Josquin Desprez: Motets

While musicologists have reduced the number of works officially attributed to Josquin, those that remain in his catalog stand among the great landmarks of Renaissance music. Philippe Herreweghe and the singers of La Chapelle Royale offer a selection of the early 16th-century Franco-Flemish composer’s finest sacred motets, opening with his achingly beautiful Ave Maria and shaping an equally compelling O bone et dulcissime Jesu. Josquin’s polyphony unfolds like an exquisite orchid flower, supported by the lucidity of each voice part and a supremely well-balanced choral blend. Subtle changes of dynamics and emphases serve to heighten the sense of Mary’s suffering at the foot of the cross in Stabat mater dolorosa. Herreweghe’s less-is-more approach pays even richer dividends in his enchanting interpretation of Miserere mei, Deus, Josquin’s heartrending setting of Psalm 51.