Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance

Orlando di Lasso

The Complete Motets 2: Sacrae cantiones (Nuremberg, 1562)
Edited by James Erb

R 133	ISBN 0-89579-511-6	(2002) xliii + 187 pp.	$85.00
	ISBN 978-0-89579-511-3 (13-digit)

Lasso's first motet book after he took up residence in Munich was the Sacrae cantiones of 1562, twenty-five new motets for five voices, published in Nuremberg by Berg and Neuber. It was his most famous and influential motet collection, reprinted complete only five months later in Venice by Antonio Gardano and fourteen more times thereafter, in addition to many separate printings of individual pieces. Forty-seven instrumental adaptations of the Nuremberg motets are known to have been printed, and the motets were frequently cited by contemporary theorists, notably Joachim Burmeister, whose discussions of oratory in music in his Musica poetica (Rostock, 1606) draw on Lasso's Nuremberg motet book far more than on any other composer or source. All but one of the texts are scriptural or liturgical. The most famous motet in the collection is probably "In me transierunt irae tuae," which Burmeister uses to compare the construction of a motet to that of a speech by a persuasive orator.

Music Sample

Contents
1. Confitemini Domino
2. Omnia quae fecisti nobis
3. Jerusalem, plantabis vineam
4. Videntes stellam Magi
5. Deus, qui sedes super thronum
6. Heu quantus dolor
7. Veni in hortum meum
8. Angelus ad pastores ait
9. Exaudi, Domine, vocem meam
10. Taedet animam meam
11. O Domine salvum me fac
12. Adversum me loquebantur
13. Quam benignus es
14. In me transierunt irae tuae
15. Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum
16. Non vos me elegistis
17. Legem pone mihi, Domine
18. Illustra faciem tuam
19. Surrexit pastor bonus
20. Surgens Jesus
21. Confundantur superbi
22. Clare sanctorum senatus
23. Sicut mater consolatur filios
24. Benedicam Dominum in omni tempore
25. Caligaverunt oculi mei