Nobis est natus hodie

Copied in Prague by more than 30 scribes, Codex Speciálník (“special songbook”) is a collection of over 200 liturgical works, probably compiled for the needs of the Utraquist Protestant literary brotherhood. Alongside a number of mostly anonymous Czech-language pieces are almost 20 Latin motets by Polish composer Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz (1392–c. 1480), small devotional works by Englishmen Walter Frye (d. 1474?) and John Plummer (c. 1410–c. 1484), and a wide range of masses and motets from notable Franco-Flemish/Netherlandish composers including Gaspar van Weerbeke (c. 1445–post 1516), Heinrich Isaac (c. 1450–1517), Antoine Brumel (c. 1460–c. 1512), and Josquin des Prez (c. 1450–1521). Although the codex is currently kept in the Museum of Eastern Bohemia in Hradec Králové (Czech Republic), it has only been there since 1901, when it was purchased in Prague from an antique collector.

Among the collection’s works by 35 known composers is a variety of anonymous Latin motets. Featured here is “Nobis est natus hodie,” which begins with simple imitation, but quickly unfolds to reveal decorated lines above and below a middle-voice cantus firmus in Gregorian mode II.