The
Brabant Ensemble
is perhaps the premier group on the Renaissance scene presenting in-depth research in a way that is accessible to general audiences, and the group has done it again with the 2024 release
A Monk's Life
, which reached classical best-seller lists in the late autumn of that year. Director
Stephen Rice
divides his program into six sections, "Entering the monastic life," "Vespers," "Eating and drinking in the monastery," "Celebrating the first Mass," "Becoming Abbot," and "Death and the reception into heaven." One might object that the works on the album were neither composed by monks nor used exclusively by them; several of them set common Latin texts of the Renaissance. However, this is precisely
Rice
's method here. He is trying to take music that might seem the height of impersonality and make it personal. In so doing, he sheds a good deal of light on how any Renaissance listener might have heard music of the time. It is not just the delightful presence of a secular drinking song,
Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi
's
Wer wollt den Wein nit lieben?
("
Who Wouldn't Love Wine?
") in the "Eating and drinking" section. The more serious sacred pieces take on a new directness as well; consider
Jacobus Clemens Non Papa
In te domine speravi
under the "Death" heading. Some of the pieces are quite unusual, and these are both worthwhile to have and testify that
Orlande de Lassus
, present twice, was the greatest composer of the age; his
Quis rutilat Triadis?
is a remarkable construction indeed. The ensemble of nine or ten singers is of an ideal size, and
Hyperion
's sound from a chapel at Oxford is perfectly idiomatic. A must-have for lovers of Renaissance choral music. ~ James Manheim