A bar from J.S. Bach's "Fugue No.17 in A flat", BWV 862, from Das Wohltemperierte Clavier (Part I), a famous example of contrapuntal polyphony.  Play (help·info)

In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony).

Within the context of the Western musical tradition, the term is usually used to refer to music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baroque forms such as the fugue, which might be called polyphonic, are usually described instead as contrapuntal. Also, as opposed to the species terminology of counterpoint, polyphony was generally either "pitch-against-pitch" / "point-against-point" or "sustained-pitch" in one part with melismas of varying lengths in another (van der Werf, 1997). In all cases the conception was likely what Margaret Bent (1999) calls "dyadic counterpoint", with each part being written generally against one other part, with all parts modified if needed in the end. This point-against-point conception is opposed to "successive composition", where voices were written in an order with each new voice fitting into the whole so far constructed, which was previously assumed.

Origins[link]

Although the exact origins of polyphony in the Western church traditions are unknown, the treatises Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis, both dating from c. 900, are usually considered the oldest extant written examples of polyphony. These treatises provided examples of two-voice note-against-note embellishments of chants using parallel octaves, fifths, and fourths. Rather than being fixed works, they indicated ways of improvising polyphony during performance. The Winchester Troper, from c. 1000, is the oldest extant example of notated polyphony for chant performance, although the notation does not indicate precise pitch levels or durations.

Traditional (non-professional) polyphony has a wide, if uneven distribution among the peoples of the world. Most polyphonic regions of the world are sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and Oceania. It is believed that origins of polyphony in traditional music vastly predates the emergence of polyphony in European professional music. Currently there are two contradicting approaches to the problem of the origins of vocal polyphony: Cultural Model, and Evolutionary Model.^[1] According to the Cultural Model, origins of polyphony are connected to the development of human musical culture; polyphony came as the natural development of the primordial monophonic singing; therefore polyphonic traditions are bound to replace gradually monophonic traditions.^[2] According to the Evolutionary Model, origins of polyphonic singing are much deeper, and are connected to the earlier stages of human evolution; polyphony was an important part of a defence system of the hominids, and traditions of polyphony are gradually disappearing all over the world.^[3]

Historical context[link]

European polyphony rose out of melismatic organum, the earliest harmonization of the chant. Twelfth century composers, such as Léonin and Pérotin developed the organum that was introduced centuries earlier, and also added a third and fourth voice to the now homophonic chant. In the thirteenth century, the chant-based tenor was becoming altered, fragmented, and hidden beneath secular tunes, obscuring the sacred texts as composers continued to play with this new invention called polyphony. The lyrics of love poems might be sung above sacred texts in the form of a trope, or the sacred text might be placed within a familiar secular melody.

These musical innovations appeared in a greater context of societal change. After the first millennium, European monks decided to start translating the works of Greek philosophers into the vernacular. Western Europeans were aware of Plato, Socrates, and Hippocrates during the Middle Ages. However they had largely lost touch with the content of their surviving works because the use of Greek as a living language was restricted to the lands of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium). The ancient works started then being translated. Once they were accessible, the philosophies had a great impact on the mind of Western Europe.

This sparked a number of innovations in medicine, science, art, and music.

The oldest surviving piece of six-part music is the English rota Sumer is icumen in (c. 1240). (Albright, 2004)

Catholic Church[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

European polyphony rose prior to, and during the period of the Western Schism. Avignon, the seat of the antipopes, was a vigorous center of secular music-making, much of which influenced sacred polyphony.

It was not merely polyphony that offended the medieval ears, but the notion of secular music merging with the sacred and making its way into the papal court. It gave church music more of a jocular performance quality removing the solemn worship they were accustomed to. The use of and attitude toward polyphony varied widely in the Avignon court from the beginning to the end of its religious importance in the fourteenth century. Harmony was not only considered frivolous, impious, and lascivious, but an obstruction to the audibility of the words. Instruments, as well as certain modes, were actually forbidden in the church because of their association with secular music and pagan rites. Dissonant clashes of notes give a creepy feeling that was labeled as evil, fueling their argument against polyphony as being the devil’s music. After banishing polyphony from the Liturgy in 1322, Pope John XXII spoke in his 1324 Bull Docta Sanctorum Patrum warning against the unbecoming elements of this musical innovation. Pope Clement VI, however, indulged in it.

It was in 1364, during the pontificate of Pope Urban V, that composer and priest Guillaume de Machaut composed the first polyphonic setting of the mass called La Messe de Nostre Dame.

