Ensemble Clement Janequin & Dominique Visse - Josquin Desprez: Adieu, Mes Amours, Chansons (2003)

It now looks as though the main achievement of Josquin's last years at Conde—to which he retired soon after he was 60—was in a group of songs for five and six voices. There are just over 20 of these: most of them use canon between two of the voices; most of them are miniatures that last under two minutes; all are stunning; and between them they represent an extraordinary final flowering of that inexhaustibly resourceful musical mind.

The main achievement of this record is to assemble no fewer than ten of the five-voice songs (including the slightly earlier Nymphes des bois) and seven of the six-voice ones. Several of them have been recorded elsewhere; but nowhere else will you get such a concentration of the music from Josquin's last period. The other ten pieces here give a reasonable cross-section of his other secular work, in four and three voices, most of it well represented on record over the past 20 years. But anyone who cares about Josquin's music will want this record for the late works, irrespective of how well they are performed.

Which is worth remembering, because the performances are almost without exception disappointing. The Clement Janequin Ensemble are a puzzlingly unpredictable group. At their best they have no challengers: among my favourite records are two they devoted to French song of the sixteenth century. And Dominique Visse, the leader of the ensemble, is one of those singers whose every phrase is magical. But they can be terrible. The intonation on this record is quite often painful, the voices rarely seem to balance or feel comfortable; and several of them are distinctly rough. Decisions on which lines should be sung and which played on instruments often seem arbitrarily taken. Much of the music sounds as though it was recorded after one quick run-through. To hear how far short of the mark these performances are you need only to compare them with the recent Josquin reissue by the Hilliard Ensemble (EMI a) CDC7 49209-2, 3/89), which contains six of the same pieces.

Nevertheless, the music is absolutely wonderful and its qualities shine through all this. That is why I keep listening to it. Pending the arrival of a more satisfactory collection of these late works, it is a record that I shall continue to play often. -- Gramophone [6/1989]