The Brabant Ensemble is an early music choir based in Oxford, directed by Stephen Rice. [1]
In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margaret Bent, "a piece of music in several parts with words" is as precise a definition of the motet as will serve from the 13th to the late 16th century and beyond. The late 13th-century theorist Johannes de Grocheo believed that the motet was "not to be celebrated in the presence of common people, because they do not notice its subtlety, nor are they delighted in hearing it, but in the presence of the educated and of those who are seeking out subtleties in the arts".
Johannes Ockeghem was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of early Renaissance music. Ockeghem was a significant European composer in the period between Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez, and he was—with his colleague Antoine Busnois—a prominent European composer in the second half of the 15th century. He was an important proponent of the early Franco-Flemish School.
Jacobus Clemens non Papa was a Netherlandish composer of the Renaissance based for most of his life in Flanders. He was a prolific composer in many of the current styles, and was especially famous for his polyphonic settings of the psalms in Dutch known as the Souterliedekens.
Nicolas Gombert was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most famous and influential composers between Josquin des Prez and Palestrina, and best represents the fully developed, complex polyphonic style of this period in music history.
Pierre de Manchicourt was a Renaissance composer of the Franco-Flemish School.
Thomas Crecquillon or Créquillon was a Franco-Flemish school composer of the Renaissance. While his place of birth is unknown, it was probably within the region loosely known at the time as the Low Countries, and he probably died at Béthune.
Pierre de la Rue was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of the Renaissance. His name also appears as Piersson or variants of Pierchon and his toponymic, when present, as various forms of de Platea, de Robore, or de Vico. A member of the same generation as Josquin des Prez, and a long associate of the Habsburg-Burgundian musical chapel, he ranks with Agricola, Brumel, Compère, Isaac, Obrecht, and Weerbeke as one of the most famous and influential composers in the Netherlands polyphonic style in the decades around 1500.
Jean Mouton was a French composer of the Renaissance. He was famous both for his motets, which are among the most refined of the time, and for being the teacher of Adrian Willaert, one of the founders of the Venetian School.
Jacquet of Mantua was a French composer of the Renaissance, who spent almost his entire life in Italy. He was an influential member of the generation between Josquin and Palestrina, and represents well the transitional polyphonic style between those two composers.
Pierre Moulu was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance who was active in France, probably in Paris.
Jacobus Vaet was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was a representative of the generation between Josquin and Palestrina, writing smooth polyphony with pervasive imitation, and he was a friend both of Clemens non Papa and Lassus.
Lupus Hellinck was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was a prominent composer of masses, as well as German chorales and motets. Although he was a Roman Catholic all of his life, his music shows evidence of sympathy for the Protestant Reformation, and three of his motets—including a famous setting of In te domine speravi—were probably inspired by the prison writings of the martyred reformer Girolamo Savonarola.
Pro Cantione Antiqua of London (PCA) is a British choral group which was founded in 1968 by tenor James Griffett, counter-tenor Paul Esswood, and conductor and producer Mark Brown. Their first concert was at St Bartholomew's, Smithfield with Brian Brockless conducting but, from an early stage, they were closely associated with conductor and musicologist Bruno Turner. Arguably, they were the leading British performers of a cappella music, especially early music, prior to the founding of the Tallis Scholars.
George de La Hèle was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, mainly active in the Habsburg chapels of Spain and the Low Countries. Among his surviving music is a book of eight masses, some for as many as eight voices. While he was a prolific composer during his time in Spain, much of his music was destroyed in 1734 in the burning of the chapel library in Madrid.
Capilla Flamenca is a vocal and instrumental early music consort based in Leuven, Belgium. The group specialises in 14th to 16th century music from Flanders and takes its name from the historical Flemish chapel, the choir of the court chapel of Emperor Charles V. When the emperor left Flanders in 1517, he took his best musicians with him to Spain to accompany him as "living polyphony".
Huelgas Ensemble is a Belgian early music group formed by the Flemish conductor Paul Van Nevel in 1971. The group's performance and extensive discography focuses on Renaissance polyphony. The name of the ensemble refers to a manuscript of polyphonic music, the Codex Las Huelgas.