Notable works and artists[link]

• Johann Sebastian Bach, List of famous compositions
• Tomas Luis de Victoria
• William Byrd, Mass for Five Voices
• Thomas Tallis
• Orlandus Lassus, Missa super Bella'Amfitrit'altera
• Guillaume de Machaut, Messe de Nostre Dame
• Jacob Obrecht
• Palestrina, Missa Papae Marcelli
• Josquin des Prez, Missa Pange Lingua
• Gregorio Allegri, Miserere

Balkan region[link]

Polyphonic singing in the Balkans is traditional folk singing of this part of southern Europe. It is also called ancient, archaic or old -style singing.^[4][5]

• Byzantine chant
• Ojkanje singing, in Croatia
• Ganga singing, in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Epirote singing, in northern Greece and southern Albania (see below)
• Iso-polyphony in southern Albania (see below)
• Gusle singing, in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Albania
• Lazarice singing, in Serbia
• Woman choirs of Shopi and Pirin, in Bulgaria

Incipient polyphony (previously primitive polyphony) includes antiphony and call and response, drones, and parallel intervals.

The polyphonic singing tradition of Epirus is a form of traditional folk polyphony practiced among Albanians, Greeks, Aromanians and Macedonian Slavs in southern Albania and northwestern Greece.^[6][7] This type of folk vocal tradition is also found in the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria. Albanian polyphonic singing can be divided into two major stylistic groups as performed by the Tosks and Labs of southern Albania. The drone is performed in two ways: among the Tosks, it is always continuous and sung on the syllable ‘e’, using staggered breathing; while among the Labs, the drone is sometimes sung as a rhythmic tone, performed to the text of the song. It can be differentiated between two-, three- and four-voice polyphony.

The phenomenon of Albanian folk iso-polyphony has been proclaimed by UNESCO a "Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity". The term "iso" refers to the drone, which accompanies the iso-polyphonic singing and is related to the ison of Byzantine church music, where the drone group accompanies the song.^[8][9]

Caucasus region[link]

Georgia

Polyphony in the Republic of Georgia is arguably the oldest polyphony in the Christian world. Georgian polyphony is traditionally sung in three parts with strong disonnances, parallel fifths, and a unique tuning system based on perfect fifths. Georgian Polyphonic Singing was has been proclaimed by UNESCO a Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.^[10] See Music of Georgia (country).

Abkhazian traditional music

Polyphony plays a crucial role in Abkhazian traditional music. Polyphony is present in all genres where the social environment provides more than one singer to support the melodic line. Readers might remember (from the very beginning of this book) the recollection of I. Zemtsovsky, when a dozing Abkhazian started singing a drone to support an unknown to him singer. Abkhazian two and three-part polyphony is based on a drone (sometimes a double drone). Two part drone songs are considered by Abkhazian and Georgian scholars the most important indigenous style of Abkhazian polyphony. Two-part drone songs are dominating in Gudauta district, the core region of ethnic Abkhazians. Millennia of cultural, social and economic interactions between Abkhazians and Georgians on this territory resulted in reciprocal influences, and in particular, creation of a new, so-called “Georgian style” of three-part singing in Abkhazia, unknown among Adighis. This style is based on two leading melodic lines (performed by soloists - akhkizkhuo) singing together with the drone or ostinato base (argizra). Indigenous Abkhazian style of three-part polyphony uses double drones (in fourths, fifths, or octaves) and one leading melodic line at one time. Abkhazians use a very specific cadence: tertrachordal downwards movement, ending on the interval fourth.^[11]

Chechens and Ingushes

Both Chechen and Ingush traditional music could be very much defined by their tradition of vocal polyphony. As in other North Caucasian musical cultures, Chechen and Ingush polyphony is based on a drone. Unlike most of the other North Caucasian polyphonic traditions (where two-part polyphony is the leading type), Chechen and Ingush polyphony is mostly three-part. Middle part, the carrier of the main melody of songs, is accompanied by the double drone, holding the interval of the fifth “around” the main melody. Intervals and chords, used in Chechen and Ingush polyphony, are often dissonances (sevenths, seconds, fourths). This is quite usual in all North Caucasian traditions of polyphony as well, but in Chechen and Ingush traditional songs more sharp dissonances are used. In particular, a specific cadence, where the final chord is a dissonant three-part chord, consisting of fourth and the second on top (c-f-g), is quite unique for North Caucasia. Only on the other side of Caucasian mountains, in western Georgia, there are only few songs that finish on the same dissonant chord (c-f-g).^[12]

See also[link]

• Counterpoint
• Micropolyphony
• 3rd Bridge, a multiphonic string division sound

