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Oxford Camerata
The Oxford Camerata is an English chamber choir based in Oxford, England. The Camerata was founded in 1984 by conductor Jeremy Summerly and singers David Hurley and Henrietta Cowling and gave its first performance on 22 May of that year. The ensemble consists of a core membership of fifteen singers, though personnel size varies according to the demands of the repertoire. While the Camerata is known for performing primarily unaccompanied repertoire, it has also performed accompanied repertoire, employing the services of the Oxford Camerata Instrumental Ensemble (founded 1992) and the Oxford Camerata Baroque Orchestra (founded 2007). Recordings The Camerata became known for its interpretations of early music following the release of a number of recordings on Naxos Records in the 1990s and 2000s. In spring 1991, Naxos signed Summerly and the Camerata to a five-album contract to record a number of Renaissance masterworks, with recording sessions commencing in July of that year. Follo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Early Music
Early music generally comprises Medieval music (500–1400) and Renaissance music (1400–1600), but can also include Baroque music (1600–1750). Originating in Europe, early music is a broad musical era for the beginning of Western classical music. Terminology Interpretations of historical scope of "early music" vary. The original Academy of Ancient Music formed in 1726 defined "Ancient" music as works written by composers who lived before the end of the 16th century. Johannes Brahms and his contemporaries would have understood Early music to range from the High Renaissance and Baroque, while some scholars consider that Early music should include the music of ancient Greece or Rome before 500 AD (a period that is generally covered by the term Ancient music). Music critic Michael Kennedy excludes Baroque, defining Early music as "musical compositions from heearliest times up to and including music of heRenaissance period". Musicologist Thomas Forrest Kelly considers that the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tomás Luis De Victoria
Tomás Luis de Victoria (sometimes Italianised as ''da Vittoria''; ) was the most famous Spanish composer of the Renaissance. He stands with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlande de Lassus as among the principal composers of the late Renaissance, and was "admired above all for the intensity of some of his motets and of his Offices for the Dead and for Holy Week". His surviving ''oeuvre'', unlike that of his colleagues, is almost exclusively sacred and polyphonic vocal music, set to Latin texts. As a Catholic priest, as well as an accomplished organist and singer, his career spanned both Spain and Italy. However, he preferred the life of a composer to that of a performer. Life and career Victoria was born in Sanchidrián in the province of Ávila, Castile, around 1548 and died in 1611. Victoria's family can be traced back for generations. Not only are the names of the members in his immediate family known, but even the occupation of his grandfather. Victoria was the sev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean L'Héritier
Jean L'Héritier (Lhéritier, Lirithier, Heritier and other spellings also exist) (c. 1480 – after 1551) was a French composer of the Renaissance. He was mainly famous as a composer of motets, and is representative of the generation of composers active in the early to middle 16th century who anticipated the style of Palestrina. Life Jean l'Héritier was a native of the diocese of Thérouanne, in the Pas-de-Calais, but little is known about his early years. According to a note by an Italian contemporary, L'Héritier was a pupil of Josquin des Prez, a relationship which most likely occurred while Josquin was at the French royal court in the years after 1500 (exact years for Josquin's stay there have not been established). In 1506 he went to Ferrara, his first trip to Italy. This was shortly after the death of the renowned Obrecht, who died in Ferrara's plague of 1505. Antoine Brumel, another older and more established French composer, went to Ferrara in late 1505 to take Obr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cristóbal De Morales
Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500 – between 4 September and 7 October 1553) was a Spanish composer of the Renaissance. He is generally considered to be the most influential Spanish composer before Tomás Luis de Victoria. Life Cristóbal de Morales was born in Seville and, after an exceptional early education there, which included a rigorous training in the classics as well as musical study with some of the foremost composers, he held posts at Ávila and Plasencia. All that is known about his family is that he had a sister, and that his father died prior to his sister's marriage in 1530. Others who lived in Seville are considered to be potential relatives of Morales. These include Cristóbal de Morales, a singer employed by Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1504; Alonso de Morales, treasurer of the cathedral in 1503; Francisco de Morales (d. 1505), a canon; and Diego de Morales, who was the cathedral notary in 1525. Earlier Spanish popes of the Borja family held a long tradition of em ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josquin Des Prez
Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez ( – 27 August 1521) 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. Josquin's biography has been continually revised by modern scholarship, and remains highly u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johannes Ockeghem
Johannes Ockeghem ( – 6 February 1497) was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of early Renaissance music. Ockeghem was the most influential European composer in the period between Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez, and he was—with his colleague Antoine Busnois—the leading European composer in the second half of the 15th century. He was an important proponent of the early Franco-Flemish School. Ockeghem was well associated with other leading composers of the time, and spent most of his career serving the French royal court under Charles VII, Louis XI and Charles VIII. Numerous poets and musicians lamented his death, including Erasmus, Guillaume Crétin, Jean Molinet and Josquin, who composed the well known ''Nymphes des bois'' for him. It is thought that Ockeghem's extant works represent only a small part of his entire ''oeuvre'', including around 14 masses, 20 chansons and less than 10 motets—though the exact numbers vary due to attribution uncertainties. His be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schola Cantorum Of Oxford
