New Edition in Process

A new edition of the motets of Orlando di Lasso (1530/2-1594) has begun to appear within the A-R Editions series Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, with Peter Bergquist as general editor, in collaboration with James Erb and David Crook. Eleven volumes of the Complete Motets (CM) are now in print, and the editors hope to finish work on the remaining ten volumes within the next few years. Aside from isolated individual editions and collections, Lasso's motets have heretofore been available only in the eleven odd-numbered volumes of his Sämtliche Werke (SW), originally published between 1894 and 1926 by Breitkopf und Härtel in Leipzig. The primary, indeed the sole source for this edition was the Magnum Opus Musicum (MOM), a posthumous collected edition of Lasso's motets published by his sons in 1604. MOM grouped the motets according to the number of voice parts they contain and completely ignored the chronology and the content of Lasso's original publications. SW published the motets in the ordering of MOM, and as a result has hindered greatly the study of Lasso's development as a composer and the way he presented his music to the world. In addition, MOM in many instances contains faulty versions of text or music or both, which were retained in SW. These include arbitrary changes or omissions in the music, incorrect placement of text beneath the music, and many contrafacta, in which the original drinking songs or love poetry were turned into pious Counter-reformation sermons. SW also retained the original clefs, which are a hindrance to many present-day performers and students.

CM aims to publish Lasso's motets in a format that will make them more accessible to scholars, students, and performers, to present a more reliable text of all of the motets than has heretofore been available, and to respect Lasso's own intentions about grouping and context as demonstrated in authoritative editions with which he himself was associated. Since his motets were all published during or soon after his lifetime, CM will be based on the earliest printed sources, except for posthumously published motets that are transmitted in manuscripts from Lasso's own circle. Almost all of the first editions of Lasso's motets can be shown to have been issued with his involvement and permission, and first editions will be the primary sources for CM. A limited amount of comparison with later printed sources will sometimes occur, and authoritative manuscripts, primarily the choirbooks from Lasso's own Hofkapelle, will be examined, but a full-scale collation of all sources is not intended. This may occasionally result in the omission of a significant variant that appears in a later publication, but the first editions almost always present good texts, and they are more closely associated with Lasso than are the numerous reprints over which he often had less control.

CM 1-16 will each include motets from a single motet book or a few closely related books from the same time period. CM17-19 will include motets from manuscripts and printed anthologies from 1555-1569, 1570-1579, and 1580-1590 respectively. CM 20 will include fourteen of Orlando's motets first published by his sons Ferdinand and Rudolph in 1597 and 1601 respectively, together with the sons' motets that appeared in the same books, and CM 21 will publish those posthumous motets transmitted only in Magnum Opus Musicum. The chronology of the sources will be respected, and the original order of their contents will be retained in the individual volumes of CM. Each volume contains an introduction that discusses the music and its sources, texts and translations, and a critical report. An index to the entire edition is planned to appear in CM 21.

A current list of volumes published to date in the Complete Motets is available in the Recent Researches section of this site.

Peter Bergquist, Professor of Music Emeritus, recently retired after thirty-one years at the University of Oregon. In addition to his research on Lasso, he has published in the areas of Renaissance music theory and Schenkerian analysis.