References[link]

• Hendrik van der Werf (1997). "Early Western polyphony", Companion to Medieval & Renaissance Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816540-4.
• Margaret Bent (1999). "The Grammar of Early Music: Preconditions for Analysis", Tonal Structures of Early Music. New York: Garland Publishing. ISBN 0-8153-2388-3.
• Albright, Daniel (2004). Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-01267-0.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Thirteenth-Century Polyphony
• Tuning and Intonation in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Polyphony
• World Routes in Albania - Iso-Polyphony in Southern Albania on BBC Radio 3
• World Routes in Georgia - Ancient polyphony from the Caucasus region on BBC Radio 3
• Aka Pygmy Polyphony African Pygmy music, with photos and soundscapes

This article may contain wording that merely promotes the subject without imparting verifiable information. Please remove or replace such wording, unless you can cite independent sources that support the characterization. (January 2012)

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Eric Whitacre
Whitacre conducting in 2007
Background information
Born	(1970-01-02) 2 January 1970 (age 42)
Occupations	Composer Conductor Lecturer Model
Website	EricWhitacre.com

Eric Whitacre (born 2 January 1970 in Reno, Nevada) is an American Grammy award winning composer, conductor and lecturer. He is one of the most popular and performed composers of his generation.^[1][2] In 2008, the all-Whitacre choral CD Cloudburst (released by the British ensemble Polyphony on Hyperion Records) became an international best-seller, topping the classical charts and earning a Grammy nomination. Robert Hollingworth commented: "what hits you straight between the eyes is the honesty, optimism and sheer belief that passes any pretension. This is music that can actually make you smile."^[3] In addition to Whitacre's litany of choral and wind ensemble compositions, he is also known for his "Virtual Choir" projects on YouTube, bringing individual voices from around the globe together in a cyber internet choir. His virtual choirs have exposed his music to a new audience and have helped it gain an unprecedented popularity.^[4][5] Whitacre signed a long-term recording deal with Decca in 2010 and continues to develop his award winning musical Paradise Lost. A concert version was given at Carnegie Hall in 2010.^[6] Plans for the stage show and soundtrack extend into 2013.

Biography[link]

Coming to classical music relatively late in life when he joined a college choir at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), where he earned a BA in Music in 1995. The first work that Eric Whitacre sang – Mozart's Requiem – changed his life. Inspired to compose, his first piece Go, Lovely Rose was completed at the age of 21. At the age of 23 he completed his first piece for Wind Orchestra, Ghost Train, which has been recorded over 40 times and has continued to sell phenomenally well. He went on to the Juilliard School (New York), where he studied with Pulitzer Prize and Oscar-winning composer, John Corigliano and earned his Master of Music degree.

Countless recordings feature music written by Eric Whitacre, but his first album as both composer and conductor on Decca/Universal, Light & Gold, won a Grammy in 2012, reaped unanimous five star reviews, and became the no. 1 Classical Album in the US and UK charts within a week of a release. Eric's second album, Water Night, was released on Decca in 3 April 2012 and will feature seven world premiere recordings and include performances from his professional choir Eric Whitacre Singers, the London Symphony Orchestra, Julian Lloyd Webber and Hila Plitmann.

He has written for the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Chanticleer, Julian Lloyd Webber, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Rundfunkchor Berlin, and The King's Singers, among others. His musical, Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings, won both the ASCAP Harold Arlen award and the Richard Rodgers Award, and earned 10 nominations at the Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Awards. A versatile musician, he has also worked with prolific film composer, Hans Zimmer, co-writing the Mermaid Theme for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. In 2011, Eric conducted the winning entries of the Abbey Road 80th Anniversary Anthem Competition, recording the London Symphony Orchestra and his professional choir, the Eric Whitacre Singers, in Abbey Road Studio 1.

Eric's ground-breaking Virtual Choir, Lux Aurumque, received over a million views on YouTube in just 2 months (now approaching 3 million), featuring 185 singers from 12 different countries. Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 2.0, Sleep, was released in April 2011 and involved over 2,000 voices from 58 countries. Virtual Choir 3, Water Night, combined 3746 submissions from 73 countries and was released in April 2012.

As a conductor, Eric Whitacre has performed across the world with orchestras, choirs and bands, and he gives regular guest workshops. His Soaring Leap initiative is a dynamic one-day workshop where singers, conductors and composers read, rehearse and perform several of Eric's works, digging deep into the poetry and exploring the compositional tools. An exceptional orator, he was honoured to address the U.N. Leaders programme and give a TED Talk in March 2011, which earned the first full standing ovation of the conference. He has addressed audiences at Duke, Harvard, The Economist, Seoul Digital Forum and JCDA Conference in Tokyo. Eric was appointed Composer in Residence at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University, UK, in September 2011.

