Lassus' Library

Started by snyprrr, November 25, 2014, 06:52:39 AM

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snyprrr

Here's another name in "Great Holiday Music", Orlando di Lasso (1532-1597). All I have by him is Heulgas Ensemble disc of some awfully fine, sad sounding music that every should have... everyone? Maybe...

Karl Henning

Listen up!

[asin]B001W8WTTE[/asin]
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

snyprrr

Quote from: karlhenning on November 25, 2014, 06:57:58 AM
Listen up!

[asin]B001W8WTTE[/asin]

that's an interesting title... is it a... err... 'Oratorio'?... or...


Mandryka

Quote from: snyprrr on November 25, 2014, 06:52:39 AM
Here's another name in "Great Holiday Music", Orlando di Lasso (1532-1597). All I have by him is Heulgas Ensemble disc of some awfully fine, sad sounding music that every should have... everyone? Maybe...

Yes, I started a thread on him and there were some suggestions which weren't bad (and some which were not so good.) Search it out. I remember really enjoying the Lagrime de San Pietro and the Penitential Psalms.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Que

Quote from: Mandryka on November 26, 2014, 09:24:07 PM
Yes, I started a thread on him and there were some suggestions which weren't bad (and some which were not so good.) Search it out. I remember really enjoying the Lagrime de San Pietro and the Penitential Psalms.

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,21627.msg705883.html#msg705883

Or visit the Early Music Club

Q

Cato

The May 17, 2016 Wall Street Journal has a curious article about Orlando di Lasso and Michael Jackson.  Apparently Germans in Munich (although some people would dispute whether anyone in Munich is actually German  ??? ;)  ) have been decorating a statue of Orlando di Lasso with pictures of Michael Jackson!  ??? ??? ???


QuoteMunich: A statue of 16th-century composer Orlando di Lasso in this city's center draws fans from around the globe. Music lovers come to light candles and leave pictures and other bits of memorabilia.

Di Lasso, a Flemish musician who spent much of his time in this city, was a giant in his day. "He was amazingly famous," says Franz Körndle, a musicology professor at University of Augsburg and a di Lasso expert. "There's not been anything like him in music history since."

The fans swarming to his bronze likeness aren't devotees. Many have no idea who he was, and don't even notice he's there.

They're Michael Jackson aficionados. They flock to the site because it is in front of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof—a venue where the musician often stayed.

"This is the place where the spirit is, the magic," says Nena Akhtar, head of fan group MJ's Legacy, which in 2009 appropriated the pedestal of di Lasso's statue as an impromptu Michael Jackson shrine to mourn his sudden death. "This place is so Michael-y."

That Michael vibe is also a discordant reminder of fame's vagaries. Di Lasso, who died in 1594, was also adored and feted in his day. Like Mr. Jackson, di Lasso traveled widely to perform. His compositions were printed and distributed across Europe in an era when printing was expensive and strictly local. His works were admired in centers of power and money. Four centuries later, di Lasso was largely forgotten...

See:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/michael-jacksons-fame-rubs-off-on-forgotten-15th-century-composer-1463408997
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Karl Henning

Di Lasso never moonwalked, though!
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

North Star

How much more obscure can you get?
QuoteOne measure of [Lasso's] obscurity: Sherlock Holmes, in a short story from 1908, is penning a monograph on di Lasso's "Polyphonic Motets." Dr. Watson notes it "is said by experts to be the last word upon the subject."
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

Karl Henning

Dr Watson's admiration for Mr Holmes is understandable, but "the last word" is surely premature  8)
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

North Star

Quote from: karlhenning on May 17, 2016, 05:29:03 AM
Dr Watson's admiration for Mr Holmes is understandable, but "the last word" is surely premature  8)
You mustn't blame Dr Watson for that, though - he's only telling us what experts have said on the matter.  0:)
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

Karl Henning

Quote from: North Star on May 17, 2016, 05:30:46 AM
You mustn't blame Dr Watson for that, though - he's only telling us what experts have said on the matter.  0:)

Surgically done, dear fellow.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

snyprrr

Quote from: α | ì Æ ñ on July 30, 2017, 09:01:36 PM

Lassus is my favorite composer,

Well, that came out of nowhere, lol!!


