The Choir Project al día [20-VIII-2012]

Josquin Desprez (c.1450/55-1521): De profundis clamavi a 4.
The Binchois Consort - Andrew Kirkman.
Semper Josquin.

   Andrew Kirkman says about this piece:

"The four-voice De profundis has conflicting attributions to Josquin and ‘Champion’, presumably one of the brothers Jacques and Nicolas Champion who were employed in the Hapsburg Imperial Chapel in the first third of the sixteenth century. For Glarean, though, there were no doubts either about the authorship of this piece or its quality; for him it was the quintessence of Josquin, in both its beauty of expression and its novelty: ‘Here indeed I should like everyone to observe carefully how the beginning of this song is composed, with how much expression and how much dignity he has brought the phrase De profundis … nor is he alone [in the modal practice of this piece] in a clearly immoderate love of novelty and excessive zeal to snatch a little glory by being unusual, a failing with which the more talented professors of disciplines are almost always afflicted …’ Original and unprecedented though the modal flexibility of this piece may be, in Glarean’s opinion Josquin ‘… has accomplished it learnedly and without giving the slightest offense to the ears’".

   In my opinion, this performance, only with male voices, is intimate with a very delicate and careful sonority. The lines intersect with great clarity and the phrasing is very good. The sound of the bass is absolutely fantastic, the best of the ensemble.

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