Many of Eric Whitacre's works have entered the standard choral and symphonic repertories and have become the subject of scholarly works and doctoral dissertations. Whitacre has received composition awards from the Barlow International Composition Competition, the ACDA and the American Composers Forum. In 2001, he became the youngest recipient ever awarded the coveted Raymond C. Brock commission by the ACDA. Eric Whitacre currently lives in London with his wife (Grammy award winning soprano, Hila Plitmann) and their son.

Style[link]

Whitacre writes music that incorporates contemporary sounds and influences while demanding precision, intonation and ensemble. He is probably best known for his choral works; however, both his choral and instrumental styles use his signature "Whitacre chords," or pan-diatonic clusters usually arranged in successive increasing or decreasing density. Whitacre achieves this growth and decay by splitting voices divisi—in one case up to 18 parts. These sonorities can often be read as seventh or ninth chords, with or without suspended seconds and fourths. Perhaps his most famous chord is a root-position major triad with an added major second and/or perfect fourth. Whitacre makes frequent use of quartal, quintal and secundal harmonies, and is also known for his use of unconventional chord progressions. His use of rhythm often involves mixed, complex, and/or compound meters. His pieces sometimes include frequent meter changes and unusual rhythmic patterns. Another trademark of Whitacre's pieces is the use of aleatoric and indeterminate sections, as well as unusual score instructions involving, in some cases, hand actions and/or props.^[7]

Projects[link]

Virtual Choir[link]

Whitacre's Virtual Choir projects were inspired by a video sent to him of a young girl singing one of his choral pieces.^[8] He began with a test run of Sleep, then Lux Aurumque in 2009^[4][9] and then Sleep again in 2010. The video for Lux Aurumque, featuring a virtual choir of 185 voices from 12 countries, was described as a "musical experience that works better than anyone might have expected."^[10] It received over a million hits in the first two months of its release.

The 2010 version of the Virtual Choir 2.0 "Sleep" began in October 2010, and the video submission process was completed on 10 January 2011. Whitacre spoke at The 2011 TED Conference^[11] and this video was released on 1 April 2011, accompanied with a short 2 minute example of the "Sleep" project. The YouTube release was on 7 April 2011. One year later,it had been viewed over 900,000 times.

On 27 September 2011, Eric announced on his blog his plans for a "Virtual Choir 3". On 21 December 2011, it was revealed that the piece will be "Water Night", an a cappella piece he wrote in 1995.^[12] By the entry close date of 1 February 2012, 3,746 videos had been uploaded by 2,945 people in 73 countries, singing one or more parts of Water Night. NBC Network's Nightly News, and ABC National News television reported on the Virtual Choir. This heightened awareness of the project in the mainstream. The completed work was released as a YouTube video 2 April 2012, and received 100,000 views in the first week. On 15 April, on the exact 100 year anniversary moment of the sinking of the Titanic, the Water Night Virtual Choir video was shown in the new Titanic Belfast commemorative building, in remembrance of those lost in the disaster.

Recording projects[link]

Whitacre's first album with Decca, Light & Gold, was released in October 2010. This album won the Grammy for Best Choral Performance in 2012.^[13] From October to December 2010, Whitacre was a visiting Fellow at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge during Michaelmas (Autumn) Term.^[14]

Whitacre's second album with Decca, Water Night, was released on 3 April 2012 in the United States, and features some of his newest compositions for chorus and for orchestra.^[15]

Performance projects[link]

Whitacre has worked collaboratively with Distinguished Concerts International New York^[16] (DCINY), and is due to collaborate with them again in 2011 in New York, Vancouver and Los Angeles. With regard to his musical "Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings", he was described by the New York Times as a "younger, hipper Andrew Lloyd Webber, with fleeting hints of Bernstein and Sondheim".^[6]

On 24 October 2010, he conducted an all-American programme with the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at the Barbican London in a performance that featured his commission for the London Symphony Chorus entitled Songs of Immortality. On 28 November 2010, he sat on the panel of judges for the final episode of Choir of the Year, broadcast on BBC Four and BBC Radio 3. In December 2010, Whitacre conducted the I Vocalisti choir in Hamburg, and was a guest conductor of the Christmas performance of the Berlin Rundfunkchor.

On 6 November 2010, Whitacre conducted Côrdydd, a Cardiff-based mixed choir, and friends in a concert of his work at the BBC Hoddinott Hall in the Wales Millennium Centre.

