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March 23, 2016
Seventeenth-Century Italian Motets with Trombone
By D. Linda Pearse
The exact specification of instruments gained momentum in the final decades of the sixteenth century in Italy and early decades of the seventeenth. Trombones, in particular, were increasingly specified and were often used interchangeably with voices. The early Italian motets in this edition contain parts explicitly designated for trombones and document this tendency toward naming particular instruments and composing idiomatic parts for them. Of the more than hundred works that were identified, the nineteen works in this edition were chosen for the variety of textures and compositional styles represented, as well as for their inherent beauty.