Renaissance composer Orlande de Lassus was born in Mons
and got his start as a choirboy. An often disputed
story has the child Lassus kidnapped three times on
account of his beautiful singing voice; the only
certainty is that by 1544 he had joined the service of
Ferrante Gonzaga, Viceroy of Sicily. A stopover in
Mantua allowed Lassus to absorb prevailing Italian
influences. Lassus spent less than a year in Sicily and
transferred to Milan for the remainder of the 1540s. He
often used an Italian form of his name, Orlando di
Lasso. In 1551, Lassus was made choirmaster at St. John
of Lateran in Rome, but remained only until 1553, being
succeeded by Palestrina. Lassus returned to Mons in
1554, receiving word that his parents were ill, but
upon his arrival found them already dead and buried. In
1555, Lassus' first book of madrigals and a collection
of various secular works appeared simultaneously in
Antwerp and Venice, thus beginning his status as a
one-man industry of musical publications. Lassus' work
accounts for three-fifths of all music printed in
Europe between 1555 and 1600.
In 1557, the German Duke Albrecht V engaged Lassus'
services as a singer at the court in Munich. Lassus'
status was upgraded to Kapellmeister in 1561. His
position enabled considerable travel, and Lassus made
frequent trips to Venice, where he met and made friends
with the Gabrielis. Judging from the range of settings,
both sacred and secular, coming from Lassus in these
years, it is apparent he was asked to supply music for
a wide variety of events at the court of Duke Albrecht.
The flood of published editions, both authorized and
not, of Lassus' music during this time established him
as the most popular composer in Europe, and in 1574 he
was made a Knight of the Golden Spur by Pope Gregory
XIII.
In 1579, Duke Albrecht V died, and the longstanding
extravagance of his court left his successor, Duke
Wilhelm, with little choice but to make deep cuts in
the entertainment budget. This had a direct and
negative effect on Lassus' fortunes, but nonetheless he
declined an offer in 1580 to relocate to the Court at
Dresden. By the late 1580s, the number of new pieces
Lassus undertook began to slow down. In the months
before his death, Lassus succeeded in bringing to life
his last great masterwork, the Lagrime di San Pietro,
in itself a summation of the highest forms of
Renaissance musical art. He died at about the age of
62, and in 1604 his sons published an edition of his
collected works entitled Magnus opus musicum. This was
used as the basis for the first modern edition of
Lassus' music, published in Leipzig between 1894 and
1926.
Among his key works, the Sibylline Prophecies (1553)
and Penitential Psalms (1560) reflect the influence of
Italian mannerism. While later music contains
occasional chromatic alterations, mature Lassus works
favor a unique style that combines an intensely
dramatic sense of text painting, nervous and excited
rhythmic figurations, and glorious, rolling
counterpoint. Late works demonstrate a concern for
terseness in expression, and texts are realized in a
highly compressed state. No verifiable instrumental
music is known from Lassus, and his masses are
generally considered unfavorably in light of
Palestrina's achievement in that realm. But his other
works—motets, madrigals, French chansons, and German
lieder—are considered second to none in the context of
the late Renaissance, and several of his secular songs
were known from king to peasant in the second half of
the sixteenth century.
The Echo Song (O La, O Che Bon Eccho!) was originally
written for Choral-Mixed a cappella (SSAATTBB) cleverly
placed face-to-face in a mimic of the classic echo.
Although this piece was originally written for voices,
I arranged it for a Double Woodwind Quartet (2 Flutes,
2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets & 2 Bassoons). |
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