He composed a piece for the Sidney Sussex college choir, and worked with students in masterclasses and workshops. The concert version of his musical Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings was performed to a sold out audience at Carnegie Hall in June 2010.

Whitacre is a founding member of BCM International, a quartet of composers consisting of himself, Steven Bryant, Jonathan Newman and James Bonney, which aspires to "enrich the wind ensemble repertoire with music unbound by traditional thought or idiomatic cliché."^[17]

Awards and honors[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2011)

Whitacre has won awards from the Barlow international composition competition, American Choral Directors Association, American Composers' Forum and in 2001 became the youngest recipient ever of The Raymond C Brock Commission given by the American Choral Directors Association. His musical Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings earned him a Richard Rodgers Award and received 10 nominations at the 2007 Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Awards. The album Cloudburst and Other Choral Works received a Grammy nomination in 2007 for Best Choral Performance. Later, his album "Light and Gold" won a Grammy for Best Choral Performance in 2012.^[18]

Works[link]

Wind symphony[link]

• Equus
• Ghost Train Triptych
  • Ghost Train
  • At the Station
  • Motive Revolution
• Godzilla Eats Las Vegas!
• Noisy Wheels of Joy
• October
• Sleep (choral transcription)
• The Seal Lullaby (choral transcription for wind symphony and piano)
• Lux Aurumque (transcription of the choral work, transposed a semitone lower from C-Sharp Minor to C Minor)
• Cloudburst (choral transcription)
• Libertas Imperio (From Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings)

SATB choral[link]

• A Boy and A Girl (poem by Octavio Paz)
• Alleluia (adapted from his October)
• Animal Crackers, Volume 1 (Poems by Ogden Nash)
  • The Panther
  • The Cow
  • The Firefly
• Animal Crackers, Volume 2 (Poems by Ogden Nash)
  • The Canary
  • The Eel
  • The Kangaroo
• The City and the Sea (poems by e. e. cummings)
  • i walked the boulevard
  • the moon is hiding in her hair
  • maggie and millie and molly and may
  • as is the sea marvelous
  • little man in a hurry
• Cloudburst (poem by Octavio Paz)
• Five Hebrew Love Songs (poem by Hila Plitmann)
  • Temuna
  • Kala Kalla (Light Bride)
  • Larov (Mostly)
  • Eyze Sheleg! (What snow!)
  • Rakut (Tenderness)
• Goodnight Moon (chorus and piano)
• Her Sacred Spirit Soars (poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
• Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine (libretto by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
• Little Birds (poem by Octavio Paz)
• little tree (poem by E. E. Cummings)
• Lux Aurumque (poem by Edward Esch; translated into Latin by Charles Anthony Silvestri) (also set for male chorus)
• Nox Aurumque (poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
• Oculi Omnium
• The Seal Lullaby (poem by Rudyard Kipling)
• She Weeps Over Rahoon (poem by James Joyce)
• Sleep (originally a setting of Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"; for copyright reasons^[19] the published version uses a specially-written text by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
• Sleep, My Child (Choral transcription from Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings)
• The Stolen Child (setting of a poem by William Butler Yeats, commissioned in 2008 by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and The King's Singers for their respective 25th and 40th anniversaries)
• This Marriage (poem by Jalal al-Din Rumi)
• Three Flower Songs
  • I Hide Myself (poem by Emily Dickinson)
  • With a Lily in Your Hand (poem by Federico García Lorca)
  • Go, Lovely Rose (poem by Edmund Waller)
• Three Songs of Faith (poems by E. E. Cummings)
  • i will wade out
  • hope, faith, life, love
  • i thank You God for most this amazing day^[20]
• Water Night (poem by Octavio Paz; translated by Muriel Rukeyser)
• When David Heard (from II Samuel 18:33)
• Winter (poem by Edward Esch)
• What If (lyrics by David Norona and Eric Whitacre)

SSA choral[link]

• She Weeps Over Rahoon (text by James Joyce)
• Five Hebrew Love Songs (poem by Hila Plitmann)
• The Seal Lullaby (text by Rudyard Kipling)
• I Thank You God (text by E. E. Cummings)

TTBB choral[link]

• Lux Aurumque (poem by Edward Esch, translated into Latin by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
• The Seal Lullaby (text by Rudyard Kipling)

Choral works not yet published[link]

• Goodnight Moon
• Songs of Immortality
  • Lie still, sleep becalmed (poem by Dylan Thomas)
  • After Great Pain (poem by Emily Dickinson)^[21]

Orchestral[link]

• A Boy and a Girl
• Equus
• Goodnight Moon (strings, harp, soprano)
• Lux Aurumque
• October
• The River Cam
• Water Night
• Winter
• Winter (for strings, choir and sitar)

Solo voice[link]

• The City and the Sea (poems by E. E. Cummings)
• Five Hebrew Love Songs (poem by Hila Plitmann)

Music theatre[link]

• Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings, a musical featuring electronic, world, and orchestral instruments; classical singers; and many different styles of music.

