Dufay: Missa L'Homme armé

Dufay: Missa L'Homme armé / Motets
Hilliard Ensemble - Paul Hillier
EMI (HMV) "Reflexe" 067 EL 27 0426 1 [LP]
EMI (HMV) "Reflexe" 27 0426 4 [Cass.]
EMI "Reflexe" CDC 7 47628 2 [CD]

Contents:

    Missa L'Homme armé (à 4)
  1. Kyrie
  2. Gloria
  3. Credo
  4. Sanctus
  5. Agnus Dei


  6. Motet: Nuper rosarum flores (à 4)
  7. Motet: Ecclesiae militantis (à 5)
  8. Antiphon: Alma redemptoris mater (à 3)
  9. Motet: O sancte Sebastiane (à 4)
  10. Motet: Salve flos Tuscae gentis (à 4)

Performers:
David James (counter-tenor), Michael Chance (counter-tenor), Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor), John Potter (tenor), Leigh Nixon (tenor), Charles Daniels (tenor), Paul Hillier (bass), Michael George (bass)

Recording site and date:
Temple Church, London, UK [01/1986];
Rel.: 1987

Excerpts:
[1] EMI Classics 0946 3 61524 2 4 Music of the Renaissance: The Da Vinci Collection

Reviewed in:
Fanfare (Vol./#-p.): 11/2- (Nov/Dec 1987)

The Missa L'Homme armé is one of Dufay's four mature cantus firmus masses, and the longest of the four. There were many mass cycles on this theme, and Dufay's may have been the first (or Busnoys' or Ockeghem's). The four isorhythmic motets are among his most famous, and the antiphon presents a fine example of that style.

A recording dedicated to Dufay's isorhythmic motets, the apex of the form:

O Gemma Lux
Dufay: Intégrale des motets isorythmiques
Huelgas Ensemble - Paul Van Nevel
Harmonia Mundi 901700

Other recordings of the Missa L'Homme armé:

Dufay: Missa L'Homme armé
Oxford Camerata - Jeremy Summerly
Naxos 8.553087
L'Homme armé
Dufay / Pécou
Les Jeunes Solistes - Rachid Safir
Media 7 "Grave" 6

The present ensemble's later Dufay recording:

Dufay: Missa Se la face ay pale
Hilliard Ensemble
Hilliard Live 1004

Finally, a recording devoted to an anonymous English mass of the period in a style which apparently inspired Dufay:

The Spirits of England and France - IV
Missa Caput / Story of the Salve Regina
Gothic Voices - Christopher Page
Hyperion 66857

The Missa Caput was at one time attributed to Dufay.

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Todd M. McComb