“Nesciens Mater Virgo Virum”: An Unutterably Beautiful Marian Motet, Composed By Jean Mouton (1459 - 1522) For Christmastide, Which Ends Today, 2 February.

Jean Mouton “Nesciens mater”.

Composed By: Jean Mouton (1459 - 1522).

Sung By: The Monteverdi Choir / Gardiner.

Picture: Lorenzo Costa (1460 - 1535).

“Nativity (1490)”.

Available on YouTube

HERE

Article is taken from, and can be read in full at, 

New Liturgical Movement

HERE

By: Gregory DiPippo.

For the last Saturday of the Christmas Season, 

I wanted to share this splendid recording of a Motet 

which I recently discovered by the Franco-Flemish Composer, Jean Mouton (1459 - 1522). 

It is a setting of a very ancient Text 

which appears in the Roman Breviary as the 

Eighth Responsory for the Feast of the Circumcision. 

There is also an equally ancient version of the same words as an Antiphon, which is not in the Roman Office, but is found in many other Uses; e.g. at the  Sarum Use, it was sung with the Magnificat, in The Little Office of Our Lady, from Christmas until The Purification (2 February).