Prophetiae Sibyllarum ("Sibylline Prophecies" or "Sibylline Oracles") are a series of twelve motets by the Franco-Flemish composer Orlando di Lasso. The works are known for their extremely chromatic idiom.
Prophetiae Sibyllarum ("Sibylline Prophecies" or "Sibylline Oracles") are a series of twelve motets by the Franco-Flemish composer Orlando di Lasso. The works are known for their extremely chromatic idiom.
This cycle of motets is said to have been given as a personal gift to Albrecht V. of Bavaria, Lasso's employer, after his arrival in Munich. By the time he had begun work in Germany, Lasso had already enjoyed great success in Italy as a composer for Costantino Castrioto, and was looking to make a new name for himself. The motets were first published in 1600, after Lasso's death in 1594, by his son Rudolph. There remains, however, a small amount of disagreement over the dates of the original manuscript. Boetticher suggests the date to be around 1550–52, during Lasso's time in Naples, while Alfred Einstein prefers a date between 1555 and 1560, by which time Lasso could have seen depictions of the sibyls in places like the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and in the Borgia Apartments of the Vatican. [1]
Crook (1998) claims that the introduction, "Carmina Chromatico", has become, "probably the most analyzed piece of Renaissance music by any composer in any genre," [2] since Lowinsky's 1961 discussion of the prelude's "triadic atonality". [3] This can be understood by studying the Prologue to the cycle. The texture remains triadic, typical of the polyphony of that time, but modulates so often that the listener quickly loses the original tonal center. Lowinsky's discussion has led to other quandaries on the topic of the tonal coherence of the prologue. William J. Mitchell, takes issue with Lowinsky's conclusion and suggests that "perhaps the erosion of any stable tonal center is less the fault of Lasso, who seems to have made a splendid effort, than of the analysis which is indeed atonal." [4] These debates are ultimately built on the question of theorists' license to analyze the piece through our modern lens of tonality and atonality.
The Prophetiae Sibyllarum text is made up of one three-line prologue and twelve six-line motets. All of the poems are in dactylic hexameter. The prophecies, each told by a different prophetess, tell of the coming of Christ. Given the Renaissance's fascination with mysticism and antiquity it is no surprise that Lasso would choose these prophecies as his text. [5] The extremely chromatic setting of this text points toward Lasso's interactions with Cipriano de Rore and Nicola Vicentino, both known for their experiments with chromaticism, during his time at St. John Lateran. Lowinsky also speculates that "rendering the Sibylline prophecies in chromatic style, the young genius probably implied that chromaticism was the music of the future." [6]
Prologue
I. Sibylla Persica
II. Sibylla Libyca
III. Sibylla Delphica
IV. Sibylla Cimmeria
V. Sibylla Samia
VI. Sibylla Cumana
VII. Sibylla Hellaspontica
VIII. Sibylla Phrygia
IX. Sibylla Europaea
X. Sibylla Tiburtina
XI. Sibylla Erythraea
XII. Sibylla Agrippa
Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez was a composer of High Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the Franco-Flemish School and had a profound influence on the music of 16th-century Europe. Building on the work of his predecessors Guillaume Du Fay and Johannes Ockeghem, he developed a complex style of expressive—and often imitative—movement between independent voices (polyphony) which informs much of his work. He further emphasized the relationship between text and music, and departed from the early Renaissance tendency towards lengthy melismatic lines on a single syllable, preferring to use shorter, repeated motifs between voices. Josquin was a singer, and his compositions are mainly vocal. They include masses, motets and secular chansons.
The sibyls were prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece.
Orlando di Lasso was a composer of the late Renaissance. The chief representative of the mature polyphonic style in the Franco-Flemish school, Lassus stands with William Byrd, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, and Tomás Luis de Victoria as one of the leading composers of the later Renaissance. Immensely prolific, his music varies considerably in style and genres, which gave him unprecedented popularity throughout Europe.
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Edward Elias Lowinsky was an American musicologist. Lowinsky was one of the most prominent and influential musicologists in post-World War II America. His 1946 work on the "secret chromatic art" of Renaissance motets was hotly debated in its time, spurring considerable research into the issues of musica ficta and performance practice of early music.
Catholic Marian music shares a trait with some other forms of Christian music in adding another emotional dimension to the process of veneration and in being used in various Marian ceremonies and feasts. Marian music is now an inherent element in many aspects of the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Catholic Mariology.
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