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Renaissance -- Top Ten Greatest HitsDate: February 16, 2012 by ALauren Carpenter  Views: 5654
HEllO everyone, this is my first time posting to ChoralNet! In my Choral Literature class today, we were discussing the Renaissance period and we tried to brainstorm a TOP TEN GREATEST HITS. We were able to come up with 5 out of the ten, does anyone have some suggestions to add to our list?
here is what the class came up with:
1. Palestrina-- Sicut cervus
2. Tallis-- If you love me
3. Byrd-- Ave verum corpus
4. Victoria-- O magnum mysterium
5. Hilton/ Farrant-- Lord for thy tender mercies sake
We just need about 5 more to complete the top ten! i would love the feedback! PLEASE BE NICE!!!!!
Replies (27): Threaded | Chronological
Lee G. Barrow on February 16, 2012 10:47am
My personal favorite is Gibbons, "The Silver Swan."
on February 16, 2012 12:07pm
"In these delightful pleasant groves" might fit in there somewhere. Purcell!
on February 16, 2012 1:28pm
As far as "greatest hits" are concerned, are you talking "well known" or "historically important?" The ones you have listed are certainly among the most performed Renaissance sacred choral works.
I think one might add the Tallis "Spem in alium" and/or Allegri "Miserere" as among the more well-known (if not frequently performed) works. Josquin "Ave Maria" for four voices should certainly be on the list.
I can't help but notice you have no madrigals. "Fair Phyllis," "As Vesta was...," "Weep O Mine Eyes," "Ecco mormorar l'onde."
You also don't include any major works. Palestrina "Missa Papae Marcelli," Victoria "Requiem," Josquin "Missa Pange lingua," etc.
Cory
on February 17, 2012 1:01am
True, some major works and Madrigals probably should enter
the discussion, though the ones you've started your list with are
certainly wonderful pieces. Lassus/di Lasso should probably be in
the conversation... Matona Mia cara, Echo Song, Ave Regina
Coelorum, many pieces in many genres... Other thoughts in no
particular order... Fa una Canzona by Vecchi, a Gesualdo piece (O
vos omens, merce grido piangendo), Palestrina's Pope Marcellus
Mass, Josquin's El grillo or one of many masses, Madrigals by Rore
or Willaert, Arcadelt's Il Bianco e dolce cigno (a gem), Byrd's
Sing Joyfully or others.
on February 17, 2012 6:04am
I never know how to list these requests. If one knows the performers & occasion its easier. Since an academic setting, it's expected that ones research will uncover/unhide obscure facts, but here we are talking i think about publishing history, and to a lesser extent known performance history, so, in balance, ones own experience prevails.
To make an absurd analogy- If one eats only at the McDonalds of the world, how does one extract the most nourishing foodstuffs for development?
These are all fine works to be sure. Keep singing!
on February 17, 2012 9:57am
In pace in idipsum - Sheppard
Dum transisset sabbatum - Taverner
Dum complerentur - Victoria
Haec Dies - Byrd
on February 17, 2012 11:09am
Your list is all sacred and of titles that are often performed or well known. To continue on that path and simply answer your request with a few titles off the top of the head that are not yet mentioned:
Sing Joyfully William Byrd (eventhough you have a Byrd listing)
Hosanna to the Son of David Orlando Gibbons
Cantate Domino Hassler
Hodie Christus natus est Sweelinck (late renaissance, or transitional)
O nata lux Thomas Tallis
Jesu dulcis memoria T.L. de Victoria (even though you have a Victoria setting)
To veer into the transitional period of the late renaissance, early Baroque is tempting (Jubilate Deo-Gabrieli; Exultate Deo-Viadana; Jauchzet dem Herren-Schuetz).
While it is important to know "the standards" an interesting question to an audience like ChoralNet might be of personal favorites of lesser-known, sacred, renaissance compositions.
Good luck with your project!
on February 18, 2012 6:22am
Josquin's "Absalon fili mi" is a titan of absolute beauty
that evokes, in me, the deepest level of emotional response.
on February 18, 2012 1:36pm
Thank you to all who posted! i am the rest of my class is really appreciative!
