Simon Marmion, Scenes from the Life of St. Bertin (1459, detail) © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie (photo: Christoph Schmidt)
Take a look behind the scenes and join The Tallis Scholars for a rehearsal in preparation for their concerts at the Pierre Boulez Saal! In addition, a selection of essays on various topics from the seemingly inexhaustible cosmos of Renaissanc music adds a few more layers to the picture.
Peter Phillips
What would Josquin des Prez and architect Filippo Brunelleschi have talked about if they had ever met? Read Peter Phillips’s thoughts on a hypothetical conversation between two of the most influential artists of the Renaissance, exploring fascinating parallels and paradoxes between music and visual arts.
Take a look behind the scenes: The Tallis Scholars invited us to join one of their rehearsals in preparation for their concerts at the Pierre Boulez Saal. We learned a lot about Josquin, the singers, and the history of the extraordinary ensemble.
Harry Haskell
Why do we still perform, record, celebrate, and listen to Josquin’s music half a millennium after his death? Harry Haskell looks back on the unique history of the composer’s reception through the centuries and sheds light on what the generations before us have made of his genius.
Ivan Moody
With their recording of Josquin’s Missa Pange lingua in 1987, Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars started what today stands as one of the most ambitious early-music projects in recording history. Following the final release of the series in 2020, Phillips spoke with composer and musicologist Ivan Moody for Gramophone magazine about how it all started and where the journey took them.
Anthony Parr
The span of Josquin’s life is roughly framed by two momentous events in European history: the invention of the printing press around 1450, and Luther’s 1517 attack on corruption in the Catholic church. His career was essentially a product of what art historians call the quattrocento, the era of the 1400s that first saw the revival of arts and learning known as the European Renaissance. Anthony Parr explores a fascinating and turbulent period of innovation.
Jenny Körber
As much as the difference between music and painting has been emphasized since antiquity, their close connection has also been pointed out again and again. But in Christian art, music and sound have always been closely associated with the divine and thus with the unrepresentable per se. So how can music and heavenly sounds be represented in the earthly medium of painting? Art historian Jenny Körber seeks and finds answers in a painting by the Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio.
Peter Phillips
Peter Phillips, founder and director of The Tallis Scholars, has explored and championed Josquin’s masses like few other musicians today—both from a performer’s and from a scholar’s perspective. In 2018, he distilled his experience and knowledge in an extensive essay for the Musical Times, providing in-depth analysis and insights into each of the masses. This is our advanced course on Josquin—dive in and lose yourself in the music!
Michael Kube
In addition to his 18 mass settings, Josquin wrote numerous motets and chansons during his lifetime, which equally secured his enduring fame. Michael Kube presents a selection of his most fascinating contributions to these genres.