Other arrangements[link]

• Rak HaHatchala (Only the Beginning) [aka Five Hebrew Love Songs]; for soprano voice, solo violin, piano

Film and Television[link]

• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, co-composer (with Hans Zimmer) of the Mermaid Theme and choral segments

Publishers[link]

Whitacre is published by Chester Music; G. Schirmer; Walton Music; Santa Barbara Music; Shadow Water Music; and Carpe Ranam Music.

Biography portal

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Eric_Whitacre on WikiMusicGuide
• Biography on Hyperion Records
• NPR Review of Cloudburst and choral audio. 28 September 2006
• Music Productions Ltd (Management company of Eric Whitacre)
• Eric Whitacre write-up on ChesterNovello web site
• Eric talking at TED about the virtual choir
• Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 2.0, 'Sleep'
• Classical Archives Interview

Stephen Layton (born 1966) is an English conductor.

Layton was raised in Derby, where his father was a church organist. Layton learned the piano as a youth. He was a chorister at Winchester Cathedral, and subsequently won scholarships to Eton College and then King's College, Cambridge as an organ scholar.^[1]

Layton founded the mixed-voice choir Polyphony in 1986.^[2] He has conducted Polyphony in commercial recordings for such labels as Hyperion, including music of Gabriel Jackson,^[3] Paweł Łukaszewski,^[4] Francis Poulenc^[5] and John Tavener.^[6] He was appointed the musical director of the Holst Singers in 1993, replacing Hilary Davan Wetton, who had founded the group in 1978. Layton has served as assistant organist at Southwark Cathedral and musical director of Wokingham Choral Society. Beginning in 1997, he served as organist and subsequently director of music at the Temple Church. Layton has conducted the BBC Singers, and was offered the chief conductorship of the ensemble in 2005, but the BBC withdrew the offer after objections from the singers themselves.^[7] In 2006, he became Director of Music at Trinity College, Cambridge.^[1] In November 2009, the City of London Sinfonia announced the appointment of Layton as its second Artistic Director, effective with the 2010-2011 season, for an initial contract of 3 years. Layton is also to have the title of Principal Conductor.^[8]

In Europe, Layton became chief conductor of the Netherlands Chamber Choir in January 2002. He has also served as chief guest conductor of the Danish National Choir.

In private life, Layton is an Anglican.^[9]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website of Stephen Layton
• Official website of Polyphony
• Official website of the Holst Singers
• Trinity College Cambridge page on Stephen Layton
• Wokingham Choral Society history page
• Netherlands Chamber Choir English-language history page

Duarte Lobo (c. 1565 – 24 September 1646; Latinized as Eduardus Lupus) was a Portuguese composer of the late Renaissance and early Baroque. He was one of the most famous Portuguese composers of the time, together with Filipe de Magalhães, Manuel Cardoso, composers who all began their academic studies as students of Manuel Mendes. Along with John IV, King of Portugal, they represent the "golden age" of Portuguese polyphony.

Life[link]

Details of his life are sparse. He was born in Alcáçovas, in Alentejo, southern Portugal. He is known to have been a choir boy at Évora where he subsequently studied with Manuel Mendes . His first position was as mestre de capela of the cathedral of Évora; sometime before 1589, he became maestro di cappella at the Hospital Real, Lisbon. By 1591 he was appointed as mestre de capela at the cathedral in Lisbon, a position he held till 1639. This was the most prestigious musical appointment in the country.

He also served as director of the Seminar of St. Bartholomew, and was also a professor of music at the 'Colégio do Claustro da Sé' (College at the Holy See Cloisters) in Lisbon, where he taught Manuel Machado.

While chronologically his life overlapped with the beginning of the Baroque music era, he was a rather conservative composer who followed the techniques of the Renaissance masters of the previous generation. Palestrina's polyphonic style played a crucial role in his compositions throughout his life.

Recordings[link]

• Duarte Lôbo, Requiem. The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips. Gimell CDGIM 028

Musical Opus[link]

Published by Plantin in Antwerp, his six books of sacred music include masses, responsories, antiphons, Magnificats, and motets.

