Rore : Missa Vivat Felix Hercules & Motets

Album review

Cyprien de Rore is one of the most important representatives of Franco-Flemish musicians. Spread out across all of Europe, these musicians originating in Flanders deepened their knowledge of composition in Italy, where they took up residence in courts. After Josquin des Prés, Rore officiated at the court of the Duke of Ferrara. Later, in Venice, he followed Adrian Willaert as the Master of the Chapel of the Basilica of Saint Mark. 

This album brings together the mass dedicated to his protector, Ercole II d’Este (Missa vivat felix Hercules secundus) with some motets. So this programme, performed by the Weser-Renaissance choir and conducted by Manfred Cordes, is entirely in Latin. Rore's counterpoint ploughs the furrow of the prima pratica, while the care taken over the text and its harmonic language point towards the "new music" or seconda pratica. Standing at the crossroads of these two styles, Cyprien de Rore has mixed the ordinario of the mass with secular texts, creating a musical unity  – following the example set by Josquin, himself the author of a mass in honour of a Duke of Ferrara, Ercole I. A soggetto cavato provides a bridge: the vowels of the text ("Hercules dux Ferrariae") correspond to the notes (D, C, D, C, D, F, E, D), forming a melodic motif. As for the recorded motets, they were recovered in a magnificent manuscript which was kept in the Library of Bavaria. In fact, Rore was famous in the Munich court, where he went in person to copy his motets into the codex. Polyphonic gems, these pieces blossom with great lucidity. Manfred Cordes and the Bremen Weser-Renaissance ensemble clearly know their stuff: the record is simply magnificent. © Elsa Siffert/Qobuz