The class is a Survey of Choral Literature and we are trying to cover both secualr choral pieces and sacred pieces. The ones suggested above are fabulous!
Thanks again!
on February 18, 2012 4:12pm
Alma Redemptoris Mater- Palestrina
Mass for Four Voices- Byrd
Ave Maria- Josquin
on February 19, 2012 8:35am
It's funny that so many choirs sing Sicut cervus and don't realize that they are only singing the first half of the motet. This motet has two parts, but the earliest publishers only bothered to transcribe and publish the first half. I think that the more one learns about 15th and 16thc music the less they see #1 and #2 as the 'Greatest,' although they are beautiful and such a pleasure to sing.
Here's my list of Renaissance Masterworks: (I don't consider seconda prattica to be Renaissance so I don't include madrigals)
1. Spem in Alium
2. O bone Jesu a19 (Robert Carver)
If you think James MacMillan is the greatest Scottish composer ever, give this piece a listen.
3. Salve Regina a9 (Robert Wylkynson)
4. Praeter rerum serium a7 (Josquin)
Ave Maria is a great motet, but IMHO this motet is better.
5. Lagrime di San Pietro (Lassus)
6. Lamentations I/II (Tallis)
7. Super flumina Babylonis (da Monte) which he sent to Byrd, and Byrd's response (Quomodo cantabimus)
Two master composers trying to impress one another.
8. Nymphes des bois (Josquin) mentioned in a previous post.
9. Pope Marcellus Mass a8 (Francesco Soriano)
Suprise! Soriano was one of Palestrina's best pupils and this double choir parody mass is truly wonderful and dare I say an improvement.
10. I haven't purchased the Striggio 40v mass cd that I Fagiolini put out so I'm saving this space for that piece.
on February 19, 2012 12:08pm
Hi, Robert. Madrigals are hardly seconda prattica--except for the very late ones that are, of course! They show up starting in 1525 and the "golden age" is around 1545-1585, solidly renaissance. And as I've mentioned, written by the same composers who often had chuch gigs and wrote the sacred music as well. Wasn't it as late as Monteverdi's Seveth Book (1619) that he abandoned the renaissance 5-voice, unaccompanied model and started publishing seconda prattica madrigals (although some basso continue appears in 1605 in Book 5)?
All the best,
John
on February 19, 2012 2:36pm
Hello John,
Monteverdi's last three books are hardly madrigals at all. If you re-visit the title page of books 7 8 and 9 you will see that the first and largest word on the page is Concerto, you have to look a little harder to see the word madrigal. My conjecture is that his publisher forced him to keep the word madrigal (albeit smaller print) on the title page because the general audience was accustomed to purchasing books of madrigals. Massimo Ossi's book Divining the Oracle claims that Monteverdi was preparing a rebuttal to the 'seconda prattica' attack as early as 1602, but waited until Artusi's next book of M came out before going through with the planned defense.
G.C. Monteverdi, writing in defense of his brother, wrote that da Rore (1516-65) was the founder of seconda prattica and lists many mid to late 16th c madrigal composers as followers in this lineage. 1545-1585 may be solidly Renaissance if we're talking about Church music in Italy, or about most music outside of Italy, but I don't agree that it's solidly Renaissance for Northern Italian secular music. The Florentine Camerata, responsible for musical debate and experiments which led to recitative and eventually to dramma per musica, began meeting in 1573. It's not so strange to accept that church composers who were writing old-style polyphony for their day jobs then meet up at night and experiment with the newer exciting (read fewer rules) genre. The end of the Renaissance and the beginning of the Baroque have a pretty big overlap in Northern Italy. Someone above mentioned the 'transition period' and I agree that there is such a thing, I just think madrigals (yes mainly later ones after 1570) are one of the things that pulled music into the next phase, rather than being connected to the old one. 1600 is to 'end of the renaissance' as 415 is to 'actual baroque pitch' they are both handy approximations (including that not for John who obviously knows such things, but for any students who still need to break out of the grout-palisca timelines)
Sorry to once again participate in a thread hi-jack. I'm thrilled that by the end of this choral lit semester the OPer's students will have plenty of choices for their top 10 lists!
