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Label Challenge Classics |
UPC 0608917288025 |
Catalogue number CC 72880 |
Release date 05 April 2024 |
""What actually transpires through the course of listening is that this series is arguably something far more special than a catalogue raisonné of the choirbooks' contents, and perhaps equally monumental." "Listeners who have seen the Cappella Pratensis perform in person or online will be aware that improvised polyphony is not the only aspect of historically informed performance in which they are currently leaders in the field." "Throughout the first three volumes of this series the quality of performance, interpretation and recording is superb, but the fourth instalment is certainly its crowning glory." "As a whole, the series to date is a masterclass in how scholarly study can be used to craft exciting and exuberant programmes.""
Early Music, 10-9-2024Cappella Pratensis specializes in the music of Josquin Desprez (= Josqinus Pratensis) and other polyphonic composers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The ensemble performs its own programs and original interpretations, which are based on academic research. As was customary in the renaissance, the singers of Cappella Pratensis usually stand around a central music stand, singing from facsimiles of original choirbooks. This creates a unique perspective on the repertoire. The ensemble, founded in 1987, is now under the artistic direction of singer and conductor Stratton Bull.
In addition to regular concerts in the Netherlands and Belgium, Cappella Pratensis performs in leading international festivals and venues in France, Portugal, Germany and the United States. The ensemble also has also released several CD recordings which have been greeted with rave press reviews and awards, including the Diapason d’Or and the Prix Choc. From 2005 to 2007, Cappella Pratensis was ensemble-in-residence at the Fondation Royaumont (France), where it gave courses and concerts, and worked with several prominent musicians. In 2009, it released a DVD/CD production of the Missa de Sancto Donatiano by Jacob Obrecht, which contained a reconstruction of the first performance of this mass, filmed on location in Bruges, supplemented with extensive documentation. This production was awarded with a Diapason découverte and the highest rating in the professional magazine Classica.
The CD Vivat Leo! Music for a Medici Pope (2010), directed by guest conductor Joshua Rifkin, was awarded a Diapason d’Or. A successful series of concerts of the Requiem of Pierre de la Rue was led by guest conductor Bo Holten. A DVD of one of these concerts, performed as part of the event Jheronimus Bosch 500, was released in 2010 under the title Bosch Requiem.
In January 2012 a new CD, containing the earliest surviving polyphonic requiem masses in music history, those by Johannes Ockeghem and Pierre de la Rue. In February 2014 the ensemble released a CD containing music written for the feast of the Assumption and transmitted in choirbooks from the Vatican, including Josquin Desprez’s masterpiece Missa Ave maris stella. In late 2015, the ensemble recorded the Missa Cum Jocunditate by Pierre de la Rue.
In 2016, Cappella and the Nederlands Kamerkoor performed eight concerts of the world premiere of the Missa Unitatis, composed in 2008 by Anthony Pitts (* 1969) in a unique partnership with choirs in Antwerp, Breda, ’s-Hertogenbosch, Eindhoven, Tilburg and Helmond. It has also performed during the Early Music Festival in Utrecht, and presented five performances of the program Christmas with Josquin in the Season of Early Music.
Cappella Pratensis shares its vision and approach to vocal polyphony with professionals and amateurs in masterclasses, with multimedia presentations, and also in a week-long summer school that takes place annually during the festival Laus Polyphoniae in Antwerp. In a structural collaboration with the universities of Leuven and Oxford, the musical manuscripts of the workshop of Petrus Alamire are explored by musicologists and adapted for use by other musicians.
Jonatan Alvarado is an Argentinian singer, lutenist, director and researcher. He began his musical studies on the modern guitar at his hometown's conservatory of Mercedes. He would go on to pursuing a Degree in Orchestral Conducting and Composition at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, while also beginning private singing lessons in Buenos Aires. During his studies he founded his own baroque orchestra, with which he would go on to give the Argentinian premier of Bach's John's Passion on period instrument, while also performing several works by Charpentier and Scarlatti for the first time in South America. Parallel to this, he developed a successful career as a folk-singer, culminating with his performance at the Cosquin Festival with his group Dos en Trío.
