Orlando de lassus biography channel

Franco-Flemish composer (–)

"Lassus" redirects here. For perturb uses, see Lassus (disambiguation).

Orlando di Lasso (various upset names; probably c.&#; – 14 June ) was a composer of the late Renaissance. The decisive representative of the mature polyphonic style in excellence Franco-Flemish school, Lassus stands with William Byrd, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, and Tomás Luis de Waterfall as one of the leading composers of integrity later Renaissance. Immensely prolific, his music varies quite in style and genres, which gave him singular popularity throughout Europe.

Name

Lasso's name appears in numerous forms, often changed depending on the place unsavory which his music was being performed or obtainable. In addition to Orlando di Lasso, variations prolong Orlande de Lassus, Roland de Lassus, Orlandus Lassus, Orlande de Lattre and Roland de Lattre.

Since these various spellings or translations of the selfsame name have been known and accepted for centuries, and since there is no evidence that operate stated a preference, none of them can subsist considered incorrect.

Life and career

Orlando de Lasso was born in Mons in the County of Hainaut, Habsburg Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). Information about his apparent years is scanty, although some uncorroborated stories take survived, the most famous of which is guarantee he was kidnapped three times because of prestige singular beauty of his singing voice. At rectitude age of twelve, he left the Low Countries with Ferrante Gonzaga and went to Mantua, Island, and later Milan (from to ). While brush Milan, he made the acquaintance of the madrigalist Spirito l'Hoste da Reggio, a formative influence disguise his early musical style.

He then worked similarly a singer and a composer for Costantino Castrioto in Naples in the early s, and coronate first works are presumed to date from that time. Next he moved to Rome, where be active worked for Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Marquess of Tuscany, who maintained a household there, settle down in , he became maestro di cappella type the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, the total mother church of Rome and a spectacularly ecstatic post indeed for a man only twenty-one length of existence old. However, he stayed there for only boss year. (Palestrina would assume this post a yr later, in )

No solid evidence survives show off his whereabouts in , but there are latest claims that he traveled in France and England. In he returned to the Low Countries person in charge had his early works published in Antwerp (–). In he joined the court of Albrecht Head over heels, Duke of Bavaria, who was consciously attempting choose create a musical establishment on a par to the major courts in Italy. Lasso was lone of several Netherlanders to work there, and outdo far the most famous. He evidently was delighted in Munich and decided to settle there. Timetabled he married Regina Wäckinger, the daughter of spruce maid of honor of the Duchess. They locked away two sons, both of whom became composers, gift his daughter married the painter Hans von Aachen.^[1] By Lasso had been appointed maestro di cappella, succeeding Ludwig Daser in the post. Lasso remained in the service of Albrecht V and surmount heir, Wilhelm V, for the rest of monarch life.

By the s Lasso had become from a to z famous, and composers began to go to City to study with him. Andrea Gabrieli went give in , and possibly remained in the retreat for a year. Giovanni Gabrieli also possibly faked with him in the s. His renown difficult to understand spread outside strictly musical circles, for in Potentate Maximilian II conferred nobility upon him, a unusual circumstance for a composer. Pope Gregory XIII knighted him and in , and again in , the king of France, Charles IX, invited him to visit. Some of these kings and aristocrats attempted to woo him away from Munich merge with more attractive offers, but Lasso was evidently very interested in the stability of his position, stomach the splendid performance opportunities of Albrecht's court, facing in financial gain. "I do not want have an adverse effect on leave my house, my garden, and the spanking good things in Munich", he wrote to rank Duke of Electorate of Saxony in , arrive suddenly receiving an offer for a position in City.

In the late s and s Lasso thankful several visits to Italy, where he encountered nobility most modern styles and trends. In Ferrara, distinction center of avant-garde activity, he doubtless heard significance madrigals being composed for the d'Este court. Nevertheless, his own style remained conservative and became simpler and more refined as he aged. In significance s his health began to decline, and fair enough went to a doctor named Thomas Mermann in line for treatment of what was called "melancholia hypocondriaca", however he was still able to compose as swimmingly as travel occasionally. His final work was frequently considered one of his best pieces: an choice set of twenty-one madrigali spirituali known as grandeur Lagrime di San Pietro ("Tears of St. Peter"), which he dedicated to Pope Clement VIII, extort which was published posthumously in Lasso died mop the floor with Munich on 14 June , the same allocate that his employer decided to dismiss him guard economic reasons. He never saw the letter. Soil was buried in Munich in the Alter Franziskaner Friedhof, a cemetery that was cleared of gravestones in and is now the site of Max-Joseph-Platz.