Respectfully,
rw
on February 19, 2012 2:32pm
Trying to avoid duplicating anything - a lot of good ones, but I notice a lot of them are potboilers. People like them because they know them.
Some of these are transitional, but I think still within the Renaissance frame of reference:
Hieronymus Praetorius: Cantate Domino a 8 (1602)
Giovanni Gabrieli: Lieto Godea a 8
Juan del Encina: Mi Libertad en Sosiego (or many others)
Henry VIII: Pastime with Good Company
Filippo Azzaiolo: Gentil Madonna
Claudin de Sermisy: Tant que Vivray
Clement Jannequin: Il Etait une Fillette
John Dowland: Come Away, Come Sweet Love
Orlando Gibbons: See, see the word is incarnate
Thomas Weelkes: Hark, all ye lovely saints above
Francisco Guerrero: Salve Regina
Orlando di Lasso: L'Eccho, Bonjour mon coeur
Jean Mouton: Queramus cum pastoribus
Martin Pierson: Upon my lap
Heinrich Isaac: Innsbruck
Michael Praetorius: Puer Natus; Wachet Auf
The list goes on and on - it was truly a golden age!
Jeff DeMarco
on February 19, 2012 4:44pm
Jeff DeMarco - EXACTLY! Are we talking about pieces that are "popular" because they are most often performed, here 400 years later, or are we talking about pieces that transcend even the quality of many of the pieces of the time? I love Jeff's suggestions, but would also add the following food for thought:
Our "bridging" composers who, in some ways, brought the musical Renaissance to its fruition (Gesualdo, Monteverdi's madrigals, Schütz's madrigals and early sacred works, Giaches de Wert, etc.) - some of whom are mentioned here already. Their importance can't be understated. I agree with John's rebuttal re: Robert's assertion that madrigals are secconda prattica. Clearly Reniassance in nature, and although voicing, style and instrumentation changed for Monteverdi as he matured, they are indeed still madrigals.
How about the mannerists? D'India, Marenzio, Luzzaschi and of course Lasso (culminating in his mind-blowing "Prophetiae Sibyllarum")
I also have a fondness for the Franco-Flemish composers of the 15th and 16th centuries (Mouton, Gombert, de Monte, Ockeghem, and Richafort - his Requiem for Josquin is one of the most succulent pieces of choral music EVER WRITTEN - listen to Huelgas Ensemble's recording and prepare yourself.)
Lastly, Josquin, Josquin, Josquin.
on February 19, 2012 9:32pm
Adam: I haven't heard the late-period madrigalists called "mannerists" before, but it's a decent name even though kind of vague, and it's also been used for the late 14th century group now called "Ars subtilior." These were of course the chromaticists who grew up with the "normal" madrigals and their use of harmony and wanted to carry them further into chromaticism. Perhaps transitional from Prima to Seconda Prattica is a useful way to look at them, but not yet assuming continuo accompaniment or concertato obligato instruments.
And Lasso's "Prophetiae" certainly belongs in that group, but I would hesitate to call it a "culminating" work since that implies that it was something he was working toward. I've always thought of it rather as something he wrote just to show that he thoroughly understood what was going on and wanted to prove he could do it if he felt like it (and of course that it fit his subject matter), but it isn't at all typical of his work (if we can say that ANYTHING is "typical," since he wrote in just about every style and language available!).
All the best,
John
on February 20, 2012 6:25am
Yes to all the above- one should always explore those highly original composers at the 'cusp' of new understandings who push forward. Such a composer was the great Nicolo Vicentino. Unfortunately his work, like some earlier 'musica reservata' were never 'hits' except to specialists, which I hope some of these these students will become!
SIR
on February 20, 2012 1:29pm
Yes, John you're correct. Late-period madrigalists should
perhaps not be referred to as "mannerists". Rather, their style of
composing and indeed the performance of these chromatic works can
be thought of as manneristic. Should probably refer to them instead
within their context of musica reservata. Which brings me to your
second point. I didn't mean to imply that this work was a
culmination of Lasso's work, but rather could be thought of as a
culmination of the musica reservata style.
Sig - i appreciate Vicentino's work very much. I agree - undervalued and underecognized!
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