Taking the decision to develop his skills as singer and performer of historical European repertories, he applied for a Bachelor in Early Music singing at the Amsterdam Conservatorium where he was accepted into the class of Xenia Meijer. While advancing in his singing studies he also explored the possibilities of period plucked instruments, taking lessons with the lutenist and theorbo player Fred Jacobs. The combination of singing and lute playing in historically informed performances would lead to a Master's in self-accompanied singing, custom-created for his studies, resulting in a “Cum Laude” for his final examination recital.
During his time as a student he became the cofounder and co-director of the ensemble Seconda Prat!ca, with which he entered the EEEmerging platform, an initiative of the European Commission for Culture to support rising early music talent. The ensemble's high level of performance has led to their releasing of the debut album “Nova Europa” in 2016 with the Ambronay label, which garnered a coup de coeur and became album of choice of France Musique.
He is currently working with Dr. Rebecca Stewart in developing vocal techniques for historical repertoires and connecting early music with oral practices such as the folklore of his own country. This research has led to the recording of his debut solo album ‘Pajarillos Fugitivos’ released by the label Ayros. It includes Spanish guitar songs found in non-spanish sources, aiming to explore its possible connections and transformations within the realm of Latin-American traditional music and poetry.
With his ensemble and as a soloist he has sung and played in some of the most important festivals of his specialty including Ambronay, Sablé, Stockholm and Göttingen. He has collaborated with other musicians and directors such as Sigiswald Kuijken, Richard Egarr, Gabriel Garrido, Adrian van der Spoel and Eduardo Eguez.
"What actually transpires through the course of listening is that this series is arguably something far more special than a catalogue raisonné of the choirbooks' contents, and perhaps equally monumental."
"Listeners who have seen the Cappella Pratensis perform in person or online will be aware that improvised polyphony is not the only aspect of historically informed performance in which they are currently leaders in the field."
"Throughout the first three volumes of this series the quality of performance, interpretation and recording is superb, but the fourth instalment is certainly its crowning glory."
"As a whole, the series to date is a masterclass in how scholarly study can be used to craft exciting and exuberant programmes."
Early Music, 10-9-2024
The performances are technically superb and exquisitely delicate. There is no compromise of ensemble precision, but the music seems to have a spontaneous, almost improvisatory flow. The singers and players seem to be speaking their native musical language, not performing a musicological exercise.
American Record Guide, 01-9-2024
Spatialized in a large and diaphanous acoustic, here is a stimulating investigation of this ceremony as it could have resonated, some five hundred years ago, in s-Hertogenbosch!
Clic Musique, 01-7-2024
It invites you to to get to know this repertoire that was played at the meetings of the Brotherhood of Our Illustrious Virgin in 's-Hertogenbosch better. The Capella Pratensis and also the Sollazzo Ensemble specialize in this music, they are all musical “truffle pigs” who always go looking for forgotten music, rummage through archives and also not shy away for fragments. The result are recordings that are convincing from start to finish. Thank you for so much commitment!
SWR Kultur, 02-6-2024
Since both groups are at the top of their form, the results are predictably stunning...
...they sing beautifully in Mass music by Appenzeller and Vinders (...), give one track of improvised polyphony, and offer lovely performances of two contrasting songs by Compère.
Gramophone, 01-6-2024
Sacred and profane songs alternate in a context that at that historical moment had no boundaries and is witnessed by the many manuscripts owned by the Confraternity, the same manuscripts from which Cappella Pratensis drew to create the recording. Giovanni Conti talks about this and more with one of the historic voices of the ensemble, Peter De Laurentiis.
RSI, 26-5-2024
An interesting five-part series of CDs by Stratton Bull's vocal ensemble Cappella Pratensis, specialized in Early Music.
[...]
Instruments and voices are inspired by the heavenly polyphony from the liturgical repertoire, which is presented in a very relaxed and transparent manner.
De Gelderlander, 18-5-2024
The Den Bosch Choirbooks, remarkable collection of Renaissance music from the golden age of Brabant, which local vocal ensemble Cappella Pratensis is exploring and bringing back to life. Old music made new with attractive immediacies, easy to imagine the banquet as toasting, maybe roasting the swan. Altough, they had to be lucky to have voices as attractive and well-schooled as these.
BBC Radio 3, 04-5-2024
Stratton Bull, at the head of the Cappella Pratensis and the instrumental ensemble Sollazzo Ensemble, commits to a very well-articulated interpretation, with a clamorous voice emitting from the singers and a vigorous instrumental accompaniment, maintaining the melodic lines with brilliant clarity.
Sonograma, 29-4-2024