(ca. 1600-1679) is known to scholars and performers of
seventeenth-century music primarily through his early secular works. Sances is
remembered today as one of the first musicians to publish works titled ?cantata,? and as
the composer of L?Ermiona (1636), a work that paved the way for the first public opera
in Venice.1 He was among the earliest to use the descending tetrachord and other ostinato
basses,2 and was probably the first to write a vocal composition over the descending
chromatic tetrachord.3 Ironically, however, it was sacred music that formed the locus of
Sances?s compositional activity throughout much of his life. (Retracter)...(lire la suite)
