Posts Tagged ‘ Polyphony ’

Pierre de Manchicourt (±1510-1564): Laudate Dominum

April 25, 2013

Nordic Voices 300x300 captioned

Pierre de Manchicourt was born in Béthune in Northern France he spent most of his career in Northern France holding increasingly senior positions at Tours, Tournai, and Arras from where his fame and music spread. That his music was highly esteemed by his contemporaries can be seen from the fact that he was the only composer whose works were published in a volume dedicated to the music of a single composer by the famous Parisian printer Attaingnant, by his favourable mentions by such cultural luminaries as Rabelais (1552) and Guicciardini (1567), and last but not least by his appointment as maestro di capella to King Philip II of Spain. His music is very approachable with pleasing harmonies and an inventive approach to melody. 'Laudate Dominum' (Praise the Lord) is an Easter motet that published by Attaingnant in 1539, de Manchicourt himself must have thought highly of it because he gave it pride of place in that particular edition of his works. It's a bright sunny piece of music whose celebratory mood is emphasised by its pealing Alleluias. It's sung below by the excellent Norwegian choir, Nordic Voices. Enjoy :-).

markfromireland

Click here to listen to the music and read the rest of the posting ...

Thomas Tallis (±1505-1585): Sermone blando angelus

By markfromireland

April 16, 2013

Cardinalls Musick

Sermone blando angelus is a hymn that under the Sarum rite usage which prevailed in England until Henry VIII abolished it would have been sung in English churches and monasteries during Lauds between Low Sunday (the first Sunday after Easter Sunday) and the Feast of the Ascension. Tallis intended his setting of the hymn to augment the liturgy without distracting from it. I think that you'll agree as you listen that he achieved his goal. It's a modest and unassuming piece – like all Tallis' hymns, but that's not to say that it's musically uninteresting.

Tallis' setting is syllabic and homophonic alternating the chant with his own composition and retaining the cantus firmus for the top part. He also swapped contratenor and tenor parts for the even numbered verses. The result is a simple but very pleasing and effective piece of music that starts as a narrative of the events following the resurrection and which ends with a plea to the risen Christ that he ' take possession of our hearts'. It's sung below by The Cardinall's Musick conducted by Andrew Carwood. Enjoy :-).

markfromireland

Click here to listen to the music and read the rest of the posting ...

Estêvâo De Brito (±l575-1641) Salve Regina – YouTube

By markfromireland

April 11, 2013

Estêvâo De Brito (cl575-1641) was a Portuguese musician who spent most of his working career in Spain. According to Barbosa Machado he studied music with Filipe de Magalhães. Whatever the truth of that he was evidently sufficiently well thought of to be formally appointed maestro de capilla of Badajoz Cathedral in 1597. Six years later on 16 February 1613 he was elected over five other candidates to the post of maestro de capilla of Málaga Cathedral. In January 1618 he was offered the post of maestro de capilla of the Madrid royal chapel, but he refused the appointment preferring to remain as maestro de capilla of Málaga Cathedral which post he held until his death.

His setting of the Salve takes the familiar melody of the antiphon paraphrases it, and uses it imitatively for each of the polyphonic verses climaxing in the final line 'O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria', where you can hear the chant in a high register in the soprano line.

markfromireland

Click here to listen to the music and read the rest of the posting ...

João Lourenço Rebelo (1610 – 1661): Super Aspidem

By markfromireland

April 9, 2013

João Lourenço Rebelo's music represents the coming of Baroque to Portugal. Born in 1610 in Caminha he was taken as a boy servant into the chapel of the Duke of Bragança at Vila Viçosa. The Duke sponsored his musical studies including at the Colégio dos Santos Reis Magos under Roberto Tornar. Another of Tornar's pupils was the young Duke of Bragança and future King João IV with whom Rebelo struck up a friendship that was to endure for the rest of his life. João IV evidently valued the friendship because he dedicated his essay Defensa de la musica moderna contra la errada opinion del obispo Cyrilo Franco to his lifelong friend, whose music he praised saying that it had inspired and helped his own musical efforts, João also left money in his will for his friend's music to be published. Rebelo's freedom to experiment with the new Baroque style came from his friendship with the King freed of economic worries he used his access to the royal library, and to relatively lavish musical forces to compose fresh and exciting music that's a pleasure to to listen to and must have seemed very adventurous indeed to his contemporaries. In his motet Super aspidem which you can hear below he jetisons the traditional treatment of the Psalms in favour of a more modern approach forcing the text to his purpose using repetition and an astonishingly rapid tempo to achieve the desired effect. It's sung below by The Sixteen conducted by Harry Christophers – the text and translation to English are below the player. Enjoy :-).

markfromireland

Click here to listen to the music and read the rest of the posting ...

Easter Sunday 2013: Nicolas Gombert (±1495-±1560) – Missa Tempore paschal

By markfromireland

March 31, 2013

Mates - Resurrection - Easter Sunday 2013

Gombert's 'Missa Tempore paschal' – literally 'Mass at Eastertime', is famous for it's twelve-part Agnus Dei but it ought to be famous for far more than that starting with its survival. I often regret how much music by excellent composers has been lost or destroyed over the centuries but I console myself by reflecting on how much has survived. In the case of Gombert's 'Missa Tempore paschal' – literally 'Mass at Eastertime', its survival in just one manuscript in Brussels is well-nigh miraculous. It's an amazing piece of music that's polished, powerful, and expansive, much antiphonal writing and which demonstrates very clearly that even at the outset of his career Gombert was well capable of handling ambitiously large musical structures with dexterity and inventiveness.

Click here to listen to the music and read the rest of the posting ...