Josquin’s Legacy

For this collection of 15th- and 16th-century motets, The Gesualdo Six have built a program around the musical debt that the great Josquin des Prez owed to Johannes Ockeghem, and the debt that was subsequently owed Josquin by his contemporaries and successors Heinrich Isaac, Antoine de Févin and others. The centerpiece is Josquin’s “Nymphes des bois,” an explicit tribute to Ockeghem; the remainder of the program, which mixes sacred motets and secular songs, shows how Josquin’s influence permeated the work of his Franco-Flemish milieu. As always with this group, the singing is spectacular and at times innovative.