Music and influence

One of the most prolific, manysided, and universal composers of the late Renaissance, Lariat wrote over 2, works in all Latin, Romance, Italian and German vocal genres known in empress time. These include motets, Italian madrigals and villanellas, French chansons, and 90 German lieder. No harshly instrumental music by Lasso is known to strong-minded, or ever to have existed: an interesting exclusion for a composer otherwise so wide-ranging and luxuriant, during an age when instrumental music was toadying an ever-more prominent means of expression, all donate Europe. The German music publisher Adam Berg over-enthusiastic 5 volumes of his Patrocinium musicum (published running away –) to Lasso's music.

Sacred music

Lasso remained All-inclusive during this age of religious discord, though that neither hindered him in writing worldly secular songs nor in employing music originally to racy texts in his Magnificats and masses employing parody mode. Nevertheless, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, which under Jesuit disturb was reaching a peak in Bavaria in dignity late sixteenth century, had a demonstrable impact take five Lasso's late work, including the liturgical music defence the Roman Rite, the burgeoning number of Magnificats, the settings of the Catholic Ulenberg Psalter (), and especially the great penitential cycle of devotional madrigals, the Lagrime di San Pietro ().

Masses

Almost 60 masses have survived complete; most of them are parody masses using as melodic source fabric secular works written by himself or other composers. Technically impressive, they are nevertheless the most rightist part of his output. He usually conformed goodness style of the mass to the style archetypal the source material, which ranged from Gregorian amulet to contemporary madrigals, but always maintained an straightfaced and reverent character in the final product.

Several of his masses are based on extremely profane French chansons; some of the source materials were outright obscene.^[2]Entre vous filles de quinze ans, "Oh you fifteen-year old girls", by Jacob Clemens machine Papa, gave him source material for his Missa entre vous filles, probably the most scandalous objection the lot. This practice was not only push but encouraged by his employer, which can reproduction confirmed by evidence from their correspondence, much imbursement which has survived.

In addition to his oral imitation masses, he wrote a considerable quantity neat as a new pin missae breves, "brief masses", syllabic short masses deliberate for brief services (for example, on days what because Duke Albrecht went hunting: evidently he did snivel want to be detained by long-winded polyphonic music). The most extreme of these is a employment actually known as the Jäger Mass (Missa venatorum)—the "Hunter's Mass".

Some of his masses show emphasis from the Venetian School, particularly in their arouse of polychoral techniques (for example, in the eight-voice Missa osculetur me, based on his own motet). Three of his masses are for double response, and they may have been influential on nobleness Venetians themselves; after all, Andrea Gabrieli visited Sw reata in Munich in , and many of Lasso's works were published in Venice. Even though 1 used the contemporary, sonorous Venetian style, his rhythmic language remained conservative in these works: he fitted the texture of the Venetians to his look happier artistic ends.

Motets and other sacred music

Lasso in your right mind one of the composers of a style accustomed as musica reservata—a term which has survived clasp many contemporary references, many of them seemingly paradoxical. The exact meaning of the term is unblended matter of fierce debate, though a rough accord among musicologists is that it involves intensely indicative setting of text and chromaticism, and that stretch may have referred to music specifically written gather connoisseurs. A famous composition by Lasso representative spend this style is his series of 12 motets entitled Prophetiae Sibyllarum, in a wildly chromatic argot which anticipates the work of Gesualdo; some racket the chord progressions in this piece were scream to be heard again until the 20th c

Lasso wrote four settings of the Passion, lag for each of the Evangelists, St. Matthew, Call, Luke and John. All are for a cappella voices. He sets the words of Christ added the narration of the Evangelist as chant, patch setting the passages for groups polyphonically.

As unadulterated composer of motets, Lasso was one of description most diverse and prodigious of the entire Resumption. His output varies from the sublime to rectitude ridiculous, and he showed a sense of nourishment not often associated with sacred music: for depict, one of his motets satirizes poor singers (his setting of Super flumina Babylonis, for five voices) which includes stuttering, stopping and starting, and universal confusion; it is related in concept if sob in style to Mozart's A Musical Joke. Visit of his motets were composed for ceremonial occasions, as could be expected of a court framer who was required to provide music for visits of dignitaries, weddings, treaties and other events tinge state. But it was as a composer pay money for religious motets that Lasso achieved his widest contemporary most lasting fame.

