Classical Music History Post 07: Motets, Madrigals, & Murder
Classical Music History Series—from de Victoria to Gesualdo
Note: For this series on the history of classical music, my primary reference and guide is David Ewen’s The Complete Book of Classical Music (more below), along with online references. Some months I will focus on several composers, and some—particularly beloved, influential, and/or prolific ones—will have a whole month dedicated to listening.
It is good to be back, friends, to the music of the sixteenth century!
Today, we’re listening to a few Spanish and Italian composers of the period, and we’ll begin with one whom David Ewen considers to be, alongside Palestrina—who was also his friend and mentor—“a leading composer of the Counter-Reformation” (17).
Tómas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)
De Victoria, a true “Renaissance man,” was a singer, organist, composer, and Catholic priest. Ewen writes that he was born in Avila, Spain, but baptismal records have not been found; but his early musical training was there, and “he served as a boy chorister in the Cathedral” (17). It seems he was both friend and protégé of Palestrina.
Britannica Online has a wonderfully helpful summary:
“Victoria was sent by King Philip II of Spain in 1565 to prepare for holy orders at the German College in Rome. There he probably studied with Giovanni da Palestrina, whom he eventually succeeded as director of music at the Roman Seminary. From 1578 to 1585 he assisted Philip Neri as chaplain of San Girolamo della Carità. In 1578 he met the pious dowager empress Maria, widow of the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian II, and later became her chaplain. In 1584 she entered the convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid, where Victoria became priest and organist. He settled in Madrid in 1594.”
Not only Philip of Spain and Palestrina, but St. Philip Neri and, likely, St. Teresa of Avila? What a life! Britannica also notes that comparisons have been drawn between the writing of Teresa of Avila and the music of Victoria for their mystical passion and beauty.
Ewen recommends, for a couple of representative works, the motet O Vos Omnes and the Requiem Mass/Missa Pro Defunctis for six voices (18).
For the first, this Tenebrae Choir version conducted by Nigel Short is a beauty:
The Rose Ensemble’s Requiem Mass:
Luca Marenzio (1553-1599)
Born in Coccaglio, Italy, Marenzio was most likely trained in Brescia, worked in both Rome and Florence, and ultimately “was appointed musician at the papal court” (Britannica online). Marenzio, whose work would influence Gesualdo and Monteverdi, was the master of the madrigal, a musical form popular at this period—roughly 1550-1650, in the transition from the Renaissance and the Baroque. The madrigal was “the form most cultivated by musicians of the time apart from church music” (Gray 47). This period is what Brazilian tenor and conductor Alex Innecco called (in a very helpful video as part of the ECAI Musical Encyclopedia) “the golden age of the madrigal.”
What is a madrigal? Innecco gives us a few characteristics. The madrigal is:
· secular
· in the vernacular
· typically acapella
· polyphonic
David Ewen recommends listening to Marenzio’s madrigals for five voices, particularly I piango ed ella il volto, Strider faceva, and Solo e pensoso. Ewen notes that “Marenzio was particularly partial to the love and pastoral poems of Petrarch, to whose verses he brought some of his finest musical inspiration” (19).
Here is, however, a lovely sampling of his madrigals for six voices:
Orazio Vecchi (1550-1605)
Vecchi’s musicianship was versatile. He wrote both lighthearted and somber pieces, both sacred and secular, including music intended for the stage, and “boasts a consummate contrapuntal technique” (Ewen 21). “Moving and affecting though his more sober and serious pages are,” Ewen continues, “it is the infectious gaiety and buffoonery of his lighter moments that make him unique among the Italian madrigalists of his day” (21).
Vecchi was born, and died, in Modena, Italy, and became eventually canon, and then choirmaster, at its cathedral.
I wonder whether this is the kind of lighter, jauntier piece that Ewen was referring to…I found it delightful & it makes one want to dance!
Or this one:
