In 2014-15 we inaugurated a long-term project exploring the complete works of Ockeghem (c. Another thread connects Dunstaple to Du Fay and Binchois via the celebrated “contenance angloise” and thence to the so-called “central tradition” of fifteenth-century Franco-Flemish polyphony, ranging from Du Fay through Johannes Ockeghem to Josquin Desprez and onwards to Nicolas Gombert and beyond. On the early end we have explored English music from the Old Hall manuscript of circa 1415, following this thread through the works of Dunstaple (the first of which date from the 1420s) and into the generation or so afterwards, including Walter Frye, Robert Morton, and a host of sundry composers, some anonymous, many named John. Within the general confines of 1400 to 1600, Blue Heron’s repertoire interests fall into several broad areas, and we devote our energies as much to the study and performance of secular song as to sacred polyphony. And sometimes we like to sing famous pieces, too! Some of this music is lesser-known work by well-known composers, and some of it is music by composers even specialists don’t know. There is such a wealth of wonderful music from this period that one can easily wander off from the few well-trodden main paths and still find more than enough fantastic music to last an ensemble’s lifetime, and it gives us great pleasure to find music that is seldom sung and less often heard live but that has the power to make a person sit up and listen. Whatever one’s answer to that question, however, it is beyond argument that these were golden years for polyphonic vocal music. Whether the enormous quantity of music composed within these two centuries actually belongs to a coherent and distinguishable “musical Renaissance” is a matter of considerable debate, to say the least. These dates, conveniently round and memorable, encompass what is usually taught as the Renaissance in music history classes, a huge period extending from the birthdates of John Dunstaple and Guillaume Du Fay to the beginnings of opera and the widespread adoption of basso continuo. Founded as a “Renaissance choir,” Blue Heron is more accurately described as a 21st-century vocal ensemble that mostly sings music composed between 14.
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