Peter Phillips conducts Obrecht's Missa Sancto de Donatiano — With The Tallis Scholars
St. James's Church (Sint-Jakobskerk), Bruges
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Cast
The Tallis Scholars
Amy Haworth — Soprano
Emma Walshe — Soprano
Caroline Trevor — Alto
Alex Chance — Alto
Tom Robson — Tenor
Rob Macdonald — Tenor
Greg Skidmore — Bass
Peter Phillips — Chorus director
Program notes
In 1487, Leonardo da Vinci created the Vitruvian Man; Edward VI challenged Henry VII for the throne of England; and the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches), history's most infamous treatise for the persecution of witchcraft, was published in Germany. The same year, Jacob Obrecht’s Missa de Sancto Donatiano—commissioned for the death of a wealthy fur merchant—was heard for the first time.
In 2018, the Tallis Scholars revive this masterpiece of Renaissance polyphony in the city (and at the same church!) where it was first sung over five centuries ago: St. James's Church (Sint-Jakobskerk) in Bruges, Belgium. Peter Phillips presents the crystalline texture of this music and the emotion of its liturgical text with the Tallis Scholars, an ensemble well-known for the purity of their early vocal music interpretations. This program, "Masterpieces from Bruges,” is completed by three other contemporaneous around the figure of the Virgin Mary: in Stabat iuxta (Browne), the painful contemplation of the crucifixion of her son; in Maria plena virtute (Fayrfax), the bittersweet ambivalence of her fate; and in the Magnificat (Gombert), the celebration of the birth of her son.