Karl Henning

Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

The new erato

Quote from: α | ì Æ ñ on August 14, 2017, 03:06:00 AM
I'm almost in tears listening to Penitential Psalm no 5 tonight, it's euphoric (like all Lassus) and sure can crush my heart into little pieces.

There is just something so special about Lassus, I haven't worked it out yet but there is something there  :-*
That is perhaps the single greatest piece of Renaissance music I know (notwithstanding my unlimited admiration for Josquin and Ockeghem), and I have known it since I bought Pro Cantione Antiqua's version under Bruno Turners direction on an Archiv LP ca 1975. Required listening.

snyprrr

Quote from: α | ì Æ ñ on August 14, 2017, 03:06:00 AM
I'm almost in tears listening to Penitential Psalm no 5 tonight, it's euphoric (like all Lassus) and sure can crush my heart into little pieces.

There is just something so special about Lassus, I haven't worked it out yet but there is something there  :-*

No.5 itself is 40 minutes long? I'm only 12 minutes in, and,... mm?,... I've gotta go do yard work...


I like the St. Peter piece much better, but then, I do somewhat need instruments with most of my singing. This particular piece is not my cup of tea... it seems extraordinarily "white" and heavenly, I'll give ya that!! ;)

Mandryka

#15
Quote from: snyprrr on August 14, 2017, 09:22:50 AM
No.5 itself is 40 minutes long? I'm only 12 minutes in, and,... mm?,... I've gotta go do yard work...


I like the St. Peter piece much better, but then, I do somewhat need instruments with most of my singing. This particular piece is not my cup of tea... it seems extraordinarily "white" and heavenly, I'll give ya that!! ;)

If you look at the words there's a real shift from negative feelings to positive feelings after about a dozen lines. The problem is to find a performer who can make these words sound meaningful. There are also performance problems about making it all cohere rather than sound like a bitty rag bag. Herreweghe may well be the best we can do on record in these respects. I haven't heard Turner do this 5th psalm, but I have heard Henry's 8 and Hillier as well as Herreweghe.

As so often is the case for me, the problem is to find singers who are good at making the words sound as though they're meaningful.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Quote from: The new erato on August 14, 2017, 05:21:28 AM
That is perhaps the single greatest piece of Renaissance music I know (notwithstanding my unlimited admiration for Josquin and Ockeghem), and I have known it since I bought Pro Cantione Antiqua's version under Bruno Turners direction on an Archiv LP ca 1975. Required listening.

I bought that original LP some time ago after reading about it here. Still haven't properly listened - will take this thread as a reminder to do so. I've always loved Pro Cantione Antiqua's approach to Renaissance music.
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

Mandryka

#17
Re Pro Cantione Antiqua's Lassus psalms, the first thing to say is that it's is magical.

I'd love to know more about how they developed their style, it sounds very much in the tradition of The Deller Consort to me: rapt, internal, prayerful. Vibrato. Oxbridge vowels.

London was such a meltingpot of ideas at the time: Deller, Turner, Morrow, Munrow, Philips, the Davies Brothers . . . They're all like legendary pioneers of early music.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

snyprrr

Quote from: α | ì Æ ñ on August 15, 2017, 01:51:30 AM
Definitely my favorite composer, that I am sure of  :-*

OK, I've got the St.Peter around here somewhere,... let's do this

Quote from: α | ì Æ ñ on August 15, 2017, 01:51:02 AM
Putting on Lassus is like:

1 Ooh, nice ethereal suspended note!
2 This polyphony is quite good!
3 This is quite massive!
4 I love the chromaticism!
5 I just forgot I was listening to music  ???
6 These clouds of notes are beyond words  :o
7 Is that a tear?  ???
8 I'm crying, I'm in euphoria
9 Time to get a change of career's, how about financing? becoming a monk?
10 I'm hungry, time to have a short rest
11 Ooh, nice ethereal suspended note!  :P

I'll be waiting at the entrance ;)

I'm sorry, I need snow on the ground to listen to choral music... or sooomething...(maybe I need specifically something that sounds minor key??)


anyhow, all the more power to ya ;)

North Star

Quote from: α | ì Æ ñ on September 22, 2017, 12:51:53 AM
Well Que, as there are still plenty Lassus CDs I don't have yet........name something you haven't seen me listening to yet? and I'll do it  8)
I'm not Q, but here's one..
[asin]B001S86JAS[/asin]
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr