A sackbut is an early form of the trombone used during the Renaissance and Baroque eras. A sackbut has the characteristic telescopic slide of a trombone, used to vary the length of the tube to change pitch, but is distinct from later trombones by its smaller, more cylindrically-proportioned bore, and its less-flared bell. Unlike the earlier slide trumpet from which it evolved, the sackbut possesses a U-shaped slide with two parallel sliding tubes, rather than just one.
A choir is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures.
The cornett, cornetto, or zink is an early wind instrument that dates from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, popular from 1500 to 1650.
Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque idioms.
An antiphon is a short chant in Christian ritual, sung as a refrain. The texts of antiphons are the Psalms. Their form was favored by St Ambrose and they feature prominently in Ambrosian chant, but they are used widely in Gregorian chant as well. They may be used during Mass, for the Introit, the Offertory or the Communion. They may also be used in the Liturgy of the Hours, typically for Lauds or Vespers.
Vespro della Beata Vergine, SV 206, is a musical setting by Claudio Monteverdi of the evening vespers on Marian feasts, scored for soloists, choirs, and orchestra. It is an ambitious work in scope and in its variety of style and scoring, and has a duration of around 90 minutes. Published in Venice as Sanctissimae Virgini Missa senis vocibus ac Vesperae pluribus decantandae, cum nonnullis sacris concentibus, ad Sacella sive Principum Cubicula accommodata, it is sometimes called Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610.
The Venetian polychoral style was a type of music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras which involved spatially separate choirs singing in alternation. It represented a major stylistic shift from the prevailing polyphonic writing of the middle Renaissance, and was one of the major stylistic developments which led directly to the formation of what is now known as the Baroque style. A commonly encountered term for the separated choirs is chori spezzati—literally, "broken choruses" as they were called, added the element of spatial contrast to Venetian music. These included the echo device, so important in the entire baroque tradition; the alternation of two contrasting bodies of sound, such as chorus against chorus, single line versus a full choir, solo voice opposing full choir, instruments pitted against voices and contrasting instrumental groups; the alternation of high and low voices; soft level of sound alternated with a loud one; the fragmentary versus the continuous; and blocked chords contrasting with flowing counterpoint.
Hans Leo Hassler was a German composer and organist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, elder brother of less known composer Jakob Hassler. He was born in Nürnberg and died in Frankfurt am Main.
Girolamo Dalla Casa was an Italian composer, instrumentalist, and writer of the late Renaissance. He was a member of the Venetian School, and more influential as a performer than as a composer.
Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4, is a cantata for Easter by German composer Johann Sebastian Bach, one of his earliest church cantatas. It is agreed to be an early work partly for stylistic reasons and partly because there is evidence that it was probably written for a performance in 1707. Bach went on to complete many other works in the same genre, contributing complete cantata cycles for all occasions of the liturgical year. John Eliot Gardiner described it as Bach's "first-known attempt at painting narrative in music".
The Orgelbüchlein BWV 599−644 is a set of 46 chorale preludes for organ — one of them is given in two versions — by Johann Sebastian Bach. All but three were written between 1708 and 1717 when Bach served as organist to the ducal court in Weimar; the remainder and a short two-bar fragment came no earlier than 1726, after the composer’s appointment as cantor at the Thomasschule in Leipzig.
Giovanni Valentini was an Italian Baroque composer, poet and keyboard virtuoso. Overshadowed by his contemporaries, Claudio Monteverdi and Heinrich Schütz, Valentini is practically forgotten today, although he occupied one of the most prestigious musical posts of his time. He is best remembered for his innovative usage of asymmetric meters and the fact that he was Johann Kaspar Kerll's first teacher.
The tenor cornett or lizard was a common musical instrument in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. This instrument was normally built in C and the pedal (lowest) note of the majority of tenor cornetts was the C below middle C. A number of surviving instruments feature a key to secure the lowest note. The instrument has a useful range of approximately two and a half octaves, however, an experienced player with a strong embouchure may be able to push the instrument higher.
The cornettino is the descant instrument of the cornetto family. Cornettini usually have a primary scale of C or D major, with middle C or the adjacent D the pedal note of the instrument. The regular cornett is the 'treble' instrument of the family.
The Colossal Baroque style is a name which has been coined to describe a number of compositions from the 17th and 18th centuries composed in an opulent, magnificent and large-scaled style. Such works frequently make use of polychoral techniques and often feature instrumental forces considerably larger than the norm for the Baroque period. The Colossal Baroque had its roots in Italy, in the resplendent multiple polychoral music of the Venetian School, in the sumptuous, extravagant productions of the Medici court, for example the 40- and 60-voice Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno by Alessandro Striggio, and in the large polychoral works of the Roman School, many of which were written long after the Venetian School had vanished. An impetus for this music was the Council of Trent, which marked the beginning of the Counter-Reformation. Some attendees of the Council held the unofficial point of view that music should be subservient to text, as idealized and exemplified in the choral music of Palestrina. Some critics held that this was not as achievable in larger choral textures.
The Missa Salisburgensis à 53 voci is perhaps the largest-scale piece of extant sacred Baroque music, an archetypal work of the Colossal Baroque that is now universally accepted to be by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. The manuscript score of this Mass was rediscovered in the 1870s in the home of a greengrocer in Salzburg, Austria. It has been said to have narrowly escaped being used to wrap vegetables. In the late 19th century, musicologists, notably August Wilhelm Ambros and Franz Xavier Jelinek, attributed it to Orazio Benevoli, and argued that it had been performed in 1628; however in the mid-1970s, through modern methods of analyzing handwriting, watermarks, and history, Ernst Hintermaier "proved...definitely" that it was not by Benevoli. He also demonstrated that it must have been written for the 1682 commemoration of the 1100th anniversary of the Archbishopric of Salzburg. Hintermaier wrote in 2015 that the evidence rules out both Benevoli and Andreas Hofer, Biber's colleague, and concludes that "... the only possible composer of the Mass and the [companion] motet [for 54 voices, Plaudite Tympana] was Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber... both the sources and the stylistic analysis clearly point to Biber as the author of the works."
Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot, BWV 39, in Leipzig and first performed on 23 June 1726, the first Sunday after Trinity that year. Three years earlier, on the first Sunday after Trinity in 1723, Bach had taken office as Thomaskantor and started his first cycle of cantatas for Sundays and Feast Days in the liturgical year. On the first Sunday after Trinity in 1724, he began his second cycle, consisting of chorale cantatas. The cantata Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot is regarded as part of Bach's third cantata cycle which was written sporadically between 1725 and 1727.
Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder, BWV 135 in Leipzig for the third Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 25 June 1724. It is the fourth chorale cantata from his second annual cycle, and is based on the hymn by Cyriakus Schneegass.
Christum wir sollen loben schon, BWV 121, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed this Christmas cantata in Leipzig in 1724 for the second day of Christmas and first performed it on 26 December 1724. The chorale cantata is based on the hymn by Martin Luther "Christum wir sollen loben schon".
His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts (HMSC) is a British early music group founded in 1982. The ensemble presently consists of three cornetts and four sackbuts, with chamber organ or harpsichord. The group frequently collaborates with other instrumentalists and singers, and has an extensive discography on Hyperion Records and other labels.
