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Josquin - Missa Sine nomine & Missa Ad fugam

The Tallis Scholars are unrivalled in this repertoire

With their faultless intonation, transparency of line, and ideal balance between emotional intensity and cool intellectuality, the Tallis Scholars are unrivalled in this repertoire. Peter Phillips highlights the individuality of the different voice-parts - making their individuality comprehensible - yet forms a homogeneous overall sound. By comparing the early Missa Ad fugam and the later Missa Sine Nomine Josquin's stylistic development becomes clear: the thick sound-world of the early work, with its melismatic long-drawn-out lines, yields to a much tauter style, full of rhythmic contrasts without forfeiting any complexity.

Fascinating music, which immediately opens up to the listener even if he knows nothing of the polyphonic artifice which Josquin has deployed.

Translated from a review in the German magazine Partituren.