Guillaume de Machaut: Time-Altering Music from the Fourteenth Century

In Quartet for the End of Time, and in subsequent works, the French 20th century composer, Olivier Messiaen, sought to capture the “eternity of space and time.” According to the composer, the mystical endeavor resulted in bar line defying polyrhythmic structures which unfold independently of harmony and melody, “in the manner of Guillaume de Machaut [c.1300–1377], whose work I did not know at the time.” A leading figure in the 14th century ars …

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Josquin des Prez’ “Nymphes des Bois”: Graindelavoix

Nymphes des bois (“Nymphs of the woods”) is a sensuous, five-voice lamentation by the High Renaissance Franco-Flemish composer, Josquin des Prez (c. 1450-1521). A musical memorial, it was written following the February 1497 death of Johannes Ockeghem, an influential composer with whom Josquin may have studied. The text, based on a poem by Jean Molinet, includes the Requiem Aeternam as a cantus firmus. The first two sections of the piece pay homage to …

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Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsoria: Madrigali Spirituali

Four hundred years after it was written, the music of the Italian late Renaissance composer, Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), still sounds shockingly avant-garde. Gesualdo’s madrigals and sacred works are filled with rule-bending harmonic innovations which, in the words of Aldous Huxley, add up to “a kind of musical no-man’s land.” In the final years of his turbulent life, Gesualdo wrote a twenty-seven part setting of the Responsoria, liturgical texts for Catholic evening services for …

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Jacobus Gallus’ “Mirabile Mysterium”: A Late Renaissance Christmas Motet

The late Renaissance composer, Jacobus Gallus (1550-1591), also known as Jacob Händl, was born in what is now Slovenia and traveled throughout the Bohemian lands of the Holy Roman Empire. His prolific output included more than 500 works, both sacred and secular. Gallus’ five-voice motet, Mirabile mysterium, was first printed in 1586. The text describes a mystical alchemy which is expressed in the motet’s wild dissonances and wandering chromaticism. It is “a …

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Orlando Gibbons’ Three Royal Fantasies for Viols: Sit Fast

The music of the English composer, Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), bridges the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. Based in Cambridge and then at the Chapel Royal for much of his life, Gibbons became organist at Westminster Abbey in 1623. He enjoyed the patronage of King James I and his successor, Prince Charles. In addition to writing liturgical music and keyboard pieces, Gibbons developed the late English madrigal, creating such famous works as The …

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Josquin’s Missa L’homme Armé, “Agnus Dei”: Brilliant Renaissance Polyphony

Eight Lines, Steve Reich’s 1979 minimalist masterpiece, sounds nothing like the Renaissance polyphony of Josquin des Prez (c. 1450-1521). As I pointed out last week, Eight Lines is the music of twentieth century American capitalism with its repetitious advertising and slick popular music. Other commentators have noted obvious links between Reich’s minimalism and the circular music of Asia, such as the Balinese gamelan. Yet, Steve Reich has been deeply influenced by the music of Pérotin and …

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Tallis’ “Lamentations of Jeremiah”: Holy Week in Renaissance England

The English Renaissance composer Thomas Tallis wrote the Lamentations of Jeremiah in the 1560s for the liturgy of Maundy Thursday. At the time, musical settings from the Book of Jeremiah were common in England during the Christian Holy Week. The texts, which lament the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Babylonians, held significance for Roman Catholics amid the turmoil surrounding the rise of Protestantism. The Lamentations were written during the early years of …

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