Desprez / Cappella Pratensis / Bull : Missa Ave Maris Stella

The music of Josquin Desprez is performed, recorded, and studied more than that of any other composer of the Renaissance. Although
his numerous masses and motets are now more than 500 years old, they have entered our modern musical museum of masterpieces, heard
in concert and on recordings as independent works of art. But just as a stunning Renaissance altarpiece becomes even more impressive
and meaningful when restored to its original place, so the sacred polyphony of the period gains in beauty and meaning when heard within
the ritual framework it once enhanced. That ritual framework told sacred stories of Christ, his mother, and the saints primarily
through plainsong and recitation. For special occasions, in institutions able to support highly trained singers, sacred polyphony added
special luster. This recording aims to recapture a sense of the ceremonial context that would have surrounded Josquin s sacred polyphony
in a place where he sang and composed, and where his music continued in use long after he left. That ritual context is the Saturday Mass
for the Blessed Virgin during Advent, a liturgy focused on the Annunciation story; that place is the Sistine Chapel in Rome.