Josquin 501 – The Gaudete Singers

Music by Josquin des Prez, Jacob Obrecht and Johannes Ockeghem
The Gaudete Singers directed by David Leigh
Sunday 13th March 8pm
Lady Chapel, St Patrick’s Cathedral

Tickets on the door: €20, conc. €15, students €5

Programme:
Missa ‘Pange Lingua’ Josquin des Prez (c.1455 – 1521)
Salve Regina Jacob Obrecht (c. 1450 – 1505)
Intemerata Dei Mater Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1410 – 1497)

Last year celebrated 500 years of Josquin’s music, when we had hoped to honour him with a performance of the Missa ‘Pange Lingua’. Due to unforeseen events we have had to delay this concert until 2022, hence Josquin 501.
Born in Condé-sur-L’Escaut (now in France) little is known of his early life. He sang in the cathedral in Cambrai in the early 1470s. He subsequently travelled to Milan to sing in the royal courts and also performed for the papal chapel. Josquin stayed in Italy moving to Ferrara and returned to his birthplace after 1505.
The Missa ‘Pange Lingua’ is the last known mass written by Josquin around 1515, the fruit of his old age. Based on the famous plainsong hymn for the feast of Corpus Christi, Missa Pange Lingua, it is possibly Josquin’s finest mass setting of his 20 masses that survive complete. In his musical techniques he stands at the summit of the Renaissance, blending traditional forms with innovations that later became standard practices.
The first collection of polyphonic music printed from moveable type was produced by Petrucci in Venice in 1501. Up to that time sacred music was handwritten in a single large choir book placed on a lectern. The music was written large enough so that all the singers (usually 8 – 12 men) could read from one manuscript.
Josquin des Prez and Jacob Obrecht were contemporaries and were both associated with Cambrai Cathedral although not at the same time. They were possibly taught by Johannes Ockeghem but at the very least they were both influenced by him.
The Gaudete Singers are thrilled to be presenting this concert after a gap of two years. This wonderful programme will be heard to good effect in the sympathetic acoustic of the Lady Chapel in St Patricks’ Cathedral.
We hope you will come along on 13th March for this concert of rarely performed early music and relax into the soundscape of the 15th century.