❧ So much has been written about Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s compositions that it would be fruitless to follow the same approach to his music as many accomplished scholars have done so. So, in this text I’ll offer a personal perspective to a motet that has eluded me for some time. So much has been written about Giovanni Pierluigi da …
The motet Cantantibus organis by Giovanni P. da Palestrina ❧ read more »
No Renaissance composer and few later ones have been as proficient as Palestrina at writing positive, outward-going, major-key music, and in this context Assumpta est Maria represents one of the most important works of the period. With these words Peter Philips (director of The Tallis Scholars) mentioned Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s motet Assumpta est Maria for the first time in …
The motet Assumpta est Maria by Giovanni P. da Palestrina ❧ read more »
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina died on 2 February 1594. Several months earlier, a collection of 68 motets was published. Although it appeared at the end of 1593 it is generally thought that these motets were composed over a period of years. Many have interpreted this publication as a summation of Palestrina’s life’s work. It was the last of the many …
The motet Ad te levavi animam meam by Palestrina ❧ read more »
The city of Évora, Alentejo, Portugal, is known for its musical history regarding the great Portuguese masters of polyphony of the first half of the seventeenth century. Names like Fr. Manuel Cardoso, Duarte Lobo, Filipe de Magalhães are known throughout the world as leading figures with biographical and professional relations with Évora Cathedral.
Flemish composer and singer Cornelis Verdonck was born in Turnhout sometime during the year 1563 and died in Antwerp on 5 July 1625. He was a choirboy at Antwerp Cathedral and in 1572 was enrolled as a singer at the court of Felipe II of Spain being colleague to other singers of Flemish origin such as Peeter Cornet and Philippe …
The motet Ave gratia plena by Cornelis Verdonck ❧ read more »
Many sixteenth and seventeenth-century composers have set the text O Magnum mysterium with wonderful polyphonic results, such as Willaert, Gabrieli, Palestrina, Victoria, and, Morales only to name a few. In Portugal during this period we find at least three settings of this text – all as responsories – by Pedro de Cristo, Duarte Lobo and Estêvão Lopes Morago respectively, being …
The motet O magnum mysterium by Cristóbal de Morales ❧ read more »