group’s discography on Brilliant Classics. ‘Commitment, technical versatility, unanimity of ensemble and near-immaculate tuning on display.’ (Gramophone) ‘An excellent release from an ensemble I hope we’ll hear a lot more from in the future.’ (Fanfare)

Josquin des Prez: the name evokes beautiful, brilliant, even magical music—but more than five centuries since he composed his last note, we are still discovering how to hear him. In this album, originally conceived to mark the composer’s quincentenary in 2021, Cut Circle strives to treat Josquin not as a sleepy relic of the distant past but as a stylish, sensitive, playful, ecstatic composer. We foreground his revolutionary precision and drive while embracing reactions to the music that are visceral and emotional.

The instrumentalist, composer, and publisher Tielman Susato (c. 1510/15 – after 1570) was one of the most illustrious figures in the musical life of Renaissance Antwerp. He founded the first music publishing house to use movable type in the Low Countries in 1543. Music printing had mainly been based in Italy, France, and Germany until Susato set up his press in Antwerp. He was one of the first to publish works by Orlando di Lasso, the most renowned composer of the late Renaissance. Susato was also an accomplished composer who wrote and published several books of masses and motets in the typical imitative polyphonic style of the time. He was well connected in the highest circles of the city and the country, often dedicating his publications to prominent citizens or rulers. The Utopia Ensemble here presents a florilegium of works composed and/or published by this dazzling figure of Renaissance vocal music.

A celebration of the Christmas season, from Advent through the New Year, in music from the courts of 15th-century France and Burgundy. Music by Guillaume Du Fay, Johannes Regis, Jacob Obrecht, Josquin Desprez, Antoine Brumel, Adrian Willaert, and others.

Una poesia muta: Art in early Cinquecento Venice is the result of a collaboration between SWR radio, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and The Marian Consort. Specially curated by the Stuttgart museum, Germany's first ever exhibition devoted to Vittore Carpaccio and his contemporaries has inspired The Marian Consort to devise an album to accompany this artistic journey. Being one of the most prominent painters of the Early Renaissance in Venice, Carpaccio is likely to have been acquainted with the music and the composers recorded here, since all have strong links to the city at that time. If some of them are well-known today - Josquin, Jean Mouton, Adrian Willaert - others deserve wider recognition. The Marian Consort and it's director Rory McCleery have assembled a typically fascinating programme, matched with superb singing.

Memoria Mortis

Missa De Beate Virgine, Motets

Josquin Desprez, princeps musicorum, the prince of musicians, as his contemporaries called him, is best known today for his sacred works, the masses and motets, which have been widely performed and recorded. Surprisingly, his chansons have received little attention from performers, except for the pieces for five and six voices, printed after his death by the Antwerp publisher Tilman Susato in his seventh book of 1545. Doulce Mémoire has chosen to focus on the chansons for three and four voices, which are probably the earliest in the Hainault master’s output; with their diversity of language and themes (sometimes folk-derived), these songs constitute a varied program that is at once serious and bawdy, a testament to the unequalled art of Josquin Desprez.

Sensual - that's undoubtedly the word that best describes the music on this album dedicated to the early works of Josquin des Prez. In his early thirties, the composer was already developing a unique sense of sound and language. He knew how to make rhythms resonate, rendering them sometimes enveloping, sometimes liberating. His melodies are full of life - sometimes gentle, sometimes sinuous - and his duets seem to be made of glances exchanged between voices. Josquin composes with great finesse, playing on the contrasts between the intimate and the radiant. As in the art of his time, even when he addresses religious subjects, his music retains a sensual beauty, full of emotion and humanity.

Winner of the 2022 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition, Protean Quartet makes it's Linn debut with an eclectic programme that transcends musical eras. Taking polyphony as a starting point, the versatile young quartet ventures into various epochs, ranging from Purcell's Pavan Z. 752, Chacony Z. 730 and Dance from the opera Dioclesian, to Schubert's String Quartets Nos. 4 and 13 ('Rosamunde') by way of Josquin's famed 'Mille regretz'. Although different in style, these works show an equal care in the treatment of every individual voice, each one meticulously played by Protean Quartet's outstanding musicians. A multifaceted album which will delight existing polyphony enthusiasts and create many more!