Renaissance Mass at Sanders

There was a time when it was fairly recherche to show interest in Schutz or Gallus, but that day has past, Sunday evening, a capacity audience lined up an hour in advance for tickets to a performance of liturgical music by Josquin des Prez, Buchner, and other Fifteenth and Sixteenth century composers. And this was no historical experiment, but a mature, indeed exalted, presentation.

For this appearance, Noah Greenberg conducted the New York Pro Musica's augmented Motet Choir, a thirty-five member group including six countertenors and ten boy choristers from New York's Little Church Around the Corner. The instrumental section consisted of two sackbuts, a shawm and a cornetto. This ensemble produced a terribly impressive, almost ethereal range of tonal coloring that perfectly suited the spiritual splendor of the programme.

Greenberg has reconstructed a Renaissance Mass built around Josquin's Missa Gaudeamus (1502). Interspersed between the sections of the Ordinary were small motets and instrumental portions by other composers, and the entire piece was entitled Missa de Nativitate Beatae Virginis Mariae. Since vocal and instrumental scoring was not indicated in the music of the Renaissance, Greenberg had to orchestrate everything. The result was anything but contrived.

A processional based on Heinrich Isaac's La Mi La Sol exhibited the lavish potentialities of cornetto, sackbut and shawm. The intricate syncopation of this piece is akin to the spirit of many of Gabrielli's horn canzone.

In the Introit, Greenberg unfolded all his resources. Directing in a smooth, flowing manner, he did meticulous justice to Isaac's complexity. The choirboys never failed to add a lustrous openness to the awesome fourths that characterize this musical idiom.

Among the six soloists, Robert White (countertenor) and Charles Bressler (tenor) were particularly outstanding--both for technical accomplishment and tact. Especially when singing with the ensemble, they maintained a sense of humility, rising above the group, but never dominating it.

Right through to the glorious final Communio, the New York Pro Musica did far more than perform old music; it removed the patina from a neglected master, piece and presented it as living example of the vigor of the Renaissance.