Schola Cantorum of Oxford is the longest running chamber choir of University of Oxford, and one of the longest established and most widely known chamber choirs in the United Kingdom. The conductor is Steven Grahl. The choir was founded in 1960 by the British- Hungarian conductor László Heltay as the Collegium Musicum Oxoniense before adopting the name Schola Cantorum of Oxford in 1964. The choir has been conducted by a long line of eminent conductors including Andrew Parrott, Nicholas Cleobury, Ivor Bolton, Jeremy Summerly and James Burton. Schola Cantorum has worked with many respected musicians, including former patrons Sir Michael Tippett and Yehudi Menuhin, as well as Leonard Bernstein, Gustav Leonhardt, Sir Colin Davis and Sir Neville Marriner. Current patrons of the choir include Dame Emma Kirkby (a former member), John Mark Ainsley and the choir’s former conductor Andrew Parrott. Other distinguished former members include Ian Bostridge and Jane Glover. Schol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Déodat De Séverac
Marie-Joseph Alexandre Déodat de Séverac (; 20 July 1872 – 24 March 1921) was a French composer. Life Séverac was born in Saint-Félix-de-Caraman, Haute-Garonne. He descended from a noble family, profoundly influenced by the musical traditions of his native Languedoc. He first studied in Toulouse, then later moved to Paris to study under Vincent d'Indy and Albéric Magnard at the Schola Cantorum, an alternative to the training offered by the Conservatoire de Paris. There he took organ lessons from Alexandre Guilmant and worked as an assistant to Isaac Albéniz. He returned to the southern part of France, where he spent much of the rest of his rather short life. His native south was a region that attracted a number of his contemporaries—artists and poets he had met in Paris. His opera ''Héliogabale'' was produced at Béziers in 1910.Jean-Bernard Cahours D'ASPRY (2013) "Déodat de Séverac, Ricardo Viñes et leurs amis de Fontfroide". In Mario d'Angelo (ed) ''La musique ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Vierne
Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French organist and composer. As the organist of Notre-Dame de Paris from 1900 until his death, he focused on organ music, including six organ symphonies and a '' Messe solennelle'' for choir and two organs. He toured Europe and the United States as a concert organist. His students included Nadia Boulanger and Maurice Duruflé. Life Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers on 8 October 1870, the son of Henri-Alfred Vierne (1828–1886), a teacher, who became a journalist. He was editor-in-chief of the ''Journal de la Vienne'' in Poitiers, where he met his future wife, Marie-Joséphine Gervaz. The couple had four children. Louis was born nearly blind due to congenital cataracts. His unusual gift for music was discovered early. When he was only two years of age, he heard the piano for the first time: a pianist played him a Schubert lullaby, and after he had finished young Louis promptly began to pick out the notes of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantique De Jean Racine
''Cantique de Jean Racine'' (Chant by Jean Racine), Op. 11, is a composition for mixed choir and piano or organ by Gabriel Fauré. The text, "Verbe égal au Très-Haut" ("Word, one with the Highest"), is a French paraphrase by Jean Racine of a Latin hymn from the breviary for matins, ''Consors paterni luminis''. The nineteen-year-old composer set the text in 1864–65 for a composition competition at the École Niedermeyer de Paris, and it won him the first prize. The work was first performed the following year on 4 August 1866 in a version with accompaniment of strings and organ. The style shows similarities with his later work, Requiem. Today, the two works are often performed together. History Fauré entered the school of church music École Niedermeyer de Paris in 1854, when he was nine years old. There he received training in piano, theory, composition, and classical languages. Weekly choir singing was part of the curriculum for all students. Fauré's teacher in advan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Messe Basse (Fauré)
Missa brevis (plural: Missae breves) is . The term usually refers to a mass composition that is short because part of the text of the Mass ordinary that is usually set to music in a full mass is left out, or because its execution time is relatively short. Full mass with a relatively short execution time The concise approach is found in the mostly syllabic settings of the 16th century, and in the custom of "telescoping" (or simultaneous singing by different voices) in 18th-century masses. After the period when all church music was performed a cappella, a short execution time usually also implied modest forces for performance, that is: apart from Masses in the "brevis et solemnis" genre. Polyphony * Orlande de Lassus: (''Hunters' Mass'') * Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Missa Brevis * Andrea Gabrieli: Missa brevis quatuor vocum * Gaspar van Weerbeke: Missa brevis Classical period For composers of the classical period such as Mozart, ''missa brevis'' meant "short in du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miserere (Allegri)
''Miserere'' (full title: ''Miserere mei, Deus'', Latin for "Have mercy on me, O God") is a setting of Psalm 51 (Psalm 50 in Septuagint numbering) by Italian composer Gregorio Allegri. It was composed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII, probably during the 1630s, for the exclusive use of the Sistine Chapel during the Tenebrae services of Holy Week, and its mystique was increased by unwritten performance traditions and ornamentation. It is written for two choirs, of five and four voices respectively, singing alternately and joining to sing the ending in 9-part polyphony. History Composed around 1638, Allegri's setting of the ''Miserere'' was amongst the falsobordone settings used by the choir of the Sistine Chapel during Holy Week liturgy, a practice dating to at least 1514. At some point, several myths surrounding the piece came to the fore, stemming probably from the fact that the Renaissance tradition of ornamentation as practiced in the Sistine Chapel was virtually unknown ou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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