MUSIC
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2019
4:00 PM

Capella Pratensis: A Renaissance Masterpiece: Jacob Obrecht's "Missa Maria Zart"
Music Before 1800
Corpus Christi Catholic Church
529 West 121st Street, Morningside Heights, Manhattan

$10-$55
https://mb1800.org/concert/cappella-pratensis-3/

Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer Jacob Obrecht's music was very popular and influential in his time, although it was overshadowed by Josquin's after Obrecht's death (now there's a sentence that'll be comprehensible only to Renaissance vocal devotees). It's true that Obrecht's music makes the listener work more than that of the other Renaissance greats: it's very structured, and very complex. And the Missa Maria Zart is the most structured and complex of all his works. But in this case, the complexity takes on an aural life of its own, resulting in an almost phantasmagorical sound that's unlike anything else in Renaissance vocal music. The excellent Dutch ensemble Cappella Pratensis, combining deep learning with staggering vocal accuracy, should put it across splendidly.

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