Lasso: Magnificats / Chansons [The Alchemist Vol. 3]

The third and final installment in the series “Lassus: The Alchemist” is devoted to Magnificat settings based on secular chansons. Courtly entertainment, popular song, and everything in between—the chansons offered the composers an inexhaustible source of melodies and ideas that could take on new meaning in a sacred context. Lassus’s genius was evident not only in the originality of his own chanson compositions but also in his ability to transform such secular models into music of profound expressive and spiritual depth. In some cases, his choices seem entirely natural: Susanne un jour, Beau le cristal, and Mort et fortune draw on themes that resonate in their sacred settings. Others, however, are surprising. The secular wit and erotic allusions of Si vous estes m’amie, Dessus le marché d’Arras, and Si par souhait remind us that the Renaissance attitude toward parody and borrowing differed greatly from our own. This recording brings the chansons and the Magnificat settings inspired by them into dialogue, creating a vivid portrait of Lassus. As at the Bavarian court, where Lassus had the finest instrumentalists of his time at his disposal, the Magnificat ensemble is accompanied by the outstanding musicians of The City Musick.