Agricola is not a regional soft drink from the Corn Belt, but a composer whose works were considered almost the equal of Josquin's by chroniclers of the sixteenth century. Born around 1446, he was a near contemporary of Josquin's great predecessor, Jacob Obrecht, and like his Flemish contemporaries he went south to seek fame and fortune through employment with Italy's powerful nobles. Recordings of his works have been few and far between, so any addition to the discography is welcome, and the pair of masses included here are both historically important works. Each is an example of the Renaissance cantus firmus mass technique, whereby the melody line of a preexisting piece (as often secular as sacred) is transferred more or less intact to the new mass and forms one of its four voice parts in each section, usually the tenor part. The composer's task was to weave the preexisting material artfully into its surroundings, perhaps raising the bar by manipulating it in some challenging rhythmic way. Agricola's models here were two famous chansons, Dufay's Le serviteur (The Servant) and Busnois' Je ne demande (I Do Not Ask).
For a modern audience, unfamiliar with the music on which a Renaissance mass is based, it's helpful when a recording includes the models along with the mass. That doesn't happen here, although the liner notes are some help. Hungary's
A:N:S Chorus doesn't match the precise sounds that come from the likes of the
Tallis Scholars, but they do put across what annotator Fabrice Fitch aptly describes as the "kaleidoscopic" quality of Agricola's music. If Ockeghem's masses were notable for their hidden contrapuntal art, and Josquin's for their striking combination of elaborate architecture and expressive beauty, these two Agricola works are distinguished by what we could call their varied harmonic palette. Something new always seems to be happening in the music. Where the texture is reduced from four unaccompanied voices to three or two, conductor János Bali often deploys soloists instead of the full group. Though the singers employ an entirely modern degree of vibrato, this effectively sets off the subtle polyphony of these sections. This album isn't a must-have Renaissance release, but it will be of interest to libraries and enthusiasts.