Publications[link]

• 1603 Officium Defunctorum
• 1605 Cantica Beatae Virginis (16 Magnificat for four voices)
• 1621 Liber Missarum I (eight-voice Requiem)
• 1639 Liber Missarum II (six-voice Requiem, Missa Vox clamantis)

References[link]

• Guy Bourligeuex: "Duarte Lobo", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Owen Rees: "Lobo, Duarte", The Oxford Companion to Music, ed. Alison Latham. Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-19-866212-2
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• Duarte Lobo
• Allmusic.com, biographies.

External links[link]

• Free scores by Duarte Lobo in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)

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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (3 February 1525 or 2 February 1526 – 2 February 1594)^[1] was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition.^[2] He had a lasting influence on the development of church music, and his work has often been seen as the culmination of Renaissance polyphony.^[2]

Biography[link]

Palestrina was born in the town of Palestrina, near Rome, then part of the Papal States. Documents suggest that he first visited Rome in 1537, when he is listed as a chorister at the Santa Maria Maggiore basilica. He studied with Robin Mallapert and Firmin Lebel. He spent most of his career in the city.

Palestrina came of age as a musician under the influence of the northern European style of polyphony, which owed its dominance in Italy primarily to two influential Franco-Flemish composers, Guillaume Dufay and Josquin des Prez, who had spent significant portions of their careers there. Italy itself had yet to produce anyone of comparable fame or skill in polyphony.^[2]

From 1544 to 1551, Palestrina was organist of the principal church (St. Agapito) of his native city, and in 1551 he became maestro di cappella at the Cappella Giulia, the papal choir at St Peter's. His first published compositions, a book of Masses, had made so favorable an impression with Pope Julius III (previously the Bishop of Palestrina) that he appointed Palestrina musical director of the Julian Chapel. This was the first book of Masses by a native composer: in the Italian states of his day, most composers of sacred music were from the Low Countries, France, Portugal,^[3] or Spain. In fact the book was modeled on one by Cristóbal de Morales: the woodcut in the front is almost an exact copy of the one from the book by the Spanish composer.

During the next decade, Palestrina held positions similar to his Julian Chapel appointment at other chapels and churches in Rome, notably St John Lateran, (1555–1560 – a post previously held by Lassus) and Sta Maria Maggiore (1561–1566). In 1571 he returned to the Julian Chapel and remained at St Peter's for the rest of his life. The decade of the 1570s was difficult for him personally: he lost his brother, two of his sons, and his wife in three separate outbreaks of the plague (1572, 1575, and 1580, respectively). He seems to have considered becoming a priest at this time, but instead he remarried, this time to a wealthy widow. This finally gave him financial independence (he was not well paid as choirmaster) and he was able to compose prolifically until his death.

He died in Rome of pleurisy in 1594. In keeping with the custom of that time, Palestrina was buried on the same day he died, in a plain coffin with a lead plate on which was inscribed Libera me Domine. A five-part psalm for three choirs was sung at the funeral.^[4]

Music and reputation[link]

Palestrina left hundreds of compositions, including 105 masses, 68 offertories, at least 140 madrigals and more than 300 motets. In addition, there are at least 72 hymns, 35 magnificats, 11 litanies, and four or five sets of lamentations.^[2] His attitude toward madrigals was somewhat enigmatic: whereas in the preface to his collection of Canticum canticorum (Song of Songs) motets (1584) he renounced the setting of profane texts, only two years later he was back in print with Book II of his secular madrigals (some of these being among the finest compositions in the medium).^[2] He published just two collections of madrigals with profane texts, one in 1555 and another in 1586.^[2] The other two collections were spiritual madrigals, a genre beloved by the proponents of the Counter-Reformation.^[2]

Palestrina's masses show how his compositional style developed over time.^[2] His Missa sine nomine seems to have been particularly attractive to Johann Sebastian Bach, who studied and performed it while writing the Mass in B minor.^[5] Most of Palestrina's masses appeared in thirteen volumes printed between 1554 and 1601, the last seven published after his death.^[2][6]

One of his most enduring works is the Missa Papae Marcelli (Pope Marcellus Mass), which according to legend was composed in order to persuade the Council of Trent that a draconian ban on the polyphonic treatment of text in sacred music (as opposed, that is, to a more directly intelligible homophonic treatment) was unnecessary.^[7] However, more recent scholarship shows that this mass was in fact composed before the cardinals convened to discuss the ban (possibly as much as ten years before).^[7] It is probable, however, that Palestrina was quite conscious of the need for intelligible text, in conformity with the doctrine of the Counter-Reformation,^[7] and he certainly wrote in this manner from the 1560s until the end of his life. Palestrina's seemingly dispassionate approach to expressive or emotive texts could have resulted from his having to produce many to order, or from a deliberate decision that any intensity of expression was unbecoming in church music.^[2]

