BEGINNING A NEW SERIES ON ORLANDUS DE LASSUS AND CATHO

Sunday, April 19, 2015   9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

One of the most prolific and versatile of 16th-century composers, Lassus wrote over 2000 works in almost every current genre, including masses, motets, psalms, hymns, responsorial Passions and secular pieces in Italian, French and German. Most of his masses are parody masses based on motets, chansons or madrigals by himself or others; the large number of Magnificats is unusual. His motets include didactic pieces, ceremonial works for special occasions, settings of classical texts (some secular, e.g. Prophetiae Sibyllarum, 1600), liturgical items (offertories, antiphons, psalms, e.g. Psalmi...poenitentiales, 1584) and private devotional pieces. He issued five large volumes of sacred music as Patrocinium musices (1573-6), and after his death his sons assembled another (Magnum opus musicum, 1604).

Orlandus Lassus