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Tallis Scholars travel composer's sound worlds > BY TONY MONTAGUE
J
osquin des Prez was a fa vourite composer of Martin Luther. And Peter Phillips is not surprised the leader of the Reformation loved Josquin's works-even though many of the best were masses. "Luther was a very sensitive musi cian," says Phillips, founder and lead er of the Tallis Scholars, reached at his home in Islington, London. "He once said he didn't see why the devil referring to the Catholic Church should have all the best tunes, and apparently he sang very well himsel( It was the dogma he didn't like about the Church. So I think he would have been enormously impressed by Jos quin-as everyone else was." Little is known about Josquin's life; indeed there's some dispute whether he was French or Flemish. Whatever his origins, he was born around 1450, died in 1521, and is re garded as the greatest musician of his time.Josquin wrote both sacred and secular music in all of the significant vocal forms of the age, including masses, motets, chansons, and frot tole (predecessors of madrigals).
The Tallis Scholars have helped lead early sacred music out of the fringes and into popularity around the globe
At the Chan Centre for the Per forming Arts next Tuesday (Decem ber 8), the Scholars will open their program of early sacred music with a performance of Josquin's Missa de Beata Virgine, his most popular mass in the 16th century. "It's based on plainchant," says Phillips. "Quite a few masses of that period were
based on chants and are known as paraphrase masses." The Tallis Scholars' most recent album is Missa Malheur me bat & Missa Fortunata desperata, which features two ofJosquin's more secu lar compositions. "We're hoping to record all 16 of his masses," says Phillips. "Eight discs are involved,
and we're now halfway through. The reason I want to do this project is that his masses are as different from each other, and as significant, as I:udwig van Beethoven's sym phonies.Josquin seemed to pour all his genius into this particular for mat, and he's very inventive. I like to explain the differences and hope
to write a book about them. Each mass is a sound world of its own. The way he constructed it and used the material is highly original." The Scholars' first Vancouver concert in four years also comprises John Nesbett's Magnificat, Thomas Tallis's Tunes From Archbishop Par ker's Psalter, and William Byrd's Ye sacred muses, Tribulationes civi tatum, and Vigilate. A full evening of early sacred music isn't considered an unusual program anymore, but ac cording to Phillips, when he founded the group in 1973, it was deemed not only a radical idea but "boring". "It was thought the public wouldn't come, and indeed they didn't," he explains. "But we persevered. Over the years it's become a more ac cepted form of the mainstream for concert series, with string quartets and piano recitals, and there's been a worldwide increase of interest in the repertoire. We've played in places such as Morocco, Israel, Zambia, Mexico, Norway, and China, and we're just back from our 13th tour of Japan. People these days have no problem sitting for two hours listen ing to nothing but great Renaissance sacred music." 0