Collegium Vocale Gent, Douleur non pareille: the Requiem van Jean Richafort

Jean Richafort wrote his Missa pro defunctis at the beginning of the 16th century, a work that still touches the soul to this day. The text "C'est douleur non pareille" – grief without equal – forms the common thread throughout this requiem. Six voices weave themselves around Gregorian melodies; the music of Josquin des Prez – Richafort's teacher and idol – trickles through the staves. Richafort brings several key works by Josquin to mind, sometimes as a quotation, other times as a melodic transformation. This is how composers worked in the Renaissance: they listened, built, winked, and sculpted. Familiar music was given new meaning, not out of a lack of creativity, but as a tribute to precious traditions and brilliant fellow craftsmen. Barbora Kabátková and the soloists of Collegium Vocale Gent intertwine Richafort's polyphony with monophonic chants from the Office of the Dead and conclude with Fortuna desperata – a madrigal that inspired both Josquin and Richafort.