In Nomine

In Nomine is a title given to a large number of pieces of English polyphonic, predominantly instrumental music, first composed during the 16th century.

History

This "most conspicuous single form in the early development of English consort music" originated in the early 16th century from a six-voice mass composed before 1530 by John Taverner on the plainchant ''Gloria Tibi Trinitas''. In the ''Benedictus'' section of this mass, the Latin phrase "in nomine Domini" was sung in a reduced, four-part counterpoint, with the plainchant melody in the meane part. At an early point, this attractive passage became popular as a short instrumental piece, though there is no evidence that Taverner himself was responsible for any of these arrangements. Over the next 150 years, English composers worked this melody into "In Nomine" pieces of ever greater stylistic range.

''In Nomine''s are typically consort pieces for four or five instruments, especially consorts of viols. One instrument plays the theme through as a cantus firmus with each note lasting one or even two measures; usually this is the second part from the top. The other parts play more complex lines, often in imitative counterpoint. Usually they take up several new motifs in turn, using each one as a point of imitation. However, there are ''In Nomine''s composed for solo or duo keyboard instruments and even one for the lute: a fantasy titled ''Farewell'' by John Dowland.

Examples of the genre include compositions by Christopher Tye (the most prolific composer of ''In Nomine''s, with 24 surviving settings), Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, John Bull, Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Tomkins, William Lawes, and Henry Purcell, among many others. They can vary in mood from melancholy to serene, exultant, or even playful or hectic (as in Tye's In Nomine "Crye", in which the viols seem to imitate the call of a street hawker).

Composition of ''In Nomine''s lapsed in the eighteenth century but was revived in the twentieth century, an early notable example being Richard Strauss's opera ''Die schweigsame Frau'', which quotes a keyboard ''In nomine'' by John Bull. Later examples are found in works by Peter Maxwell Davies and Roger Smalley. Starting in 1999, the Freiburg new-music organization ensemble recherche began commissioning an ongoing series of short ''In Nomine'' compositions for the festival Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik. The series is dedicated to , director of the festival since 1989, and is collectively titled the ''Witten In Nomine Broken Consort Book''. Some of the notable composers who have contributed pieces to this series to date include Brian Ferneyhough, Georg Friedrich Haas, Toshio Hosokawa, György Kurtág, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Gérard Pesson, Robert H.P. Platz, Rolf Riehm, Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Sciarrino, Hans Zender, and Walter Zimmermann. In 1995, for the 300th anniversary of the death of Purcell, Gavin Bryars composed In Nomine (after Purcell) for the viol consort Fretwork. Graham Waterhouse composed ''In Nomine for cello solo'' in 2013.

References

Sources
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Further reading

* Donington, Robert, and Thurston Dart. 1949. "The Origin of the In Nomine". ''Music & Letters'' 30:101–106.
* Reese, Gustave. 1949. "The Origin of the English ''In Nomine''". ''Journal of the American Musicological Society'' 2, no. 1 (Spring):7–22.

External links

More examples of In Nomines
(MIDI files, archive from 4 February 2012, accessed 23 April 2015)
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Renaissance music
20th-century classical music
English music