Secret History - Josquin and Victoria

The Guardian 80

(ECM)

The tenor John Potter, formerly of Red Byrd, the Hilliard and other ensembles at the less fusty end of early music, is the driving force of this recording. About half of it is taken up with Victoria’s Surge Propera mass – and instead of a full choir filling the corners of a lofty cathedral we get Potter, solo, with Jacob Heringman filling in the remaining lines on the vihuela, an instrument that is the missing link between lute and guitar. This is the secret of the title: that the choral works of four and five centuries ago were seen at the time not as fixed monuments but as music ripe for adaptation as intimate chamber pieces. Anna Maria Friman lends her pure soprano to some of Josquin’s motets, reworked as vocal duets, and the linking passages of chant or of solo vihuela give this pared-back disc a flowing, almost improvisatory feel.