Obrecht. Missa de Sancto Donatiano

7 a.m., 14 October, 1487: with the church bells still ringing, Jacob Obrecht’s Missa de Sancto Donatiano is sung for the very first time, at the tomb of Donaas de Moor in Bruges’s Sint-Jakobskerk. More than five centuries later, it is still an astonishing masterpiece. With references to his name saint (Donatian), Bruges’s musical traditions and Donaas’s charity towards the city’s poor, the composer very precisely commemorates the life of the deceased. As he also did in his Missa de Sancto Martino, sung by Psallentes on Friday, Obrecht transforms local ingredients into the most universal music. For the opening of this first edition of the festival, The Tallis Scholars perform the Missa de Sancto Donatiano in the place it was first heard . Conductor Peter Phillips sets Obrecht alongside his English contemporaries Browne and Fayrfax – cross-channel commercial contacts were very close - and a wonderful Magnificat, one of the last works by South Fleming Nicolas Gombert.

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