Ockeghem: Requiem; Missa Fors Seulement

Ockeghem's Requiem, the oldest surviving polyphonic setting of the funeral Mass, is Ockeghem's most famous work, and his most unusual. The style varies widely from movement to movement: the opening Introit, very plain and syllabically set, might have been written in the 1430s by Dufay; the rhapsodic duos in the tract Sicut cervus might have been written 70 years later by Josquin. The chanson "Fors seulement" and the Mass based on it both have a consistently fluid, melodious style and explore very low vocal ranges (as does Brumel's exquisitely gloomy setting of the chanson). The Clerks' Group won a well-deserved Gramophone Award for this disc, the centerpiece of their Ockeghem series. --Matthew Westphal