Antoine Brumel

Sacred music moved in new directions in the late 15th century thanks to the rapid-fire rhythms and lyrical melodies of Antoine Brumel. Born around 1460 in northern France, he was famed as an innovator long after his death circa 1513. He learned what voices could do as a singer at Chartres and Laon and as a choir trainer at Notre Dame, Paris. His early compositions gripped congregations with music that could have been written for a late-medieval dance band, while his more austere mature works invited deep spiritual contemplation. An ordained priest who spent his last years in Italy, Brumel is best known for his opulent Earthquake Mass for 12 voices, so called because of the Easter chant, Missa Et ecce terrae motus, on which it is based. But early-21st-century recordings by the Hilliard Ensemble, The Clerks’ Group and The Brabant Ensemble have trained the spotlight on other beguiling works, the Missa Victimae paschali laudes mass for the dead and the hauntingly beautiful Missa de beata virgine among them.