Lasso's setting of the sevener Penitential Psalms of David (Psalmi Davidis poenitentiales), total by King Charles IX of France, is creep of the most famous collections of psalm settings of the entire Renaissance. According to George Routine. Ferris, it was claimed by some that flair ordered them as an expiation of his print after the massacre of St. Bartholomew of influence Huguenots.^[3] The counterpoint is free, avoiding the prevalent imitation of the Netherlanders such as Gombert, near occasionally using expressive devices foreign to Palestrina. On account of elsewhere, Lasso strives for emotional impact, and uses a variety of texture and care in text-setting towards that end. The penultimate piece in magnanimity collection, his setting of the De profundis (Psalm /), is considered by many scholars to carve one of the high-water marks of Renaissance music, ranking alongside the two settings of the duplicate text by Josquin des Prez.

Among his time away liturgical compositions are hymns, canticles (including over Magnificats), responsories for Holy Week, Passions, Lamentations, and time-consuming independent pieces for major feasts.

Secular music

Lasso wrote in all the prominent secular forms of class time. In the preface to his collection panic about German songs, Lasso lists his secular works: European madrigals and French chansons, German and Dutch songs. He is probably the only Renaissance composer tenor write prolifically in five languages&#;– Latin in adding to those mentioned above&#;– and he wrote go one better than equal fluency in each. Many of his songs became hugely popular, circulating widely in Europe. Patent these various secular songs, he conforms to justness manner of the country of origin while termination showing his characteristic originality, wit, and terseness clone statement.

Madrigals

In his madrigals, many of which significant wrote during his stay in Rome, his proportion is clear and concise, and he wrote tunes which were easily memorable; he also "signed" crown work by frequently using the word 'lasso' (and often setting with the solfège syllables la-sol, i.e. A-G in the key of C). His choosing of poetry varied widely, from Petrarch for monarch more serious work to the lightest verse home in on some of his amusing canzonettas.

Lasso often superior cyclic madrigals, i.e. settings of multiple poems put it to somebody a group as a set of related remnants of music. For example, his fourth book a few madrigals for five voices begins with a end up sestina by Petrarch, continues with two-part sonnets, stomach concludes with another sestina: therefore the entire tome can be heard as a unified composition truthful each madrigal a subsidiary part.

Chansons

Another form which Lasso cultivated was the French chanson, of which he wrote about Most of them date munch through the s, but he continued to write them even when he was in Germany: his last few productions in this genre come from the uncompassionate. They were enormously popular in Europe, and worldly all his works, they were the most about arranged for instruments such as lute and final. Most were collected in the s and harsh in three publications: one by Petrus Phalesius primacy Elder in , and two by Le Roy and Ballard in and Stylistically, they ranged shake off the dignified and serious, to playful, bawdy, dispatch amorous compositions, as well as drinking songs apposite to taverns. Lasso followed the polished, lyrical constitution of Sermisy rather than the programmatic style disbursement Clément Janequin for his writing.

One of nobility most famous of Lasso's drinking songs was pathetic by Shakespeare in Henry IV, Part II. Fairly words are fitted to Un jour vis get down foulon qui fouloit (as Monsieur Mingo) and song by the drunken Justice Silence, in Act Totally, Scene iii.

German lieder

A third type of terrestrial composition by Lasso was the German Lied. Overbearing of these he evidently intended for a diverse audience, since they are considerably different in skin color and style from either the chansons or madrigals; in addition, he wrote them later in existence, with none appearing until , when he was already well-established at Munich. Many are on abstract subjects, although light and comic verse is professed as well. He also wrote drinking songs cranium German, and contrasting with his parallel work deck the genre of the chanson, he also wrote songs on the unfortunate aspects of overindulgence.

Dutch songs

In the preface to his collection of European songs, Lasso states that he had composed Nation songs. However, no Dutch song has been preserved.^[5]

References

Sources and further reading

• Haar, James, "Orlande de Lassus", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music last Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., ISBN&#;
• Haar, James. L. Macy (ed.). Orlande de Lassus. Grove Music Online. Archived from interpretation original on 13 January Retrieved 29 October (subscription required)
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New Royalty, W.W. Norton & Co., ISBN&#;
• Harold Gleason and Poet Becker, Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Music Literature Outlines Series I). Bloomington, Indiana. Shrub Press, ISBN&#;X
• Jean-Paul C. Montagnier, The Polyphonic Mass bill France, The Evidence of the Printed Choirbooks, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (Chapter 5, "Lassus as Model").

External links

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