The Ascension and Saint Agnes Choir's most recent recording has been released on the Centaur label and is available for sale in the Parish Bookstall. It is also available at Tower Records and Olsson's Records and Books in Washington, DC.

Critical Comment

"Mardirosian's choir ... sings with enviable lightness and flexibility. Mardirosian has delivered the goods...." -J. F. Weber in Fanfare.

Orlande de Lassus and the Parody Mass
Excerpts from the liner notes by Haig Mardirosian

Today's musicologists generally hold that the legacy of Orlande de Lassus (1532-1594) shines brightest in his hundreds of secular vocal works. Notwithstanding his excellent madrigals, chansons, and lieder, Lassus left behind a . . . cornucopia of liturgical works, including 53 authenticated masses, 500 motets, and 100 Magnificants. In sum, he created over 2,000 pieces of music, a prolific output by any conjecture. Lassus straddled the worldly and spiritual realms both in the genres in which he worked and in the spirit behind many of his compositions. Not only did he compose music for worship on the one hand and entertainment on the other, he also based liturgical works on popular music of his day using parody techniques.
. . .

While not all of Lassus's masses employ parody, his most extended and unrestrained works begin with prior material. [He] fashioned his new works upon the skeletons of both his own and others' motets, madrigals, and chansons. In post-Tridentine times when the Roman ecclesiastical authorities had become increasingly obsessed with the relationship of secular elements to ecclesiastical art, Lassus resisted giving up his worldly, quotidian musical sources. The masses, like all of his liturgical works, emphasize human dimensions and affections. In the Missa Entre vous filles, for instance, Lassus elevates a jaunty, lustful, . . . , arguably frivolous song by Clemens non Papa (c. 1515-c.1555) to high liturgical art. Still, the street-smart cautions to saucy teenage girls explicit in the chanson linger clearly enough in the letter and spirit of the mass.

For more about the choral music, see the complete liner notes.

Four Canons in two and three voices-for organ

These companions to the choral works on this disk were performed by Haig Mardirosian on a portative organ by Deblich Johan, Brussels, Belgium ( 4 stops, all wooden, 8,4,2 and 1 1/3 ). This small instrument is especially appropriate for music from the 16th century.

© 2002 Centaur Records, Inc. Image and program notes used by permission of the copyright claimant.