In the margin of official religious institutions, Catholic confraternities and Muslim orders offered a mystical experience. Music played an important role in their rituals, as a way of access to God. Simple, repetitive, haunting, this music sung in groups during processions or devotional meetings was intended to place the assembly in a state of ecstatic trance.

Doulce mémoire here delves into the repertoire of French songs that were central to the first printed score in the history of music, Harmonice Musices Odhecaton (Venice, 1501). This repertoire dates from the end of the 15th century and includes music from not only the French and Burgundian courts but also from the chanson rustique, a new genre that was in use at the court of Louis XII (1462-1515). This singular repertoire is based on popular melodies that dealt with everyday, amorous, erotic and satirical subjects; the texts have an irregular versification that was known as ‘rural rhetoric’ at that time.

2019 will see the 500th commemoration of the death of one of the greatest geniuses humanity has produced: Leonardo da Vinci, scientist, inventor, painter and musician.
Doulce Mémoire, having devoted themselves to Renaissance music for the past 30 years, have decided to pay homage to Leonardo. Their founder-director, Denis Raisin Dadre, an eminent specialist in the music of the period and a great lover of pictorial art, has devised an original programme: Rather than just make music from the time of Leonardo, I've taken my cue from the paintings themselves.I've worked on what could be the hidden music of these pictures, what musical pieces might be suggested by them…

Josquin Desprez, princeps musicorum, the prince of musicians, as his contemporaries called him, is best known today for his sacred works, the masses and motets, which have been widely performed and recorded. Surprisingly, his chansons have received little attention from performers, except for the pieces for five and six voices, printed after his death by the Antwerp publisher Tilman Susato in his seventh book of 1545. Doulce Mémoire has chosen to focus on the chansons for three and four voices, which are probably the earliest in the Hainault master’s output; with their diversity of language and themes (sometimes folk-derived), these songs constitute a varied programme that is at once serious and bawdy, a testament to the unequalled art of Josquin Desprez.

Joachim Du Bellay (1522-1560) stormed onto the Parisian literary scene with the resounding avant-garde manifesto Défense et illustration de la langue française. Ronsard and Du Bellay are the great French poets of the sixteenth century, but while the former has been set to music hundreds of times, Du Bellay inspired only about thirty compositions. Denis Raisin Dadre and his ensemble Doulce Mémoire celebrate the Angevin poet on the occasion of his 500th anniversary with works by the leading composers of the period, among them Arcadelt (who set nine chansons to his texts, including Je ne puis dissimuler a year before Du Bellay’s death), Lassus, Chardavoine and Verdonck. It was also established practice at the time to declaim poems accompanied by a musician who improvised on the lyre, an instrument and usage imported from Italy (recitare a la lira). Denis Raisin Dadre has decided to pay tribute to these sixteenth-century ‘slammers’ by asking a modern equivalent, Kwal, to ‘slam’ some of Du Bellay's sonnets, including the famous Heureux qui, comme Ulysse.

On the death of Anne of Brittany, her husband King Louis XII honoured her with exceptional funeral ceremonies lasting forty days, which sealed forever her image as Queen of France and Duchess of Brittany. As he prepared this programme centring on the Missa pro defunctis of Antoine de Févin, and read the exceptionally vivid narrative by the herald of Anne of Brittany (whom her subjects nicknamed simply ‘Bretaigne’!), Denis Raisin Dadre realised that beyond all this official mourning staged by the royal authority, there was also a silent sorrow, that of the Bretons who had lost their duchess and were also in the process of losing their duchy’s independence.

Josquin Desprez, princeps musicorum, the prince of musicians, as his contemporaries called him, is best known today for his sacred works, the masses and motets, which have been widely performed and recorded. Surprisingly, his chansons have received little attention from performers, except for the pieces for five and six voices, printed after his death by the Antwerp publisher Tilman Susato in his seventh book of 1545. Doulce Mémoire has chosen to focus on the chansons for three and four voices, which are probably the earliest in the Hainault master’s output; with their diversity of language and themes (sometimes folk-derived), these songs constitute a varied programme that is at once serious and bawdy, a testament to the unequalled art of Josquin Desprez.

Jérôme Lejeune continues his History of Music series with this boxed set devoted to the Renaissance. The next volume in the series after Flemish Polyphony (RIC 102), this set explores the music of the 16th century from Josquin Desprez to Roland de Lassus. After all of the various turnings that music took during the Middle Ages, the music of the Renaissance seems to be a first step towards a common European musical style. Josquin Desprez’s example was followed by every composer in every part of Europe and in every musical genre, including the Mass setting, the motet and all of the various new types of solo song. Instrumental music was also to develop considerably from the beginning of the 16th century onwards.

The works of Cipriano de Rore (1515/16 – 1565) remained extremely popular until well after his death. Several of his madrigals later appeared in dozens of ornamented versions and continued to do so until the beginning of the 17th century; this was an extraordinary success for the time.

François Ier, prince mécène, avait compris combien la musique pouvait servir sa politique de prestige : - musique officielle pour les grands événements diplomatiques comme l'incroyable match musical entre la Chapelle du roi de France et celle d Henri VIII d'Angleterre, lors de la messe du Camp du Drap d'Or restituée dans cet enregistrement ; - mais aussi musique de l'intime avec le répertoire le plus subtil, raffiné et savant entendu dans les châteaux du souverain Chambord, Fontainebleau… interprété par les meilleurs chanteurs et instrumentistes du royaume réunis au sein de la Chambre du Roy. Un festin de musiques inédites pour un roi François Ier, symbole d une Renaissance heureuse.