Luogo e data di registrazione		Doopsgezinde Gemeente Kerk, Amsterdam (Olanda) - 12-18 dicembre 1981
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Gerd Berg / Hartwig Paulsen
	Prima Edizione LP		EMI Electrola "Reflexe" - 1C 069-1466921 - (1 lp) - durata 48' 59" - (p) 1983 - DMM (Digitale)
	Prima Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - CDM 7 63063 2 - (1 cd) - durata 48' 59" - (c) 1989 - DDD
	Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - 8 26530 2 - (1 cd) - durata 48' 58" - (c) 2000 - DDD
	Note		Aufgenommen in Zusammenarbeit mit WDR.

HEINRICH ISAAC Heinrich Isaac was born in the mid-15th century, in all probability in Flanders. We have no reliable information on the first 35 years of his life, and the first document containing his name tells us that he stayed in Innsbruck, evidently on his way to Florence. He arrived there in 1484 or 1485, and offered his services at the court of Lorenzo de’ Medici (il Magnifico) - initially as a singer in the Cappella di San Giovanni, thereafter in the churches of Santa Maria del Fiore and Santissima Annunziata as well. The possibility of his having studied with the famous organist Squarcialupi and equally that of Isaac’s having taken over Squarcialupi's post as organist after his death are all but ruled out by present-day scholarship. Isaac worked chiefly as maestro di cappella and court composer. The degree of trust that the Medici family’s most famous offspring placed in Isaac is shown by the fact that he was entrusted personally with the musical education of Lorenzo’s children, among whom Giovanni, later to be crowned Pope Leo X., was a particularly good student - a number of his compositions survive. When Lorenzo died in 1492, Isaac remained in the employ of the Medicis; the overthrow of the family, however, instigated by the fanatical monk Savonarola, forced him to seek another patron. It is well known that Savonarola had a colossal quantity of musical instruments and secular compositions consigned to the bonfire in his frenzied fight against the increasing secularization of the church. (The Canti Carnascialeschi are one example of the compositions lost in this way.) As a result, we can establish only with difficulty what rôle the various types of instrument played in the musical life of Florence, and what the relationship was between the sacred and the profane “repertoires”. Chance would have it that the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian I, whom birth, tradition and his marriage to Maria of Burgundy almost inevitably made one of the greatest patrons of the arts that Europe has ever known, was staying near Florence at the time. To be more precise, the Emperor was in Pisa, where he was trying to bring Italy under the rule of the Spanish-Habsburg empire. He took Isaac into his service as court composer, initially for a trial period, and sent him on to Vienna, where he was to await further instructions. From this point onwards, Isaac repeatedly appeared for shorter or longer periods in the cultural centres of Italy and Germany. His contract of employment with Maximilian - he was composer to the court, not Kapellmeister - gave him the freedom to travel a good deal, and time after time he returned to Florence, the city in which he felt most at home and the birthplace of his wife Bartolomea Belli. He also made prolonged visits at intervals to Augsburg (1500), Constance (1507/8) and Verona (1510). After 1512 he was more or less permanently settled in Florence, and, as a result of friends' intervention, Pope Leo X. provided him with a “pension” at the level of his last salary under the Medici as thanks for service rendered. Commune Festorum Beatae Mariæ Virginis The introitus composition at the beginning of the programme belongs to the genre of chorale and psalm arrangements; in this kind of composition the treatment of the original chorale melody is left entirely to the composer`s imagination. Isaac decided on a highly compact six-part setting. The piece was composed around 1500 and must be counted among Isaac`s late works. Missa Paschale Isaac's compositions for the Mass have only recently been subjected to precise examination and evaluation. In terms of both quality and quantity, they should perhaps be assigned pride of place in his œuvre and indeed among the works of his immediate contemporaries. Altogether there are some fifty compositions of the most  varied kinds - four Easter masses (for three, four, five and six voices) alone came from Isaac’s pen. The Missa Paschale is one of the so-called “alternatim” masses, in which not all the sections of the Mass are set polyphonically, some parts consisting solely of the original Gregorian melody. This genre was cultivated for the most part in Germany, which would suggest that Isaac wrote the work while resident in a German-speaking country. In accordance with the then current practice, the non-polyphonic sections were either filled out with organ improvisations on the prescribed melody, or they were sung in unison (as Gregorian chorale). The technique used by Isaac in the parts set polyphonically was known by the name contrapunctus fractus seu floridus, once again a composition technique native to German-speaking countries, which was also called Spaltsatz (literally, “split phrasing”), A basic feature of this practice is a great difference in the note values of the chorale melody (long notes) and of the accompanying parts, which possess far greater flexibility. This mass was presumably also written in Germany, which points to a dating of 1496/97. Carmina The Carmina (songs) occupy an important place in Isaac’s work, not least because they include a group of purely instrumental compositions which must be considered the earliest, and certainly the best of their genre. On the other hand, this may be the reason why, until recently - and even today this remains the case - the value of Isaac’s religious music has not been adequately recognised. The Carmina - Isaac composed Latin, French, German and instrumental pieces - bear striking witness to the master’s quite incredible versatility and flexibility: German folk songs, French rondeuux, Italian frottole, all perfect in their idiom and at the same time unmistakably Isaac. At the death of Lorenzo il Magnifico in 1492, Isaac composed two works in his memory, and both begin, oddly enough, with the words Quis dabit. The less wellknown of the two, Quis dabit pacem populo timenti, was written to a text from the pen of the Humanist Angelo Poliziano, also resident at the Medici court, who in turn used Hercules Oetaeus as his source. Most of the instrumental Carmina are based on folk songs composed one or more generations earlier, a highly popular technique that is also used for the most part in the so-called “Parody Mass”. Es het and Es wolt are both, in more or less the same way, clearly ambiguous, which is perhaps expressed musically in the contrasting of extreme polyphony (with the melody in every part) and the emphatically homophonic chordal blocks. One especially risqué feature: the phrase “Fick mich" in Es wolt, which leaves nothing to chance (it means “fuck me”!), was replaced in later editions by the more imaginative “Juck mich” (= “scratch me”) - plus ça change... Greiner, Zancker belongs likewise in its country of origin to this genre of racy songs. This song which was almost certainly born as a street ballad, also exists in a nice setting by Isaac’s contemporary Paul Hofhaimer, who was also employed by Maximilian. The group of French Carmina begins with a setting of J’ay pris amours a rondeau of unknown provenance. The three-part setting combines a new treble (sung) with two accompanying instrumental parts. The two Italian Carmina require a more detailed commentary. Lorenzo de’ Medici was a great patron of open air festivities and similar events in Florence, and the so-called Canti Carnascialeschi or carnival songs were indispensable at these performances. Textually, they were related to the old caccie (canons sung to “raw” texts); musically speaking, they tended to be influenced by the vertical composition style of the frottola. Owing to Savonarola’s fanaticism (vide supra), which had such grave consequences for music history, not many examples of this genre (to which Alexander Agricola was one of the contributors) have survived. Ne più bella di queste is probably a very personal panegyric to the city of Florence, which held such fascination for Isaac. Kees Boeke Translation: Clive Williams
EMI Electrola "Reflexe"