One of the hallmarks of Palestrina's music is that dissonances are typically relegated to the "weak" beats in a measure.^[8] This produced a smoother and more consonant type of polyphony which we now consider to be definitive of late Renaissance music, given Palestrina's position as Europe's leading composer (along with Lassus) in the wake of Josquin (d. 1521). The "Palestrina style" now serves as a basis for college Renaissance counterpoint classes, thanks in large part to the efforts of the 18th century composer and theorist Johann Joseph Fux, who, in a book called Gradus ad Parnassum (Steps to Parnassus, 1725), set about codifying Palestrina's techniques as a pedagogical tool for students of composition. Fux applied the term "species counterpoint", which entails a series of steps whereby students work out progressively more elaborate combinations of voices while adhering to certain strict rules. Fux did make a number of stylistic errors, however, which have been corrected by later authors (notably Knud Jeppesen and Morris). If we attempt to apply his rules to Palestrina's own music, we will find ample instances in which they have been followed to the letter, as well as many where they are freely broken.

According to Fux, Palestrina had established and followed these basic guidelines:

• The flow of music is dynamic, not rigid or static.
• Melody should contain few leaps between notes. (Jeppesen: "The line is the starting point of Palestrina's style."^[8]
• If a leap occurs, it must be small and immediately countered by stepwise motion in the opposite direction.
• Dissonances are to be confined to passing notes and weak beats. If one falls on a strong beat, it is to be immediately resolved.

Much of the research on Palestrina was done in the 19th century by Giuseppe Baini, who published a monograph in 1828 which made Palestrina famous again and reinforced the already existing legend that he was the "Saviour of Church Music" during the reforms of the Council of Trent.^[6] The 19th century proclivity for hero-worship is predominant in this monograph, however, and this has remained with the composer to some degree to the present day. Hans Pfitzner's opera Palestrina shows this attitude at its peak.^[6][7]

It is only recently, with the discovery and publication of a great deal of hitherto unknown or forgotten music by various Renaissance composers, that we have had the means to properly assess Palestrina in historical context.^[2] Though Palestrina represents late Renaissance music well, others such as Orlande de Lassus (a Franco-Flemish composer who also spent some of his early career in Italy) and William Byrd were arguably more versatile.^[2] 20th and 21st century scholarship by and large retains the view that Palestrina was a strong and refined composer whose music represents a summit of technical perfection, while emphasizing that some of his contemporaries possessed equally individual voices even within the confines of "smooth polyphony." As a result, composers like Lassus and Byrd as well as Tomas Luis de Victoria have increasingly come to enjoy comparable reputations.

Palestrina was famous in his day, and if anything his reputation increased after his death. Conservative music of the Roman school continued to be written in his style (which in the 17th century came to be known as the prima pratica) by such students of his as Giovanni Maria Nanino, Ruggiero Giovanelli, Arcangelo Crivelli, Teofilo Gargari, Francesco Soriano and Gregorio Allegri. It is also thought that Salvatore Sacco may have been a student of Palestrina, as well as Giovanni Dragoni, who later went on to become choirmaster in the church of S. Giovanni in Laterano.^[4]

Palestrina's music continues to be regularly performed and recorded, and to provide models for the study of counterpoint. There are two comprehensive editions of Palestrina's works: a 33 volume edition published by Breitkopf and Härtel, in Leipzig Germany between 1862 and 1894 edited by Franz Xaver Haberl, and a 34 volume edition published in the mid twentieth century, by Fratelli Scalera, in Rome, Italy edited by R. Casimiri and others.

References[link]

Sources[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Giovanni Palestrina

• Free scores by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Free scores by Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina at the International Music Score Library Project
• Palestrina Foundation
• recording of Palestrina's Sicut Cervus from Coro Nostro, a mixed chamber choir based in Leicester, UK. Accessed 2010-04-17
• audio of songs Accessed 2010-04-17
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Palestrina extended Biography Accessed 2010-04-17
• Palestrina, princeps musicae Film by Georg Brintrup (2009) IMDb [1]
• Texts on Wikisource:
  • "Palestrina, Giovanni Pietro Aloisio da". The American Cyclopædia. 1879. 
  • "Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina". University Musical Encyclopedia. New York: University Society. 1912. 
  •  "Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.